“It seems to me,” said Albert thrusting his hands deep down into his pockets, “that we have our life work here.”

“Not at all,” announced The Chief, “this is just the sort of thing which confronts most country schools.”

Sitting on a rock The Chief gathered his clan in solemn conclave.  At the close of the conference Jay marched into the schoolhouse and wrote the following headings on the board: 

    I. Constructing a wall to form an embankment. 
    II.  Cleaning the grounds and making a lawn. 
    III.  Planting of trees. 
    IV.  Preparation and planting of the flower garden. 
    V. Cleaning and mending the road.

These headings represented the general lines of work the conclave had decided were the right ones, the most pressing ones to begin on.

First all the stones were picked up.  The smaller boys and girls made little heaps of the small stones, while the larger rocks, requiring strength to move, were left to the older boys and girls.  To some rocks the boys were obliged to take the pickaxe and crowbar.  These were rolled, dragged and carted to the gutter at the bottom of the bank.

A sand bank of this description where the wash is great always needs an embankment of some sort to hold the soil in place.  So the boys built a stone wall.  They made this wall of the stones picked from the grounds.  First the height was decided on.  This was to be two feet.  They drove stakes, one at the beginning, and so on for every five feet of extent.  After leveling, two inches was measured from top of each stake down and a cord was strung along from stake to stake.  Previously, to be sure that the stakes were at the same level, one of the boys, squatting down on the ground so that his eye was on a level with the stake nearest him, looked or “sighted” along the stakes.  Where one stake seemed to rise up above the others it was hammered down a little to fall into line.  Thus a straight line or top level for the wall was obtained.  The wall itself was not difficult to build.  It meant only the selection of stones and firming them into place.

Close to the wall there was a strip of level land; then the slope arose from this quite gently.  After the stones were picked off the boys raked the ground all over fine, free from lumps and small stones.

One evening in the village store George’s father offered to plough and harrow the entire grounds if Jack’s father would give the grass seed.  The bargain was sealed.  But after all, this sandy soil was no sort of soil to plant grass seed in.  The father of one of the girls gave to the school a few loads of good soil.  This was spread over the slope to a depth of about a foot.  Again they raked it all over smooth, filling in and making as pleasing a grade as possible.

The Chief told them it would have been far better if they could have had two feet of good soil.  Grass needs all of that.  Another way to have improved the soil conditions would have been to plant corn or potatoes on this ground for one year.  With such a crop the boys and girls would have been constantly working it, stirring it up.  This improves soil.