He didn’t answer anything, but kept right on chopping. Pretty soon he had a notch cut out about three inches deep. The bottom edge of the notch was parallel with the ground. When he had that finished he chopped another notch in the opposite tree.
“There,” says he, “that’s a b-b-beginning.”
I didn’t say anything, because I couldn’t guess what he was up to, and it isn’t safe to make fun of one of his schemes till you’re pretty sure it isn’t going to work.
The next thing he did was to cut a chunk off the little tree just long enough to reach from the inside edge of the notch in one tree to the inside edge of the notch in the other. It was a tight fit, and he had to pound to make it go in. But it did go. There, about three feet above the ground, was a six-inch-thick log running from one tree to the other, and up good and solid.
“S-see now?” Mark asked.
I did see. He gave me the ax, and I cut notches in the other two trees, and in them we fitted another small log. The rest was easy. Between the two we laid a lot of poles, and on top of the poles we piled boughs and leaves until we had a good, soft bed. When that was done we had a place to sleep, but we didn’t have anything to keep away the mosquitoes. Neither had we had anything to eat.
We built two fires, one to cook by and the other for a smudge. I suppose we could have eaten raw potatoes if we had to, but we didn’t have to. Mark fussed around under some bundles and pulled out some bacon he’d sliced at the house, and some potatoes. Then out of a box of sand he dug four eggs. I knew I might have trusted him to see we wouldn’t starve.
By the time we had supper cooked and eaten and the things washed up we were plenty tired. We’d have gone off to bed, only we didn’t think the mosquitoes would let us sleep.
We sat up awhile in the smudge, but finally I couldn’t stand it any longer. It was too nasty on the ground. We both climbed up on the bed and rolled up in our blankets.
“H-hope we find your uncle Hieronymous before another n-night,” says Mark.