They filled the kettle. It was lovely up there on the hillside in the June sun. Bees hummed and butterflies flew all round. Birds sang, and two or three moorhens cried “Fulluck, fulluck!” from the water below.
“Let’s go to the top of the hill and see if we can spy anyone coming up or down the lake,” said Jack. So they went right up to the top, but not a sign of anyone could they see. The waters of the lake were calm and clear and blue. Not a boat was on it. The children might have been quite alone in the world.
They went down to the girls with the full kettle. Nora and Peggy proudly showed the boys how they had arranged the stores. They had used the big roots for shelves, and the bottom of the little cave they had used for odds and ends, such as Jack’s axe and knife, the hammer and nails, and so on.
“It’s a nice dry place,” said Peggy. “It’s just right for a larder, and it’s so nice and near the cove. Jack, where are we going to build our house?”
Jack took the girls and Mike to the west end of the cove, where there was a thicket of willows. He forced his way through them and showed the others a fine clear place right in the very middle of the trees.
“Here’s the very place,” he said. “No one would ever guess there was a house just here, if we built one! The willows grow so thickly that I don’t suppose anyone but ourselves would ever know they could be got through.”
They talked about their house until they were tired out. They made their way back to the little beach and Jack said they would each have a cup of cocoa, a piece of cake, and go to bed!
He and Mike soon made a fire. There were plenty of dry twigs about, and bigger bits of wood. It did look cheerful to see the flames dancing. Jack could not use his little magnifying glass to set light to the paper or twigs because the sun was not hot enough then. It was sinking down in the west. He used a match. He set the kettle on the fire to boil.
“It would be better to-morrow to swing the kettle over the flames on a tripod of sticks,” he said. “It will boil more quickly then.”
But nobody minded how slowly the kettle boiled.