The Box-Car Children
"The cherries need picking," said his new friend. "We could use any
number of cherry pickers, if they were as careful as you." He gave him
an odd look.
"Could you?" asked Henry eagerly. "I'll surely come down."
With that, he bade his friends good-by and started for home, richer by
another dollar, two doughnuts the cook had given him, a pocket full of
crooked nails, and the rest of the vegetables.
When he reached his freight-car home a delicious savor greeted him.
"Onions!" he shouted, running up to the kettle. The cook stood by and
took off the cover and put in the salt. It was absolutely the most
tantalizing odor that Henry had ever smelled. Years afterward Jess tried
to duplicate it with the same kettle, vegetables from the same garden
and all stirred with the same spoon, but it didn't equal this stew in
flavor.
"A ladle, as sure as I live!" gasped Henry. Jess had found a tin cup in
the dump, and fastened on a wooden handle with a bit of wire. And when
she ladled out four portions on four plates of all sizes, some of them
tin, and laid a spoon in each, the children felt that the world held no
greater riches. The tiny onions floated around like pearls; the carrots
melted in your mouth; and the shreds of meat were as tender as possible
from long boiling. A bit of bread in one hand helped the feast along
wonderfully. The little wanderers ate until they could eat no more.
"I have time before dark to make Benny's cart," observed Henry, biting a
crisp, sweet carrot.
"With my wheels?" asked Benny.
"Yes, sir, with your wheels," agreed Henry. "Only, when it's done,
you'll have to cart stones in it."
"Sure," said Benny with satisfaction. "Cart stones or _anything_."
"We'll need it in making the dam," explained Henry for the benefit of
his sisters. "Tomorrow's Sunday, so I shan't work down in the town. Do
you think it's all right to build the pool on Sunday, Jess?"
"I certainly do," replied Jess with emphasis. "We're just building the
dam so we can keep clean. I guess if Sunday is your only day off, it'll
be all right."
Henry's conscience was set at rest as he began with great delight to
hammer out his bent nails. He and Benny ran about finding pieces of wood
to fasten the wheels on. A visit to the dump was necessary at last, in
order to find just the right piece of timber for a tongue, but before it
was too dark to see, Henry had pounded the last nail in place and
trundled the flat cart back and forth just to see it go. The cart seemed
valuable enough to all of them to take into the house for the night. And
Henry could not afford to laugh at Benny for going to sleep with his
hand upon one of his precious wheels, for he himself had tucked his new
hammer under his pillow.
BUILDING THE DAM
Even a hammer makes a good pillow if one is tired enough, and the
freight-car family slept until the nine-o'clock church bells began to
ring faintly in the valley. There were at least a dozen churches, and
their far-away bells sounded sweetly harmonious in so many different
keys.
"They almost play a tune," said Violet, as she listened.
"I like music all right," replied Henry in a business-like way, "but I
for one shall have to get to work."
"This will be a good day to wash all the stockings," said Jess. "We'll
all be wading so much in the brook, anyway."
After breakfast the first thing Henry did was to survey, with critical
eyes, the spot they had chosen for a pool. It was a hollow about three
yards across. There were no stones in it at all.
"It's _big_ enough already," remarked Henry at last, "but it hasn't
enough water in it." He measured its depth with a stick. "We'll have to
guess at inches," he said.
"I have a little tape measure in my workbag," ventured his sister
Violet.
Henry flashed a smile at her. "Is there anything you _haven't_ got in
your workbag?" he asked her.
The children measured the wet stick carefully. The water was just ten
inches deep in the deepest part.
Henry explained his plan of engineering to his sisters. "We will have to
haul some big logs across this narrow part and stuff them from this end
with stones and underbrush. It ought to be three feet deep before we get
through."
"O Henry!" protested Jess. "Benny would get drowned."
"Drowned!" echoed Henry. "How tall do you think he is, anyhow?"
They measured the little boy and found him to be forty-two inches tall.
That settled it; the pool was designed to be three feet in depth.
Luckily the largest logs were not far away; but as it was, it was a
matter of great labor for the builders to drag them to the scene of
operations.
"Let's get all the logs up here first," suggested Jess. "Then we can
have the fun of laying them across."
The two older children dragged all the logs, while Violet and Benny
attended to the stones, with the help of the cart. Occasionally Henry
was called upon to assist with a heavy stone, but for the most part
Benny puffed out his cheeks and heaved the stones himself. In fact,
Henry decided at this point to let Benny drop them into the water as he
gathered them. "Splash 'em right in, old fellow," he directed. "Only
keep them in a nice straight line right across this place between these
two trees. It won't make any difference how wet he gets," he added in an
aside to Jess. "We can dry him in the sun."
Jess thought a little differently, although she said nothing. She took
off Benny's little crinkled blouse and one pair of bloomers, and started
to hang them on the line.
"Good time to wash them!" she exclaimed.
"Let me wash them," begged Violet. "You're more useful building the
dam." There was wisdom in this suggestion, so Jess accepted it
gratefully, and even added Henry's blouse to the laundry.
