While these mothers were discussing their boys, the youngsters themselves were busy behind the barn, building a hut down near the railway track. There were six of them altogether, the three extra ones, besides Archie Dunn and the Sullivan boys, having come from across the railway to play for the day. Two hours before they had solemnly organised themselves into the “Hut Club,” each boy walking three times around the block blindfolded, and swearing upon his return to be true to all the rules and regulations of the organisation, which had been written with chalk on the side of the barn. The regulations were numerous, but the most important one was that no East Side boys were to be allowed within the club-room when it was built, and that the club’s policy should be one of warfare against the East Siders on every occasion when they met. This fight against the East Side was, indeed, responsible for the organisation of the club. It was felt necessary to have some head to their forces, and some means of holding together. So the club was organised, and now the next thing on the programme was the erection of a hut to serve as a club-house. Archie Dunn, who had been elected president, volunteered to get three boards and a hammer if the other boys would each get two boards and some nails. This proposition was agreed to, and when the boys returned from their foraging expeditions it was found that there were more than enough boards to build the hut, so the work began at once. Holes were dug in the ground, and some posts planted as supports for the structure, and then the boards were hastily nailed together from post to post. In three hours the hut was practically completed, and it remained only to lay a floor until they could hold their first meeting in the new club-house. The floor itself was down by noon, and the club then served a memorable dinner to mark the completion of the structure. A hole was dug in the ground outside the door, and a furnace made. A skillet was brought from Archie’s house, together with some dishes and a coffee-pot, and Dan Sullivan brought some more dishes, and six eggs from his nests under the barn. The boys were obliged to make several trips to and from the houses, but finally nearly everything was ready, and the eggs were carefully cooked by Archie, who was really a good housekeeper, from long experience in the kitchen with his mother. Some potatoes were fried in the grease remaining in the skillet after the eggs were cooked, and then the feast began. The eggs may have been rather black with grease, and the potatoes were certainly not done, but the boys all pronounced it the finest meal of their lives, notwithstanding the bitter coffee, and the dirty bread, which had been allowed to fall into the gutter beside the railway track. They were eating in their own house, and they had cooked in the open air, “just like tramps,” Harry Rafe said, and it was little wonder that they enjoyed the novel experience.