"It couldn't be much worse!" gasped Norah. "We'll have to get a fireman with a long ladder, 'tis probable, to get him down."
"I don't see how it could have happened," said Mrs. Bunker. "He was in the yard playing, a little while ago. The next time I looked he was gone. Where did the balloon come from, Rose?"
"Mun Bun bought the balloon!" said the little girl.
"He
bought
it?" cried Norah and Mrs. Bunker.
"Yes, it's a five-cent one. He had five cents that Jerry Simms gave him, Mun had, and he bought the balloon, and it had a long string to it, and it got caught up in a tree—the balloon did—and Mun Bun's got hold of the string and he won't come away,
'cause if he does he'll maybe break the string and the balloon and——"
Rose had to stop, she was so out of breath, but she had told all there was need to tell.
Mrs. Bunker and Norah, who had reached the street and could look down and see Mun Bun standing under a tree not far away, came to a sudden stop.
"And then the little darlin' isn't caught up by a German airship?" asked the cook.
"No. It's just a balloon he bought with the five cents Jerry gave him," explained Rose, "and it's caught in a tree, and——"
"I see how it is," said Mrs. Bunker, and she laughed. "Mun Bun doesn't want to come away without his toy balloon. We must get it for him, Norah!"
"Sure, that we will! The saints be praised he isn't flyin' above the clouds this blessed minute!" and with Norah, now laughing also, the three of them went to where Mun stood under the tree. Caught on one of the branches overhead was a big red balloon. It was fast to a string, and the little boy held the other end of the cord.
"I can't get it down!" he exclaimed.
"Well, it's a good thing you didn't climb up after it," said his mother. "We'll get it down for you, Mun."
She took hold of the string, and Norah, finding a long stick, carefully poked it up among the tree branches until she had
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