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

But Jonas was too much engaged in some work about the new barn to listen to their story then.  He told them, however, that he would go down about sunset, and look at their work, and hear the account, in the evening, of the experiment in doing work like workmen.

After dinner, Oliver was excused from many of his regular duties, on account of the visit of Rollo and Nathan; and the three boys hastened to return to their fort.  They were so intent on finishing it, that they lost all interest in playing with Franco, or each other.

“What shall we call our fort?” said Oliver, as they walked along.

“We don’t want any name, do we?” said Rollo.

“O, yes,” said Oliver, “let us have a name.  I always like to have a name.  There’s the old ’General,’—­we have had many a good time with him; and my ’Conqueror,’—­there isn’t a boy in town that doesn’t know my sled.”

“We might call it ‘Gibraltar,’” said Rollo.

“Yes, that’s a good name,” said Oliver.  “How do you like ’Iceberg Castle’?  Jonas was telling us all about the icebergs the other evening; and I read a story, about a famous ‘Ice Palace’ in Russia; how do you like that?”

“I don’t like that,” said Rollo.  “Ours is a fort; it isn’t a palace.”

“If you are going to have it a palace,” said Nathan, “whom will you have for a king?”

“You may be king, Nathan,” said Rollo, “and we will soon demolish your palace, and make a prisoner of you.”

“No, no,” said Oliver, “the fort shall stand as long as ice will last.  I mean to pour water all over it, and freeze it into solid ice; and I expect the last ice to be seen any where about next spring, will be the ruins of the old fort.”

After some discussion, the boys agreed to call it “Iceberg Castle.”

They then took a survey, inside and out, of their morning’s work, and decided to proceed at once and build the partition which Rollo proposed before dinner.  At Oliver’s suggestion, Rollo was director.

For more than an hour they continued their toil, in constructing the partition.  Jonas had given them no instructions about this; and they found it much more difficult than the walls, on account of the small, low door, which they had to make, to lead from one apartment into the other.

At last, as Oliver and Nathan were drawing through the outer door a small heap of loose snow, which they had gathered up from the floor of the inner room, Rollo followed them, shouting, as they emerged from the fort, “Done, boys, done!—­Hurrah for Iceberg Castle!”

“I wish Jonas was here now,” said Oliver; “but I suppose it will be two or three hours before he can come down.”

“Can’t we do something more?” said Rollo.  “I wish we could put on a roof, before he comes.”

“I don’t believe we can do that,” said Oliver.