Jonas on a Farm in Winter, Jacob Abbott [best mystery novels of all time txt] 📗

/> "O, about as big as I am," said Rollo.

"And what was he doing?" said Jonas.

"O, he was playing about on the rocks, under the falls. But he didn't seem to have much to do. He stopped and looked at me when I was coming by."

"Very likely it was he," said Jonas. "If he had only known who you were, he would have liked very much to have come along with you; and you would have been good company for each other.

"And O, Rollo," said Jonas again, very eagerly, "there's somebody you'll like very much indeed."

"Who is it?" said Rollo.

"Franco Ney," said Jonas.

"Franco Ney!" repeated Rollo; "I never heard a boy named Franco before. How old is he?"

"I don't know," said Jonas.

"Don't know? Well, where does he live?--at your house?"

"No," said Jonas. Jonas was correct in this answer, for Franco was accustomed to live in the barn.

After some other conversation, Rollo, suddenly looking up, said,--

"How far is it, Jonas, from your house to Mr. Ney's?"

Jonas laughed very heartily at this question, but gave no answer. Rollo could not imagine what he could he laughing at. Jonas, however, would not tell him, but said that he would know all about it, when he should come to see Franco Ney.

"Well," said Rollo, "I'll ask him why you wouldn't tell me where his father lives."

Very soon Rollo and Jonas arrived at the mill. They found Oliver safe there, waiting for them; and the rolls, too, were ready. As they did not like to tumble the rolls, Oliver rode with Rollo in his sleigh, and Jonas took care of the rolls.

Rollo was greatly astonished, as well as very much pleased, when he came to see Franco Ney.

[Illustration]


CHAPTER XI.


THE SNOW FORT, OR GOOD FOR EVIL

The next morning, after breakfast, Oliver proposed to Rollo, that they should go down to the pond, and build a snow fort. During the night, there had been a slight thaw, accompanied with some rain. The body of snow on the ground had become softened and adhesive by the moisture, and was, as Jonas said, "in prime condition for all sorts of snow work."

Oliver borrowed of Jonas the large wooden snow-shovel, with a blade nearly two feet square, used in cutting out the paths around the house. Rollo assisted him to strap it on the hand-sled, together with some boards, two iron shovels, and a hoe.

"The Conqueror"--for that was the name of his sled--"will have to be captive to-day," said Oliver, as he bound the load upon the sled, which he and Rollo were going to drag down to the pond.

"You had better take the garden-reel and line," said Jonas to Oliver, "if you intend to make a good fort. You will want to stretch your line so as to make the sides square, and to guide you in cutting out your blocks of snow."

"O, we don't want to be so particular as that," said Oliver.

"But I thought," said Jonas, "that your plan last evening was, to do your work in a workmanlike manner. If you want a substantial fort to last all winter, you must lay a good foundation, and cut your courses true, so that they will rest firmly one upon the other,--and especially if you are going to have a roof."

"We mean to have a roof," said Rollo, "or we cannot illuminate it in the evening."

"Well, then," said Jonas, "I advise you to take the line, and build according to rule."

Oliver had not forgotten what Jonas had often told him about doing his work like a workman.

" What is worth doing at all, is worth doing well " Jonas used to say.

So Oliver went to get the reel and line.

While he was gone to the tool-house, Rollo thought of Franco Ney, and began to call aloud, "Franco! Franco!"

Franco did not come.

"Franco! Franco--o! Franco--o! Where is Franco?" said Rollo; "we can't go without him."

"He won't mind you," said Oliver, as he came running back.

"You call him, then," said Rollo.

Oliver whistled the dog call, and in a moment, Franco came running from the poultry yard with a bone in his mouth, which he had been gnawing for a breakfast. At that moment, Nathan came running out of the door, with a luncheon in his hand for them all. The farmer's wife had put up in a paper an apple turn-over and a nut-cake for each of the boys, as they were going on so important an expedition.

Very soon, every thing was ready, and they started for the scene of operations, eager for their work, Oliver and Rollo drawing the sled, and Nathan and Franco following on behind.

When they arrived near the pond, Oliver pointed to a little mound, not far from the edge of the water, which overlooked the principal skating-ground of the village boys in winter.

"There, Rollo," said Oliver, "there's the place for a fort. Many a pleasant time we have had there, in a clear winter night, watching the skaters all the way up to the head of the pond. The fires look splendidly."

"It is a good place for a lookout," said Rollo; "but then I wouldn't build it here. Let us go down nearer the pond."

