This was what had caused the trouble—­the leg getting caught and tangled in a loop of the rope.  But for that, Nan could have swung this leg up over the limb and so have perched there in safety.

“Come on down!” cried Harry.

“Don’t fall!” begged Bert.  “Oh, Nan, be careful!  Mother’ll think I oughtn’t to have let you climb up there!”

“You didn’t—­you didn’t let—­me!” panted Nan.  “I did it myself!”

“Well, come on down!” begged Harry again.

“I—­I can’t!” half sobbed Nan, with a catch in her voice.  “I—­I’m stuck!  Go get a ladder—­get something to help me.  I can’t hold on much longer!”

“Shall we get the tennis net and let you fall into that?” asked Bert, starting toward the swing with half an idea that he could climb up the rope and loosen Nan.

“No, I don’t want to fall!” cried his sister.  “Get a ladder so I can climb down.  Call daddy!”

“I’ll call my father!” offered Harry.  “He’s got a long ladder!”

“Do something!  Quick!” begged Nan desperately.

As Bert and Harry started to run toward the house to summon their fathers and mothers, Flossie and Freddie, tired of playing with the little boat in the brook, came up to the apple tree.  Freddie saw Nan hanging there, some distance above the ground.

“Oh, Nan’s doing circus tricks!  Nan’s doing circus tricks!” cried Freddie.  “Look at her, Flossie.  Nan’s doing circus tricks an’ I want to do ’em, too!”

“No, no, Freddie!” screamed Nan, as her little brother ran under the limb to which she was desperately clinging.  “Go away!  Don’t stand under me this way!  I might fall on you!”

“Oh, I’m going to get mother!” exclaimed Flossie.  “She won’t want you to fall, Nan!”

“Well, I—­I can’t hold on much longer!” sobbed Nan.

Though if she had let go her grasp on the tree limb she would probably not have fallen, for one foot was tangled in the swing rope.  However, hanging by one leg high in the air would not have been very pleasant.  Nan was not enough of a circus performer for that, though she and Bert had often done “stunts” on a trapeze in the back yard at home when they gave “shows.”

However, help was on its way to Nan.  The excited story told by Harry and Bert to the two Mr. Bobbseys started both men into action.  They got a long ladder and, having run with it to the tree, placed it up against the limb.  Then Mr. Richard Bobbsey climbed up, while his brother held steady the foot of the ladder on the ground.

“Why, Nan!” exclaimed her father, as he climbed up to set her free, “what in the world made you do this?”

“I—­I don’t know, Daddy!  But Bert and Harry climbed up, and they did it all right.  But when I went up something slipped, and I nearly fell, and I grabbed the rope and the branch, and there I was!”

“Well, it’s a good thing you stuck here instead of falling down there,” and Mr. Bobbsey looked to the ground below.  “You’re all right now.  Don’t cry.”