Russ and Laddie had some toy shovels their mother had bought for them.  The shovels had long handles and were larger than the kind children usually play with at the shore, so the boys could dig faster with them.

“How do you make a fort?” asked Laddie.

“Well,” explained Russ, “you dig a sort of hole and you pile the sand up in front of you in a sort of half ring and then you can lie down behind it and if anybody throws bullets at you they won’t hit you.”

“Do you have a roof to your fort?”

“No!  Course forts don’t ever have a roof.”

“Then you get wet when it rains.”

“Yes, but a soldier doesn’t ever mind rain.  All he minds is bullets, and they can’t hit him in the fort.”

“Supposin’ they come over the top where there isn’t a roof?”

“I don’t guess they’ll come that way,” said Russ.  “Anyhow, you mustn’t throw any that way.”

“Oh! am I going to throw the bullets?”

“Yes,” Russ replied, “We’ll take turns being in the fort.  After we get it made I’ll be captain of it and you must come up and try to take it away.  You must shoot bullets at me.”

“Real ones?”

“No, course not!  Make ’em of paper.  Then they won’t hurt.  After a while I’ll take down the flag—­that means I surrender—­and you can be in the fort and I’ll fire bullets at you.”

“That’ll be fun!” exclaimed Laddie.

“Lots of fun!” agreed Russ.

So they dug in the sand with their shovels, piling it up in front of them in a long ridge shaped like a half circle.  The ridge of sand which was to be the outer wall of the fort was in front of the hill over which floated the red, white and blue handkerchief flag.  Between the hill and the outer wall of the fort was a hole which was made as Laddie and Russ tossed out the sand.

“I’ll sit down in this hole,” Russ explained, “and then it will be all the harder for you to hit me with the paper bullets.”

The boys fairly made the sand fly as they dug with their shovels, and soon they had quite a high ridge of it half way around the little hill with the flag on top.  There was also quite a hole for Russ to stand in and throw paper bullets back at Laddie.

“Now I guess we can have the battle,” said Russ.  “You get a lot of paper, Laddie, and roll it up into bullets.”

“And I’ll make some big ones!” exclaimed the little fellow.

“We can call the big bullets cannon balls,” said Russ, and Laddie agreed to this.  “I’ll help you make the bullets,” Russ offered.

There were plenty of old papers at the bungalow, and soon Russ and Laddie were tearing them up on the beach near their fort and wadding and rolling them up into “bullets” and “cannon balls.”

“I guess we have enough,” said Russ at last.  “Come on now, we’ll have a battle.”

“Are Rose and Vi going to play?” asked Laddie.

“Nope!  Girls never can be in a battle.  They can be Red Cross nurses if they want to.  But we won’t call ’em until after the fight.  They’d only holler like anything.”