"Higher!" ordered Henry.
They raised it a little.
"There! That's high enough!" said the grocery boy. "Now you watch me sail over that. I'll show you some jumpin'!"
Henry, still holding his basket of groceries, stood on the sidewalk, a little way back from the rope. Then he took a run and started toward it. Up into the air he jumped, but something sad happened.
Whether Henry did not spring up high enough, or whether one of the girls raised the end of the rope when she ought not to have done so, no one ever knew.
But what happened was that Henry's feet became entangled in the cord, and down he fell, luckily on the grass at one side of the pavement, and not on the sidewalk stones, or he might have been hurt.
He sat right down flat, and his basket bounced off his arm, and a lot of groceries spilled out of it.
"Oh, did you hurt yourself?" asked Rose.
Henry was too much surprised, for a moment, to speak. He looked as if he did not know what had happened. Then he slowly got up.
"No, I didn't hurt myself," he answered. "But I guess I can't jump as high as I thought I could. But I'm going to try it again."