Animals -- Juvenile fiction; Boys -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Farm life -- Juvenile fiction; Obedience -- Juvenile fiction
"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.
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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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