By the time the Duvals helped themselves to the old wharf, much of its soft black surface was broken out with patches of green grass, sturdy thistles, and many other interesting weeds. There were even numbers of small but graceful trees fringing the inner edge of the old wharf, from which they cast most beautiful reflections into the still waters of the Cinder Pond. No quieter, more deserted spot could be imagined. Jeannette's father, Léon Duval, built a house for his family on the southwest corner of the crumbling dock, three hundred feet from land. When you have never built a house; and when you have no money with which to buy house-building materials, about the only thing you can do is to pick up whatever you can find and put it together to the best of your small ability. That is precisely what Léon Duval did. Bricks from the old furnace, boards from an old barn, part of the cabin from a wrecked steamboat, nails from driftwood along the shore, rusty stove pipe from the city dump ground; all went into the house that, for many years, was to shelter the Duvals. When finished, it was of no particular shape and no particular size. Owing to the triangular nature of the wharf, at the point chosen, the house had to ramble a good deal, and mostly lengthwise--like a caterpillar. For several reasons, it had a great many doors and very few windows. For as long as Jeanne could remember, she had lived in this queer, home-made, tumble-down, one-story cabin; perched on the outside--that is, the _lake_ side--of the deserted wharf. On the day of the mishap to Roger Fairchild's navy-blue suit, Jeanne, having put on what was left of her only dress, proceeded to build a fire in the rusty, ramshackle stove that occupied the middle section of her very queer home. Then, without stopping to figure out how many half-brothers it took to make a whole one, she helped three of these half-portions, all with tousled heads of reddish hair, into various ragged garments. Perhaps, if all the Duvals had risen at once, the house wouldn't have held them. At any rate, the older members of the family stayed abed until the smaller children had scampered either northward or eastward along the wharf, one to get water, one to get wood. And then came the adventure. Roger didn't _look_ like an adventure. Most anyone would have mistaken him for just a plump boy in _very_ good clothes. He carried himself--and a brand-new fish-pole--with an air of considerable importance. He had risen early for some especial reason; and the reason, evidently, was located near the outer edge of the Duval dock; because, having reached a jutting timber a few feet east of the Duval mansion, he proceeded to make himself comfortable.