“Wow! Ouch!” and Holly Cross dropped the hatchet he was using in place of a hammer, and held his thumb in his mouth. “Jerusalem crickets!” he cried. “I’ll never be able to practice football if I keep on this way!”
There was a riot of sounds: hammering, planing, and chiseling, and sawing; and, mingled with them, the clatter of the lads’ voices, in entreaties, commands, appeals for help, asking for advice, or, as Holly’s was, raised in agony over some misdirected blow.
Work on rebuilding the grandstand was in full swing. On examination of the wrecked structure after the storm, it was found that nearly all the material in it could be used over again. All the new lumber that would be needed would be some heavy joists, to take the place of those broken in the collapse.
They were quite expensive to buy, but a lumber dealer who heard of the boys’ plight agreed to let them have the timber, and to wait as long as they liked for his pay. He even furnished a couple of men to raise the heavy pieces into place, and the boys voted him a first-class “sport,” and sent him a season complimentary ticket to all the games.
It was not as easy as it sounds, nor as simple as the boys had expected, to rebuild the structure, but they went at it with hearty good will, and a determination, in the path of which nothing could stand. The several janitors gave them all the aid they could, but the boys did most of the work, after they were told just how to do it.
Frank Simpson was of great help, for he was probably the strongest and biggest lad in college, and the way he could shoulder a beam, and walk off with it to where it was needed in the work was something to look at and admire.
“But you fellows needn’t stop work to watch Frank,” said Tom Parsons, who, because of his knowledge of carpentry, and because he had proposed the scheme, was, by common consent, made a sort of foreman. “Get busy, and do some of the lifting yourselves,” he advised.
“I say, Tom,” demanded Sid, “what makes these boards split every time I try to nail them on these four-by-fours? I must be a hoodoo, for I’ve split half a dozen.”
“Those aren’t four-by-fours,” declared Tom. “They’re two-by-fours, or scantling, and there are a lot of reasons why you split the boards.”
“Give me one, and I’ll be satisfied.”