“Does Aunt Louise expect her house to last three or four thousand years?”
“She wants it durable; and fireproof, any way, because we’re some distance from the engine house.”
“If we watch this house grow it will be almost like building it with our own hands, won’t it?” exclaimed Ethel Brown, for, although the house was her aunt’s, Mrs. Smith had made all the cousins feel that she wanted them to have a share in the pleasure that she and Dorothy were having in making a shelter for themselves after their many years of wandering. She and her daughter consulted over every part of the plans and they had often asked the opinion of the Mortons, so that they all had come to say “our house” quite as if it were to belong to them.
As they approached the knoll which they had been calling “our house lot” for several months, they saw that the gravel for the concrete was being hauled to the top of the hill where the bags of sand and cement had already been unloaded and a small concrete mixer set up.
“They do things fast, don’t they!” exclaimed Dorothy. “There’s Mr. Anderson, the contractor.”
A tall, substantial Scotsman bowed to them as they reached the top of the hill.
“Have you come to superintend us, Miss Dorothy?” he asked pleasantly. “We’re going to make all our preparations for mixing the concrete to-day, and then we’ll start up the machine to-morrow.”
“You won’t have the cellar wall all built by to-morrow after school, will you?” asked Dorothy anxiously. “We want to see how you do it.”
“It won’t take long to do this small cellar so you’d better hurry right here from your luncheon,” Mr. Anderson returned as he walked away to attend to the placing of the pile of gravel, and to lay a friendly hand on the sides of the panting horses.
“If your driveway doesn’t wind around more than this road that the hauling men have made all your friends’ horses will be puffing like mills when they reach the top,” Ethel Blue warned her cousin.