“We can make a big balloon.”

“How?”

“I’ll show you.  Come on.”

“All right.”

Russ, letting his toy balloon float over his head, while Laddie did the same, went out to the barn back of the house.  It was not really a barn any longer, as Daddy Bunker kept his automobile in it, but it looked like a barn, so I will call it that instead of a garage.

“How are you going to make a balloon?” asked Laddie as he saw Russ tie his toy to a picket of the fence.

“You wait, I’ll show you.  First you go in and get the big clothes basket.  Don’t let Norah see you, or she might stop you.  Bring me out the clothes basket.”

Laddie did as he was told.  As he came back with the basket, which was a large, round one, Laddie said: 

“Do you think we can fasten our two balloons to this and go up in it?”

“No, I’m not going to make my balloon that way,” Russ answered.  “You’ll see.  Come on into the barn.  We have to go upstairs.”

Overhead in the barn was a place where hay had once been kept for the horse.  There was a little door in the peak of the second story, to which the hay could be hoisted up from the wagon on the ground below.  The hay was hoisted by a rope running around a wheel, or pulley, and this rope and pulley were still in place, though they had not been used in some time.

Into the rather dark loft of the barn went Russ and Laddie.  They had climbed up the ladder, as they had done oftentimes before.

“It’s dark!” Laddie exclaimed.

“I’ll make it light,” announced Russ.

He opened the little door in the front of the barn, and then he and Laddie could look down to the ground below.  Russ loosened the pulley rope and let one end fall to the ground.

“That’s how we’ll make our balloon,” he said.  “We’ll fasten the rope to the clothes basket, and pull it up like a balloon.  Won’t that be fun?”

“Lots of fun!” agreed Laddie.

It was about half an hour after this that, as Mother Bunker was beginning to think about supper, she heard, from the direction of the barn, a shrill yell for help.

“Oh, I can’t get him down!  I can’t get him down!” was the cry.

“Dear me!  Something else has happened!” cried Mother Bunker.  “Come on, Norah.  We must see what it is!”

CHAPTER V

THE BIG BANG NOISE

It did not take Mrs. Bunker long to see what the matter was this time.  As she came in sight of the barn she beheld the clothes basket dangling about half-way to the roof, swinging this way and that from one end of a rope.

On the other end of the rope Russ and Laddie were pulling, while in the clothes basket, his little face peering over the side, was Mun Bun.

“What are you doing?  Let him down!” cried Mother Bunker, for Mun Bun was crying.

“We can’t get him down!” shouted Russ.  “The balloon won’t come down!”