Children -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Country life -- Juvenile fiction; Cousins -- Juvenile fiction
So Rollo walked on until he came to the brook, and then asked Jonas how
he should get over. The brook was pretty wide and deep.
Jonas said, if he would wait a few minutes, he would build him a
bridge.
"_You_ cannot build a bridge," said Rollo.
"Wait a little and see."
So Rollo sat down on a mossy bank, and Jonas, having cut down the small
tree, began to work on a larger one that stood near the bank.
After he had cut a little while, Rollo asked him why he did not begin
the bridge.
"I am beginning it," said he.
Rollo laughed at this, but in a minute Jonas called to him to stand
back, away from the bank; and then, after a few strokes more, the top of
the tree began to bend slowly over, and then it fell faster and faster,
until it came down with a great crash, directly across the brook.
"There!" said Jonas, "there is your bridge."
Rollo looked at it with astonishment and pleasure.
"Now," said Jonas, "I will come and help you over."
"No," said Rollo, "I can come over myself. I can take hold of the
branches for a railing."
So Rollo began to climb along the stem of the tree, holding on
carefully by the branches. When he reached the middle of the stream, he
stopped to look down into the water.
"This is a capital bridge of yours, Jonas," said he. "How beautiful the
water looks down here! O, I see a little fish! He is swimming along by a
great rock. Now he is standing perfectly still. O, Jonas, come and see
him."
"No," said Jonas, "I must mind my work."
After a little time, Rollo went carefully on over the bridge, and sat
down on the bank of the brook. But he did not have with him the parcel
his mother gave him. He had left it on the other side.
After he had watched the fishes, and thrown pebble-stones into the brook
some time, he began to be tired, and he asked Jonas what he had better
do.
"I think you had better build a wigwam."
"A wigwam? What is a wigwam?" said Rollo.
"It is a little house made of bushes such as the Indians live in."
"O, I could not make a house," said Rollo.
"I think you could if I should tell you how, and help you a little."
"But you say _you_ must mind your work."
"Yes,--I can mind my work and tell you at the same time."
Rollo thought he should like to build a wigwam very much. Jonas told him
the first thing to be done was to find a good place, where the ground
was level. Rollo looked at a good many places, but at last chose a
smooth spot under a great oak tree, which Jonas said he was not going to
cut down. It was near a beautiful turn in the brook, where the water was
very deep.
Jonas told him that the first thing was to make a little stake, and
drive it down in the middle of his wigwam-ground. Then Rollo recollected
that he had left his hatchet over on the other side of the brook,
together with the parcel his mother gave him; and he was going over to
get them, when Jonas told him he would trim up the bridge a little, and
then he could go over more easily.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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