I speak from personal knowledge.

One spring morning, before the schoolhouse was built, I was assisting the patriarch to divest the gaunt garden pump of its winter suit of straw.
I was taking a drink, I remember, my palm over the mouth of the wooden spout and my mouth at the gimlet hole above, when a leg appeared above the corner of the wall against which the henhouse was built.

Two hands followed, clutching desperately at the uneven stones.

Then the leg worked as if it were turning a grind-stone, and next moment Snecky was sitting breathlessly on the dyke.

From this to the henhouse, whose roof was of "divets," the descent was comparatively easy, and a slanting board allowed the daring bellman to slide thence to the ground.