"When we finish the dam they will surely be dry," she said.
As for Henry, he was only too glad to work without it. "Makes me feel
lighter," he declared.
Rare and beautiful birds came and watched the barefooted children as
they scurried around, building their wall of masonry. But the children
did not have any eyes for birds then. They watched with delighted eyes
as each stone was added to the wall under the clear water, and it began
to rise almost to the surface.
"That makes a solid foundation for the logs, you see," explained Henry
with pride. "They won't be floating off downstream the minute we lay
them on."
Then at last the time arrived when they were to lay the logs on.
"Let's wedge the first one between these two trees," said Jess, with a
happy thought. "Then if each end of the log is on the upper side of the
trees, the harder the water pounds the tighter the dam gets."
"Good work!" exclaimed Henry admiringly. "That's just what we'll do."
But the children were not at all prepared for what happened the moment
the first big log was splashed into its place on top of the stone wall.
The water, defeated in its course down the rocky bed, gurgled and chased
about as it met the opposing log, and found every possible hole to
escape.
"Leaks," said Henry briefly, as the water began to rush around both ends
and pour over the top of the log. "We'll make the logs so thick it
_can't_ get through. We'll lay three logs across, with three logs on top
of them, and three more on top of that."
The children set about stubbornly to accomplish this. Violet held great
sprays of fine underbrush in place until each log was laid. Wetter
children never were seen. But nobody cared. They resolutely plugged the
ends with more stones, more underbrush, and more logs. Each time a leak
was discovered, someone dropped a stone over it. Even Benny caught the
fever of conquering the mischievous water which slipped from their grasp
like quicksilver.
When the three top logs were at last dropped into place, the excited
children sat down to watch the pool fill. This it did slowly.
Finding now no means of exit, the water was quieter. It rose steadily
up the barricade of logs. It widened beautifully. Henry could not sit
still. "It slopes!" he cried. "See how clear it is! And still! See how
still it is!"
And then the water began to overflow the logs. It spilled over the top
with a delightful curve. And on the other side it formed a second
waterfall--not high and narrow and graceful like the natural fall above,
but very low and wide. "Just like a regular mill dam," said Henry.
He held the measuring stick out as far as he could and plunged it into
the water. It lacked an inch of being three feet deep.
"Deep enough," he declared.
In fact it looked so deep that Benny could not conceal a slight fear.
"That's the beauty of the slope," observed Jess. "Benny can wade in just
as far as he wants to, and no farther. We all know what the bed of the
pool is like--no holes or stones."
The girls had to leave to prepare dinner, but Henry could not be
persuaded to leave the wonderful swimming pool. "I'd rather swim than
eat," he said.
Luckily for the children, their supply of provisions was the largest of
any day since their flight. The girls lighted the fire and heated up the
remainder of the stew and cut the bread. The butter, hard and cold in
the refrigerator, was taken out, and four portions cut from it. The two
doughnuts made four half rings for dessert.
The cooks rang the dinner bell. This was an ingenious arrangement hung
on a low branch. It consisted of a piece of bent steel swung on a
string. Violet hit it sharply with another piece of steel. It sounded
deeply and musically through the woods, and the boys understood it and
obeyed at once.
It was evident the moment they appeared that at least three of the
family had been swimming. Watch shook himself violently at intervals,
spattering water drops in all directions. Henry and Benny, fresh and
radiant, with plastered hair and clean dry stockings and blouses,
apparently liked to swim and eat, too.
"You can actually swim a few strokes in it, Jess, if you're careful,"
Henry said, with excusable pride, as he sat down to dinner.
Building a dam is wonderful sauce for a dinner. "I think stew is much
better the second day," observed Benny, eating hungrily.
There remained two more adventures for the eventful day. The girls cut
their hair. Violet's dark curls came off first. "They're awfully in the
way," explained Violet, "and so much trouble when you're working."
They were tangled, too, and Jess cut them off evenly by a string, with
Violet's little scissors. Jess' chestnut hair was long and silky and
nicely braided, but she never murmured as it came off too. The two girls
ran to the brook mirror to see how they looked. The new haircut was very
becoming to both.
"I like you better that way," said Henry approvingly. "Lots more
sensible when you're living in the woods."
Around four o'clock the children took a long walk in the opposite
direction from any of their other explorations. They were rewarded by
two discoveries. One was a hollow tree literally filled with walnuts,
gathered presumably by a thrifty squirrel the previous fall. The other
discovery frightened them a little just at first. For with bristling
back and a loud bark, Watch suddenly began to rout out something in the
leaves, and that something began to cackle and half run and half fly
from the intruders. It was a runaway hen. The children succeeded in
catching the dog and reducing him to order, although it was clear he
liked very much to chase hens.
"She had some eggs, too," remarked Benny as if trying to make pleasant
conversation.
Jess bent over incredulously and saw a rude nest in the moss in which
there were five eggs.
"A runaway hen!" said Henry, hardly believing his eyes. "She wants to
hide her nest and raise chickens."
The children had no scruples at all about taking the eggs.