ace about twelve feet square or so on the
ground, and cleared it of grass, rocks, and pebbles. To this they
dragged some of the drift logs which they found near by, and so began a
rough sort of foundation. They had no nails which they could spare and
not even a hammer, but the axe they found very useful in shaping the
ends of the logs so that they would stay in place. They drove stakes to
hold the corners together better and to keep the walls from falling
down; and between the logs they put in chinking of moss, grass, and mud.
Even before the end of their first day they had quite a start on their
new house, and were eager for the next day's work, sore and crippled as
they were.

On the following day they made house-building their first order. By noon
they had their side walls fairly well laid up with logs, which now gave
them some trouble to hoist and to keep in place. They towed drift-wood
now into the creek, having used up most of the material which lay close
at hand.

The roof gave them the most trouble. They built their side walls about
four feet high, but they did not know how to keep the roof from falling
in. They did not wish to plant any poles in the centre of the barabbara,
as that would take up too much room and would interfere with the
fireplace. They had no means of joining or framing any timbers for the
roof, and they did not know how to make an arch. At last Jesse hit upon
an idea.

"I'll tell you," said he; "we'll get some long poles and rest them on
the top of the walls and plant the ends in the dirt and weight them down
with rocks there. Then the other ends will stick in over the walls
toward the centre, and will do for rafters for us to put our roof on.
We'll leave a hole in the centre where the rafters don't meet. In that
way we can have a roof without any posts in the middle of our house, so
that the inside will all be clear room."

This crude idea of architecture appealed to the others and, indeed,
proved rather effective, although it was different from the plan on
which their old barabbara was built. They had some trouble in getting
poles sufficiently long, but at last succeeded. On these they laid such
flatter pieces as they could find in the drift-wood wreckage, piecing
out the roof with poles and covering it all with grass and moss. Over
this they put yet other timbers, and stones, and finished all with a
heavy cover of dirt. This labor occupied them all that day and nearly
three days more,