“I hope you’ll find him,” said Tom, again. “Say, I know what we can do while we’re resting,” he went on.
“What?”
“We can make a raft and go riding in the pond,” answered Tom. “It’s got lots of water in now, after the rain. We can make a raft from the fence boards and have a dandy sail.”
Ted thought about it for a moment, and then said:
“That’s what we’ll do! We can take off our shoes and stockings, ’cause a raft isn’t like a boat. The water sloshes all up on it. We’ll go barefoot, and we’ll have a lot of fun.”
The pond where the boys had sat down to rest in the shade was not usually deep enough to float a raft, or any boat except tiny toy ones. But since the rain two days before had made the pond larger and deeper, and also muddier, there was, as Tom had said, water enough to let a small raft of boards be paddled around in it.
This raft Ted and Tom now started to make. There were plenty of loose fence boards near the pond, and some of the boards had nails in them. Using stones for hammers, the two boys knocked out some of the rusty nails, and drove them in again, fastening a number of boards together. Then they put the raft in the water. It floated, but when Tom and Ted stood on it, the raft sank out of sight under the muddy surface.
“But it doesn’t touch bottom!” cried Ted, as he pushed it about with a willow pole. “It floats, and we don’t care if we get our feet wet, ’cause we’ve got our shoes and stockings off.”
“Hi! We’ll have lots of fun!” cried Tom.
And the boys did. They pushed the raft to and fro, from one side of the little meadow pond to the other. They pretended they were making long voyages, and half the time Ted was captain of the “ship,” and the other half it was Tom’s turn.