It was suggested that rock be filled in, and the earth over this.  But when the boys considered how deep cuts would be formed in such a mend by wagon wheels, this was given up.  Then it was decided to fill in with layers of rock mass.  Myron brought a load of slate for this purpose.  But slate, while it makes a smooth road, does not stand wet weather well.  So Myron had to return his slate to the road-side bed from which he had taken it.  Then The Chief told the children briefly about road materials; how soft limestone makes too weak roads for loads, how easily they wash and wear; how granite, because of its being made up of several materials, is poor, too; how flint and quartz, while hard, are brittle, and are not sufficiently tough; and that sandstone was impossible.  Then he told them that good gravel, tough limestone and trap-rock were good road materials.  Roads need materials having hardness, toughness and cementing qualities.

By taking a trip to a gravel bed, some three miles out of town, the boys were able to get gravel for their patchwork.  They did not merely fill in the breaks but dug out the road bed straight across wherever a break occurred until they came to good road.  Coarse gravel was put at the bottom up to six inches of the top surface.  This was packed down and rolled.  At the same time it was watered until mud rose or flushed over the top surface.  Finally pebbles from about a half-inch size to coarse sand were laid on and rolled thoroughly.

This is the way these lads fixed one piece of poor roadway.

It happened that one of the farmers near by tethered his cow on the school grounds during the summer.  One of the girls gave a workable solution for this problem.  This was it:  the boys should come back in relays all summer long and keep the grass so short that no cow could get a nibble from their new lawn.  This was done and it worked.

When the subject of the care of the flower garden arose it was easily settled.  The girls gladly divided themselves off into committees.  Each committee’s business was that of weeding, picking and distributing the flowers.  The prophecy that there would be blossoms enough to supply the homes, the churches and the sick proved true.  To be sure the garden did not look so well in the fall as in early summer, but it took only a short time to fix up the grounds when school re-opened.

Plans were made for another spring during the first weeks of school.  The lawn would need a little more work done on it, an oak should be planted, a group of shrubs put in.  But the foundation work had been done.

And one day when the news was brought that the town was going to put the first strip of real macadam road by the schoolhouse, a deafening shout went up.

VIII

MYRON’S STRAWBERRY BED