“Well, what’s all the trouble?” he inquired genially of everyone in general. So they told him. Mr. Sloane did not hesitate a moment.
“I got a friend that owns some good, water-tight scows,” said he most unexpectedly. “They ain’t doin’ nobody any good, and I guess he’d loan ’em to you, or, if wust come to wust, he’d let you have the use of ’em for maybe seventy-five cents apiece. Two scows are all you’d need to put the plankin’ across.”
He gave them directions as to where to go after the scows’ owner, and ambled on in search of a quieter fishing-place. An embassy was sent after the scows immediately, and returned with them in triumph. They proved perfectly seaworthy, and quite equal to supporting all they would have to. So when Winona arrived on the scene after luncheon the girls had reached the stage of nailing the planks across.
They had bargained for the scows at seventy-five cents each, as Mr. Sloane had said they would be able to, and promised to give them a coat of paint before they returned them. The boards, bought of the village carpenter, were more expensive. However, the girls thought they could venture to pay for them out of the treasury, on the strength of the orders ahead that they had taken. Marie and Edith were supervising things.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Winona asked Marie, who was frowning thoughtfully over a hastily-drawn plan.
“Not unless you can help us with this design,” Marie answered. “See here. The idea is to make a miniature Indian village. How would you group the tents so as to take up the least room and show best?”
“Why do you try to draw it?” asked Winona. “Why not do as generals do, make little paper tents and move them around till you get a tableau of the effect you want?”
The idea was new to Marie, but she liked it, and the three girls fell to constructing little paper cones, and arranging them on a square space that represented the float.
Presently one of the girls who was nailing dropped out with a pounded thumb, and Winona took up her hammer and went to work. She discovered that the driving of a nail straight, and making boards lie side by side evenly, is more of an art than people know.
They worked on the float most of that afternoon, except for a few of the girls who were told off to do the Scout mending, and they sat down near the carpenters and sewed sociably to the sound of the pounding. They worked till six, and went to bed unusually early.