“She’s all right—not hurt a bit!” reported Zeek, who began climbing up to Nan as soon as he saw that she was safe. “What made you catch hold of the fork in the barn?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” answered the little girl, who was almost crying. “I shouldn’t have done it, I know. But I saw that the hay wasn’t going to drop and I had seen you pull the short rope, so I thought I could do it. But it didn’t work, and before I could let go I found myself carried out of the barn.”
“The hay fork prongs got jammed,” explained the man in charge of unloading the wagon. “First time I’ve known that to happen.”
Bert, who had been out in a workshop which Mr. Watson had in one of the barns, saw from Nan’s face that something had happened when he noticed her walking out of the barnyard, and when he learned what it was he exclaimed:
“Jimminy, it’s a good thing you held fast, Nan!”
“Yes, I knew I must do that,” she said. “But what’s that, Bert?” she asked, for she saw that her brother had been “making something,” as he called it.
“It’s going to be a water mill if I ever get it finished,” he replied.
“You mean a mill to turn by water?” asked Nan.
“Yes, it’s a sort of water wheel,” explained Bert. “But maybe I can make it so it will turn a fan, or something like that. I’ll put the wheel, with paddles on, down in the brook where there’s a little waterfall,” he went on. “Then I can have a belt of cord that goes around a pulley wheel on the paddles. And up at the house I can make a fan with another pulley on it. And when the water turns the paddle and pulley it will also turn the fan and we’ll get a breeze on a hot day.”
“Oh, that’ll be fine!” cried Nan.