“I’ll have it for you right away,” was the answer.
So Nan made Aunt Sallie a hot drink while Bert went down in the cellar to get a sharp hatchet with which to cut loose the dangling tree branch. Nan managed to keep Flossie and Freddie quiet by letting them set the table for breakfast.
When she took up Aunt Sallie’s coffee and toast, Bert followed up the stairs, having put on his rubber boots, mittens, and a warm jacket. For he would have to climb out on the snowy roof to cut the tree limb.
As soon as he opened the door out rushed more cold wind and snow. But he quickly closed it again, and Nan waited until he was inside before she opened Aunt Sallie’s door, which she had gone up to close just before Bert was ready to begin.
On the carpet beneath the broken window was a pile of glass and snow. Nearly all the glass was broken out of the window, only a few jagged pieces remaining, and these Bert knocked out with his hatchet so they would not cut him as he crawled through.
The dangling branch was half way across the window, but there was room enough for Bert to dodge through without getting hit by the swaying limb. Once out on the sloping porch roof, covered as it was by a blanket of snow, the Bobbsey lad looked up to see the best place to start cutting.
As he had said, the branch was attached to the part that was not broken off by only a few shreds of wood. Chopping through these would cause the branch to fall, and it could then be pushed off the roof. But the place where he must do the cutting was above Bert’s head.
“I’ve got to get something to stand on,” he decided.
He looked around inside the room and saw a small box. In it Mrs. Bobbsey had packed away the lace curtains for the guest room. And when the curtains had been hung the box had not been taken out.
“I’ll stand on that,” Bert decided. He pulled the lace curtains of the window to one side. The curtains were wet with snow, but Bert thought he and Nan could take them down and dry them later in the day.