“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.