“Was there ever anything to equal that?” cried Billie, breaking the silence which had settled upon them during the concert.
“The darling little fellow,” exclaimed Elinor. “Anybody would suppose he had come to make a morning call on a sick friend and give him a concert to cheer him up.”
“Virginia’s house must be near here, because she told me herself Dick never went far from home,” Mary observed.
“There’s no telling,” answered Billie. “I’ve lost all sense of direction in this place; but I think we’d better get to work,” she answered, glancing at her blue enamel watch. “It’s eleven o’clock. Edward, do you think we could knock some of the planks off the lower part of the house without doing much damage?”
Edward, who had been lying flat on his back in a day dream, pulled himself together and jumped up quickly.
“Of course,” he said apologetically, “if we can find anything to do it with.”
“Perhaps, if the hermit built his own house, he has a few tools,” said Mary. “Let’s look in and see, at any rate.”
Sure enough, they did find an old rusty hatchet standing in one corner of the room. The house had been built on a slight foundation consisting of four pine stumps about a foot high and the space from the floor to the ground level was covered with planking. It was these boards Billie’s quick thought had designed to remove.
Warming to the work, Edward hammered vigorously, but it was very difficult to release the thick boards which had been secured with long nails. Edward’s slim, piano-playing hands seemed hardly strong enough for the task and after the top nails had been loosened, the four girls, sitting in a row beside him, each took hold and began to pull. The rusty nails clung to the wood with irritating obstinacy and then after all gave way unexpectedly, as obstinate things and people are apt to do. Over they went on their backs in a laughing, giggling confusion of skirts and feet, with the plank on top of them.
They sat up rubbing the dust from their eyes.