was wound on a great wooden spool.

The spool was as big around as David's body, and the stuff that looked
like rubber tubing looked all twisty, as if there were two pieces
twisted together.

David wanted very much to know what it was. He didn't like to ask, but
the man who had it saw that he was looking at it very hard.

"Do you know what that is?" he asked, smiling at David.

David shook his head.

"Is it a little hose?"

"No, it's wire, and the wire is covered with that black rubbery stuff.
See, here are the ends."

He found the ends of the wire and showed them to David. There were two
bright ends of copper wire, and they peeped out of the black rubber
covering.

"There are two of them, you see, and they are twisted together."

David nodded, but he didn't say anything.

The other men were buckling on to their legs some iron spurs, or
climbers, just like those the tree men had.

And when they had their climbers buckled on, they took a little coil
of rope and some queer little wooden things and a big hammer, and they
went to the nearest pole.

One of the men walked right up this pole, and when he got nearly to
the top, he put a big strap around his waist and around the pole, and
buckled it, so that it held him to the pole, not tight up against it,
but loosely so that he could use his hands.

Then he took one of the wooden things that was sticking out of his
pocket, and he took his hammer from his belt, and he nailed the wooden
thing to the pole. And the coil of rope was hanging at his belt; and
he took it off, and he undid it, and let one end drop down to the
ground.

The man who was standing there tied on a big lump of glass, and the
man on the pole pulled it up, and untied it, and screwed it on the top
of the wooden pin that he had just nailed on. Then he dropped his rope
and came down the pole.

And he walked along until he came to the pole in front of David's
house, and he walked right up that pole.

[Illustration: HE WALKED RIGHT UP THAT POLE]

Then he let down one end of his rope, and the man on the ground tied
it to the end of the twisted wires, and the man on the pole pulled
them up, and the spool turned over and the wires unwound as the ends
went up the pole.

David couldn't see what the man on the pole did with the ends of the
wires, but he fastened them somehow to the wires that were there
already, and then he came down.

And the man on the ground put a short stick through the hole