"No," said Rollo, "and we must go out the front door. And I don't care much," he continued, "for it is pretty near dinner time."
The boys then went back to the front door of the barn, and, to their surprise and alarm, found that fastened too.
"What shall we do?" said Rollo; "Jonas has fastened us in." As Rollo said this, his face assumed an expression of great solicitude, and Nathan began to cry.
"Don't cry, Nathan," said he; "we can find some way to get out. But I don't see, I confess, what made Jonas lock us in."
The truth was, that Jonas did not know that the boys were in the barn when he fastened it up. As they did not come back after they had gone to answer the bell, he supposed that they had gone into the house; and when he was ready to come in himself, he shut and fastened the back doors of the barn, as he usually did when he left the shop. He then came around to the front barn door, and although that was on the sheltered side, so that the wind did not blow in, he thought it possible that the wind might change, and so drive the snow in upon the barn floor; and therefore, to make all safe, he thought that he would shut them, too. He accordingly shut the great doors, and put the fid into the staple. The fid is a wooden pin, to be passed through the staple when the doors are shut, to fasten them. The doors cannot be opened again until the fid is taken out.
Rollo went all around the barn, trying to find some place where he could get out; but he could not find any place at all.
"Let us go up stairs," said he, at length, to Nathan.
"O, it will not do any good to go up stairs," said Nathan. "It would kill us to jump out the window."
"I know we can't jump out the window," said Rollo, "but perhaps we can find out some way to get down. O, there is a ladder; I remember now, Nathan, there is a ladder. We can get down from the window by the ladder."
"I shall be afraid to go down the ladder," said Nathan.