CHAPTER XII
TROUBLE IS LOST
"What sort of house are you going to build, Uncle Frank?" asked Ted, as he and his sister watched their uncle and their aunt out in the big yard back of the house.
"Well, I call it a shack, though your aunt calls it a bungalow," was the answer. "Between us I guess we'll manage to make something in which you Curlytops can have fun. I've made 'em like this on the prairies—those are the big, wide plains, you know, out West, where there are very few trees, and not much lumber," he went on. "We have to use old boards, tree limbs, when we can find them, and anything else we come across.
"It used to be that way, though there is more lumber now. But I've often taken a few sticks and boards and made a sort of shelter and then covered it with snow. It will stand up almost all winter, if you don't let a goat knock it down," he added with a laugh.
"We won't let Nicknack knock this snow bungalow down," said Janet.
"No, we'll coax him to be good," added Aunt Jo.
It had stopped snowing, though heavy clouds overhead seemed to hold more that might fall down later, and the Curlytops had not given up hope of being snowed in, though really they did not know all the trouble that might be caused by such a thing.
There were plenty of boards and sticks in the Martin barn and around it, and Aunt Jo and Uncle Frank had soon made a framework for the bungalow. It was larger than the first snow house the children had made, and it was to have a wooden door to it so the cold could be kept out better than with a blanket.
"What are you doing?" asked Tom Taylor on Thanksgiving day morning, when he came over to play with Jan and Ted.