“Whoa!” called Adam, bringing the horses to a halt.
“Hold on, Laddie! I’ll come and get you!” called Mr. Bunker again, as he leaped from the hay wagon.
“I—I can’t hold on!” gasped Laddie. “My—my hands are slipping!”
The green branch was slowly bending over and Laddie’s hands were slipping from it. Then, when he could keep his grasp no longer, he let go, and down to the ground he fell, feet first.
Luckily Laddie was only a short distance above the ground when he slipped from the branch, so he did not have far to fall. He was only jarred and shaken a little bit—not hurt at all.
“Laddie, why did you do that?” his father asked him, when he had reached the little fellow and picked him up. As Mr. Bunker carried Laddie back to the waiting wagon Russ remarked:
“I guess he thought maybe he could pull a tree up by the roots when he caught hold of the branch like that.”
“I did not!” exclaimed Laddie. “I just wanted to pull off a whip for Mun Bun to play horse with. But when I got hold of the branch I forgot to let go and it lifted me right out of the wagon.”
“It’s a mercy you weren’t hurt!” exclaimed his mother.
“I should say so!” added Farmer Joel. “It’s safer for you to think up riddles, Laddie, than it is to do such tricks as that. Come now, sit quietly in the wagon and think of a riddle.”