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 could get the thing closed tight,—and then he tried to lift it off.

He tried and tried, but he couldn't loosen the wire in the top, which seemed to be tangled into the hook. "That comes of using picture-wire instead of a screw-eye!" he sputtered,—and then he went up another step. That made him so high that the ladder seemed a little wabbly, and he told us to steady it. Bess took the straight side, and I took the step side, and we braced it; but still he couldn't get the thing undone.

He was on next to the top step, and holding onto the umbrella, but he couldn't reach the hook with his hands, and he couldn't lift or jerk the wire off.

"I'll have to go up on the top," he said, "Hold her firm," and he steadied himself with the umbrella and stepped one foot onto the top step; and then, as he still couldn't reach, he drew the other one up very carefully. That top step was dreadfully narrow, so that half of his heels were off on one side, and the most of his toes on the other; but it put him high enough so that he could rest just about an inch of his fingers on the