The next morning both Charlie and his Daddy got up early; they got up at six o’clock! They each had a glass of milk and a cookie, then they went into the garden and began to work.
First they started piling bricks into the trench, one on top of two others, ex-act-ly the way Charlie had seen the builders doing it; and his Daddy showed him how to put the mortar on each brick with a flat trowel that he had found in the woodshed and that looked ex-act-ly like the one the builders used. It is very important to put the mortar on right, as that is what makes the bricks stick together.
Before breakfast Charlie and his Daddy had ac-tu-al-ly finished the foundation! Charlie was very glad that he had his Daddy to help him—why, if it had not been for his Daddy I don’t think that Charlie would have thought of building any foundation for his house, and then it would have blown down!
Well, you may be sure that the moment they had finished breakfast, and when Charlie’s Daddy had smoked just one cigarette, they both of them were hard at work on the house again.
For one reason Charlie was sorry that it was a legal holiday, and that was because the builders were having a holiday, too, and Charlie would have liked them to see him in his overalls that were all covered with mortar and pink with brick dust—so that he looked ex-act-ly like a real builder.
Well, they worked and they worked. And you never can guess how clever Charlie’s Daddy was. He was just as clever as a real builder. Yes, Charlie’s Daddy ac-tu-al-ly knew how to make a window in the house—and a door also! The window went all the way to the top of the roof and so did the door, for Charlie’s Daddy said that there was one thing he did not know how to do that a real builder knows, and that is how to make an arch, with a keystone! Soon the house was tall enough for Charlie to go in at the door, and then his Daddy said that the front of the house was tall enough. But the sides had to be built sloping higher toward the back so that the roof should slope—it is very important that a house should have a sloping roof so that the water may drain off it when it rains.
At last his Daddy said, “There, the house is finished, all but the roof!”
Charlie was excited! He jumped and he shouted, “My house is nearly finished, my house is nearly finished!”
Then his Daddy went off to the woodshed and he brought back a whole lot of boards and a roll of tar paper. He put the boards all across the roof and covered them with tar paper—and THE HOUSE WAS FINISHED!
Yes, it was ac-tu-al-ly finished. It had a beautiful doorway, and a window and a roof—anybody could see that it was a real house.