d a little wooden wheel,
called a pulley. If he could stop the rope from running all the way
through the pulley, the pole would not fall down, and the tent would
stay up.

"And if I keep the rope tight around my waist, the end of it can't get
over the pulley wheel," thought Bunny. He had often seen sailors do this
with his father's boats, when they slid down the steep beach into the
ocean.

And then, all of a sudden, Bunny found himself jerked from his feet. He
struck against the bottom of the tent pole, and his side hurt him a
little, but he still held to the rope about his waist.

"The pole has stopped falling! The pole has stopped falling!" some one
cried.

"Yes, and Bunny stopped it!" said Sue. "Oh, Bunny, are you hurted?"

Bunny's breath was so nearly squeezed out of him that he could not
answer for a moment. But his mother had reached him now. So had Daddy
Brown, his grandpa and some other men. In another moment the rope that
held up the big pole was unwound from Bunny's waist and made fast to a
peg in the ground.

"Now the pole can't fall!" said Grandpa Brown. "We're safe now!"

"Is--is the tent all right?" asked Bunny, as his father picked him up in
his arms.

"Yes, brave little boy. The tent is all right! You stopped it from
falling on the people's heads."

"And the bear--is the bear all right?" asked Bunny. From where his
father held him Bunny could not see the shaggy creature.

"Yes, the bear is all right," answered Mr. Brown. "He is coming down the
pole now."

"That bear is too big and heavy to climb the tent pole," said Grandpa
Brown. "He is too fat. But it's lucky Bunny grabbed that rope."

"I--I saw it slipping," said Bunny, "and I--I just grabbed it!"

The bear came to the ground, and made a low bow, as his master had
taught him to do. The tent pole was now made tight and fast, and the
circus could go on again. Some of the ladies, with their little boys and
girls, who had run out of the tent when they thought it was going to
fall, now came back again.

"The show in the animal tent is now over," said Ben Hall. "We invite
you, one and all, into the next tent where we will do some real circus
tricks."

"And there's preserved seats for grandpa and grandma, and daddy and
mother!" called out Sue, so clearly that everyone heard her. "The
preserved seats have carpet on," said Sue.

"Reserved seats, Sue, not preserved," said Bunny in a shrill whisper,
and everyone who heard him laughed.

I