“Well, you know now,” said Jack. “What do the others say about it?”
“Yes, you’re captain, Jack,” said Mike and Peggy together. “Ay, ay, sir!”
Nobody said any more. Nora and Peggy washed up in the lake and cleared the things away neatly. They put some more wood on the fire to keep it burning, because Jack said it was silly to keep on lighting it.
Then they ran off to join the boys in the willow thicket.
Jack had been busy. He had chopped down some willow saplings - young willow-trees - with his axe, and had cut off the longer branches.
“We’ll use these to drive into the ground for walls,” said Jack. “Where’s that old spade, Mike? Did you bring it as I said?”
“Yes, here it is,” said Mike. “Shall I dig holes to drive the sapling trunks into?”
“Yes,” said Jack. “Dig them fairly deep.”
So Mike dug hard in the hot sun, making holes for Jack to ram the willow wood into. The girls stripped the leaves off the chopped-down trees, and with Jack’s knife cut off the smaller twigs. They trimmed up the bigger branches nicely.
Everyone worked hard until the sun began to go down. The house was not yet built - it would take some days to do that - but at any rate there was a fine roof, and part of the wall was up. The children could quite well see how the house would look when it was done - and certainly it would be big, and very strong. They felt proud of themselves.