“That will do for that,” Billy commanded suddenly. His little force stopped, breathless and red-cheeked. “Now I’m going to dig out the room. I guess I’ll have to do this. If you’re not careful enough, the roof will cave in. Then it’s all got to be done again.”
Working very slowly, he began to hollow out the structure. After the hole had grown big enough, he crawled into it. But in spite of his own warning, he must have been too energetic in his movements. Suddenly the roof came down on his head.
Billy was on his feet in an instant, shaking the snow off as a dog shakes off water.
“Why, Billy, you look like a snow-man,” Maida laughed.
“I feel like one,” Billy said, wiping the snow from his eyes and from under his collar. “But don’t be discouraged, my hearties, up with it again. I’ll be more careful the next time.”
They went at it again with increased interest, heaping up a mound of snow bigger than before, beating it until it was as hard as a brick, hollowing out inside a chamber big enough for three of them to occupy at once. But Billy gave them no time to enjoy their new dwelling.
“Run into the house,” was his next order, “and bring out all the water you can carry.”
There was a wild scramble to see which would get to the sink first but in a few moments, an orderly file emerged from the house, Arthur with a bucket, Dicky with a basin, Rosie with the dish-pan, Maida with a dipper.
“Now I’m going to pour water over the house,” Billy explained. “You see if it freezes now it will last longer.” Very carefully, he sprayed it on the sides and roof, dashing it upwards on the inside walls:
“We might as well make it look pretty while we’re about it,” Billy continued. “You children get to work and make a lot of snow-balls the size of an orange and just as round as you can turn them out.”