Rodolphus and Annie then resumed their journey. Rodolphus talked fast to Annie, and told her a great many amusing stories, to divert her mind from the misfortune which had happened to them. He charged her not to tell her mother, when she got home, that she had been in the water, and made her promise that she would not. At length they came to a large house which stood back from the road a little way, at the entrance to a valley. This was the house, Rodolphus said, where Beechnut lived. Rodolphus opened a great gate, and he and Annie went into the yard. “I think that Beechnut is in some of the barns, or sheds, or somewhere,” said Rodolphus. So he and Annie went to the barns and sheds. There was a horse standing in one of the sheds, harnessed to a wagon, but there were no signs of Beechnut. “Perhaps he is in the yard,” said Rodolphus. So Rodolphus led the way through a shed to a sort of back-yard, where there was a plank-walk, with lilac-bushes and other shrubbery on one side of it. Rodolphus and Annie walked along upon the planks. Presently, they came to a place where there was a ladder standing up against the house. “Ah!” said Rodolphus, “he is upon the house. Here is the ladder. I think he is doing something on the house. I mean to go and see.” “No,” said Annie, “you must not go up on such a high place.” “Oh, this is not a very high ladder,” said Rodolphus. So saying he began to go up. Annie stood below, looking up to him as he ascended, and feeling great apprehension lest he should fall. The top of the ladder reached up considerably above the top of the house, and Rodolphus told Annie that he was not going to the top of the ladder, but only high enough to see if Beechnut was on the house. He told her, too, that if she walked back toward the garden gate, perhaps _she_ could see too. Annie accordingly walked back, and looking upward all the time, she presently saw a young man who she supposed was Beechnut, doing something to the top of one of the chimneys. By this time Rodolphus had reached the eaves of the house, in climbing up the ladder, and he came in sight of Beechnut, too. [Illustration.] Up The Ladder. “Hie-yo! Dolphin!” said Beechnut, “is that you!” Beechnut often called Rodolphus, Dolphin. “May I come up where you are?” said Rodolphus. “No,” said Beechnut. When Rodolphus heard this answer, he remained quietly where he was upon the ladder. “What are you doing?” said Rodolphus. “Putting a wire netting over the chimney,” said Beechnut. “What for!” asked Rodolphus. “To keep the chimney-swallows from getting in,” said Beechnut. “Are you coming down pretty soon?” asked Rodolphus. “Yes,” said Beechnut. “Go down the ladder and wait till I come.” So Rodolphus went down the ladder again to Annie. “What is the reason,” said Annie, “that you obey Beechnut so much better than you do my father?” “Oh, I don’t know,” said Rodolphus. “He makes me, I suppose.”