“It is so stony.”
“Stony?” said Dwight.
“Yes,” said Caleb, “I don't think I could walk on it very well.”
“O,” said Dwight, “we are going to make the top very smooth, when we get it done.”
“How?” said Caleb.
“Why, we are going to haul gravel on it, and smooth it all down.”
“Why can't we do it now?” said David, “as we go along: and then we can wheel our wheelbarrow out upon it, and tip our stones in at the end.”
“Agreed,” said Dwight; and they accordingly leveled the stones off on the top, and put small stones in at all the interstices, that is, the little spaces between the large stones, so as to prevent the gravel from running down through. Then they went and got a load of gravel out of a bank pretty near, and spread it down over the top, and it made a good, smooth road; only, it was not trodden down hard at first, and so it was not very easy wheeling over it.
They found one difficulty, however, and that was that the gravel rolled over each side of the mole, and went into the water. To prevent this, they arranged the largest stones on each side, in a row, for the edge, and then filled in with gravel up to the edge, and thus they gradually advanced towards the middle of the stream, finishing the mole completely as they went on. Caleb then said he liked it very much, and wanted to walk on it. So the boys let him. He went out to the end, and stood there a minute, and then said that he wished he had his whip there, to whip in a stick which was sailing down a little way off.
“Where is your whip?” said David.