"How?"
"I'll show you. Come on."
"All right."
Russ, letting his toy balloon float over his head, while Laddie did the same, went out to the barn back of the house. It was not really a barn any longer, as Daddy Bunker kept his automobile in it, but it looked like a barn, so I will call it that instead of a garage.
"How are you going to make a balloon?" asked Laddie as he saw Russ tie his toy to a picket of the fence.
"You wait, I'll show you. First you go in and get the big clothes basket. Don't let Norah see you, or she might stop you. Bring me out the clothes basket."
Laddie did as he was told. As he came back with the basket, which was a large, round one, Laddie said:
"Do you think we can fasten our two balloons to this and go up in it?"
"No, I'm not going to make my balloon that way," Russ answered. "You'll see. Come on into the barn. We have to go upstairs."
Overhead in the barn was a place where hay had once been kept for the horse. There was a little door in the peak of the second story, to which the hay could be hoisted up from the wagon on the ground below. The hay was hoisted by a rope running around a wheel, or pulley, and this rope and pulley were still in place, though they had not been used in some time.