It was Buster who got the tools, while Paul grabbed up nails which he saw lying on the mantel over the stove in the kitchen. Fifteen minutes later the wind was partially shut off from the room—at least enough to permit the boys to have a fire inside.
“Now, fellows, let’s get some newspapers—there ought to be some around here somewhere. We’ll make some flour paste and line the inside of these boards so that the air can’t get in so easily,” Frank ordered next.
When this was done, the boys prepared their breakfast and started the fire in the living room, chatting the while over the excitement of the falling tree.
“I thought the end of the world had come,” said Paul.
“I knew it!” laughed Lanky.
During the morning the boys took turns cutting the great white pine into firewood. First the branches had to be trimmed away, laying bare the trunk. Then came the arduous labor of cutting it into four long pieces so that it could be more easily handled and turned over.
It was in the afternoon, their young bodies tired, yet refreshed by a good dinner, they started out on the lake to fish.
All idea of using the spot which they had used as a water hole was cast aside, none of the boys thinking they could get fish so near to the shore line. So, trudging out on the lake, not having brought their skates, they reached a point fully an eighth of a mile distant from the shore and here cut a square of about two feet.
They dropped lines in and waited for a while without results. Then, of a sudden, one bob went under and Lanky Wallace brought a medium sized pickerel out—one that had been too anxious to find something to eat.
“First hit!” gleefully yelled Lanky. “That’s the way to play this game! You fellows want me to show you how? It’s just this way,” and Lanky got the fish off the hook, baited it again, and stood around the hole for fully a half hour, getting nothing more—while the other boys each got a bite and each landed his fish.