“Nope. I’m just going to dig a big hole and see how deep I can make it. Then it won’t seem so long waiting until it’s time to go to grandpa’s.”
“Oh! Let me help?” begged Jan. “I love to dig!”
“I’ll let you shovel away the dirt I dig,” promised her brother. “But don’t let Trouble see us.”
“Why not?”
“Because he might fall down the hole, and if I make it deep maybe we couldn’t get him out.”
“Nora took him to the store with her,” answered Janet. “He won’t bother us for awhile.”
“All right. Then we’ll dig.”
Part of the Martin yard was the children’s playground, where they were allowed to do about as they pleased. Ted was fond of digging in the sandy soil, and he often made forts, tunnels and cities in the earth, Jan helping in this play.
Picking out a spot where the soil was soft, Ted began to dig.
“You poke the dirt away when I shovel it up,” Ted ordered his sister, for though she sometimes told him what to do, like a “little mother” when it came to anything like this Ted was the “boss.”