"No," said Oliver; "if we go down near the pond, as likely as not, the first skating night, some of the boys will tear our fort all to pieces."

"What if they do?" said Rollo.

"I want it to last all winter," said Oliver.

Rollo yielded to Oliver's wishes, and they began together to unbind their load of boards and tools.

"Come, Nathan," said Oliver, "we want you to help us now."

Rollo and Nathan measured with the reel and line, while Oliver planted a stake firmly in the snow at the four corners of the square.

According to Jonas's advice, the evening before, they had agreed to make their fortification twelve feet square, and the walls about one foot thick.

Rollo and Nathan held the cord, stretched from corner to corner, just along the surface of the snow, while Oliver, with the shovel, cut the snow square down to the ground, more than a foot and a half deep.

In this way they went round the whole enclosure, outside. They then went inside, and, by a similar process, cut away the snow so as to leave an unbroken line of snow wall about ten feet square and one foot wide.

"There," said Oliver, "there are the sills, as Jonas called them. It is what I call a good foundation."

After this, Oliver asked Rollo to bring in the measuring-board inside of the fort.

Oliver and Rollo remembered what Jonas had told them about "commanding and obeying," and agreed to take turns in being "director."

It was Oliver's turn for the first hour, and Rollo was to obey him. Nathan was to assist them both, when he was wanted.

Oliver, therefore, took the command, and directed where and how to cut out the snow, in the manner which Jonas had described.

They proceeded with the measuring-board, to mark off, and cut out by it, solid blocks of snow about four feet long, one foot wide, and one thick.

Rollo laid down the measuring-board on the snow, and then both of them, with the shovels, cut down the snow perpendicularly along the edges, so as to have all the snow-blocks of precisely the same length, breadth, and thickness. These they laid in courses, on the top of the foundation.

It took just three blocks to form a side, excepting the side where the door was, which they left three feet wide.

After working more than two hours, and laying two courses, they shoveled out all the broken snow that remained inside, and then sat down on the sled to eat their luncheon and rest.

"How do you like the looks of it, Rollo?" said Oliver.

" Well ," said Rollo; "only I don't see how we can make a roof."

"Jonas will help us do that," said Oliver, "if we do the rest of the work well."

The boys, however, were now pretty tired. They had worked very hard. They pulled off their caps, and with their handkerchiefs wiped the perspiration from their foreheads.

"Don't let us work any longer now," said Nathan, rubbing his hands, and knocking one foot against the other. "I think we have done enough for one day; and my feet are so cold!"

" We've done enough!" said Oliver. "I think Rollo and I have had the principal doing to do. You and Franco have been looking on."

"'What you've to do
Get done to-day,
And do not for to-morrow stay;
There's always danger in delay'"--

said Rollo. "I think we had better finish it now. Come, Nathan, jump about here on the sled, and you will soon be warm."

So they went briskly at work again, Rollo taking the command. They found it very hard, after the second course, to get the snow-blocks up on the snowy wall. Often they would slip away out of their hands, just as they were lodging them safely on the top, and fall over on one side of the wall, and break to pieces.

"Let us cut them in two," said Oliver; "we can handle them better so."

Before they got through the fourth course, they were glad to cut all their materials into pieces of one foot square.

"How high are the walls now?" said Rollo, as they stopped to look at the appearance of the last course.

"Between five and six feet," said Oliver. "The foundation is at least a foot and a half high, and we have laid four courses."

Oliver, Rollo, and Nathan went to work together, then, stopping up all the chinks in the wall, inside and out, with soft snow.

When this was well done, Oliver took the hoe, and with the sharp edge shaved down all around on both sides, making the walls look even and true.

"Well," said Rollo, "that is the best snow fort I ever saw. Jonas does know how to do things, doesn't he, Oliver? But I don't see how we are to get a roof on."

"I don't care about a roof," said Oliver. "We don't want to play in it only in pleasant weather."

"I'll tell you what we might do," said Rollo. "We could make a partition through the middle, and put a roof over half of it."

"So we can," said Oliver. "We'll do that this afternoon. It's time to go to dinner now."

The boys then gathered all the tools, &c., and laid them together, as Jonas had taught them to do, when they finished work, and then started for home.

"Halloo, Franco," said Rollo, "are you here still?" They had been so busy at work, they had taken no notice of him. But Franco had watched their operations, and now went running on in the path before the boys, wagging his tail, as if he had as much pleasure as they, in contemplating the result of their morning's labor.

When Jonas came home to dinner, at noon, the boys were impatient to tell him what they had done.