“Git him down! What if he should come down whether he wants to or not? What if he gits dizzy? Oh my!”
“You don’t ketch me jest a lookin’ at him. I’m a goin’ to bring a ladder, find it somewhere.”
“Hold on, Zebulon! Hark, boys!”
The boat–builder and the two young archers, thus addressed by Nancy, now listened in silence, and at the same time looked up. There they all stood, with upturned faces, and the man above called down to them:
“Sho—o—o—t! Send—a—string—g!”
As he thus called, his hands let go their hold upon the rod that bore the vane, and clinging with his feet alone, he went through the motions of one shooting an arrow from a bow.
“Oh—oh!” shrieked Nancy. “He’s beginnin’ to fall.”
With a horrified expression of countenance, she turned away and faced the other side of the road.
“Oh, no!” cried Walter Plympton. “He is not falling. He is making believe shoot. I see what he wants.”
“What?” asked Zebulon.