Thirteen stone posts would be required for the water-foundations of the boat-house, and Captain Gildrock rode to the quarryman's house at once to order them. Early the next morning the principal went to Burlington, and ordered the lumber. Before breakfast, Bolly, assisted by the other students, staked out the building. The approximate positions of the foundation posts were indicated by mooring sticks with stones in the bay. But the lessons went on as usual, and the boating and swimming exercises were not interrupted.
The boys were full of enthusiasm, and were impatient for the actual work of the house to begin. The more they considered the plan which had been adopted the better they liked it. All the plans which had been offered for the prizes were returned to the makers of them; but quite a number of the competitors destroyed them as soon as they got hold of them, and no one but themselves and the committee ever knew what blunders they had made. Yet a few of them were not ashamed to exhibit their work.
Not a single one of them had selected the location chosen by Bolly Millweed. Some of them had bridged the lake, and put the boat-house over in the grove, but most of them had placed it near the old wharf. One admitted that he had made the structure two hundred feet long, with dressing-rooms ten feet square.
For a week the principal said nothing about the new building, except that he had ordered the lumber. The boys knew that the quarryman was at work with all his force on the foundations, and they were nearly ready. At the close of the school on Friday, about a week after the adoption of the plans, the principal took his place on the platform.
"To-morrow will be our usual day for a steamer trip, but I will change the programme a little," said he. "We shall go to Burlington and tow the wharf-caisson, or box, up to the quarry. I concluded to have this affair constructed by a bridge-builder at Burlington, for it was rather too heavy a job for boys to manage."
The boys manifested their satisfaction at the announcement by applause. It would be fun to tow the caisson up the lake, and get it through the creek, to the quarry. But why was it going to the quarry?
"We shall load the thirteen stone posts upon it, and bring them down all at once," replied the principal in answer to this question. "It is built of tun timber, and the sticks needed to raise it to the proper height as a wharf will be placed inside of it."
"Tun timber; what is that?" asked Ben Ludlow.
"It is a name given to timber a foot square or more."
"How about the slant for the bottom?" asked Bolly, with some anxiety on his face, for he was afraid his idea in its construction had not been carried out.