"It's awful dirty where the snow worked in through the fence. Let's fix her up." Down into the basement went Bill at the words, and reappeared with an old broom, a hammer, and some nails.
"A lot of the boards are loose," he said, as the boys grabbed the implements.
Sid stood around and offered voluble suggestions, but the others fell to work with a will. At the end of a half-hour the dirt floor was brushed free of debris with a thoroughness never attained on maternal cleaning assignments, and the little desk was dragged from its winter shelter of the house to occupy the customary position of state.
Red Brown stretched out on the springy, alluring sod near the building. John and Sid, Skinny and Silvey, followed his example.
"Isn't this great?" the red-haired one asked blissfully. Sid reverted to the cause for the summons of the clan.
"How about the 'Jeffersons'?" he asked.
Babel reigned instantly. Silvey was for picking them off, one by one. Red counseled a sudden descent in force upon the home haunts of the enemy. A rear window in the Silvey house creaked upward, and a feminine voice pierced the sun-filled air.
"Land's sakes, Bill Silvey, get off that wet ground this minute. You'll catch your death of cold lying there this early in April."
The boy sprang to his feet, while his friends grinned sympathetically.
"And you, John Fletcher," Mrs. Silvey went on, "you needn't laugh. Your mother won't like it a bit better, if I telephone her. She'll call you home in a minute!"