to be a sailor. Be only a brave _kindchen_, and help our goodt
mother wit' the dishes."

His admonition would dissolve in an unrestrained roar of laughter
as she wickedly "shinned" up the porch post to a coign of vantage
on the vine-covered roof.

But she could not climb the tree where the snake still clung. There
was the neighboring redwood, huge-girthed, smooth-boled, with limbs
out of reach, yet with the lowest bough almost touching the limb on
which Willie crouched, mechanically clutching the body of the tree,
but dumb and stupefied with the horror of his situation.

Anna hurriedly piled large rocks under a thick, broken branch-stump
of the redwood, which was at least eight feet from the ground. Four
times she leaped upward and fell back, wounding her tough little
feet. She noticed blood-stains on the rocks as she heaped them with
a broader base for her fifth attempt. The snake rested, waving his
head downward as if in query. Fortunately, he was full and
sluggish.

Once more Anna crouched and shot upward. Her right hand caught the
projecting stump, her left easily followed. Clasping the decreasing
trunk of the tree with her slim, muscular legs, hanging also by her
hands, she dropped her head backward to take observation. The snake
hung out, also, toward her, from his tree, then resumed his
deliberate climbing. Evidently the task was neither easy nor to his
liking.

Anna hitched breathlessly up toward the coveted limb. Reaching it,