“I guess not!” she said. “But what a lucky thing for Mrs. Pratt that you happened to have just the sort of wood she needed!”
“Oh, well, we’d have managed somehow. Of course, it makes it easier, but we’d have juggled things around some way, even if this chap’s plans didn’t fit her foundations. As it happens, though, they do. Old Tom Pratt had a mighty well-built house here.”
“Well, I’m quite sure that just as good a one is going up in its place.”
Jud Harkness watched the work of getting out the last of the rubbish. Then he went over to the cleared foundations, and in a moment he was putting up the first of the four corner posts, great beams that looked stout enough to hold up a far bigger house than the one they were to support.
All morning the work went on merrily. As Eleanor had predicted, and Bessie, too, there was plenty for the girls to do. The sun grew hotter and hotter, and the men were glad of the cooling drinks that were so liberally provided for them.
“This is fine!” said Jud Harkness, as he quaffed a great drink of lemonade, well iced. “My, but it’s a pleasure to work when it’s made so nice for you! I tell you, having these cool drinks here is worth an extra hour’s work, morning and afternoon. And what’s that—just the nails I want? I’ll give you a job as helper, young woman!”
That remark was addressed to Bessie, who flushed with pleasure at the thought that she was playing a part, however small, in the building of the house. And, indeed, the girls all did their part, and their help was royally welcomed by the men.
Quickly the skeleton of the house took form, and by noon, when work was to be knocked off for an hour, the whole framework was up.
“I simply wouldn’t have believed it, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes!” said Eleanor. “It’s the most wonderful thing I ever saw!”
“Oh, shucks!” said Jud, embarrassed by such, praise. “There’s lots of us—I don’t think we’ve done so awful well. But it does look kind of nice, don’t it?”