“You always want Ada Blake to go everywhere,” pouted Flaxie. “We can invite her for company, if you want to, but ’twill be our house.”
Johnny thought it all nonsense, but consented to undertake the business. He drove four stakes into the ground, near a beautiful maple-tree, and then nailed boards on the stakes all around, making a pen about three feet high. Everybody looked on deeply interested. After that he and Freddy went fishing. The little girls felt very impatient.
“Oh dear,” said Milly, “it doesn’t look much like a house. You’d think it was for pigs to live in.”
Next day it rained; but the day after, as Johnny could get no peace of his life, he nailed on more boards, till the pen was so high you couldn’t see over it, unless you stood on tiptoe. That was high enough; but where was the roof?
“Oh, bother, what do you want of a roof? Hold up your umbrella.”
“Next house I make I’ll make it myself!” cried Flaxie, stamping her foot.
That amused good-natured Johnny, and he called together some of the boys, to help him put on a sloping roof. Then he sawed a door in the side next the river; and when all was done the building looked so much like a “truly house” that the little girls screamed for joy, and Johnny felt rather proud of his work.
“Tell you what,” said he, looking around at the boys, “this is the house that Jack built. Now let’s saw a hole in the roof and put in a stove-pipe.”
Ah, Johnny! Johnny! it was thoughtless enough to use those boards without leave; but to put in a stove-pipe was downright madness!
The girls were charmed, and wanted a fireplace immediately. Why not? That wasn’t much to make, and they made it themselves with the loose pieces of brick they picked out of the old hearth in the recitation-room.