"What's the matter with, 'A Hot Time in the Old Town To-night'?" asked Ralph.
"We'll have that in our forts before night," said Robert.
The sled turned into the Ark driveway an hour before dinner, with its load loudly singing: "Ching-a-ling-a-lu," which was so pretty, with its chromatic effects given in harmony, Margery's sweet voice sustained by Laura as another soprano—for with Robert there Laura was not obliged to sing tenor as she usually did—Happie and Gretta's alto, Ralph and Bob and Snigs humming baritone and bass, and Robert singing fine tenor, that Miss Keren dashed out to hear it as well as to welcome her merry crowd. "You don't know how well that sounded," she cried.
"Don't we!" cried Happie. "Aunt Keren, we have warbled our way up the hillsides and back, and plaudits are echoing still on our track, we think that as singers there's nothing we lack, but, oh, you can't guess how our dinner will smack!"
Happie jumped out over the side of the sled as she uttered this remarkable inspiration, and the companions she thus left sitting among the straw burst into applause that actually made Don Dolor plunge and threaten to get up on his hind legs.
"You ridiculous child!" cried Miss Keren. "Rosie has enough to satisfy you, and it is almost ready, so get yourselves ready, and don't tell me anything about the drive until we are at the table."
Dinner was a rapid, but not a slender meal, that day. The snow forts were as interesting as though the boys were not almost grown up and Robert Gaston had not cast his first presidential vote for President Roosevelt.
Margery and Laura were non-combatants. They were to mold the bullets, which meant that, one on each side, they were to make snowballs for their warriors.
The forts went up quickly, the object being to make them resistant, but not too much so. The boys wanted one or the other of them to fall at the end of the scrimmage. Still, when the walls were up they did pour a few pails of water over them to stiffen them, for there was not much doubt that it would freeze.
It was bitterly cold, but the garrison of the two forts, equal in numbers if not in prowess, marched into them—Robert, with his two amazons, Gretta and Happie; Bob, Ralph and Snigs to oppose them.