ave to stay starved, young man," said his mother, laughing,
"because not a basket is to be opened till the coals are ready for
cooking."

"Then let's make a sand castle," suggested Betty and she ran down to a
smooth place on the beach, away from possible smoke, and began molding the
white sand.

That pleased Mary Jane. She hadn't forgotten the fun she had playing on
the beach in Florida, and while this beach was different--it didn't have
any of the pretty shells or funny little crawdads she had found on the
Florida beach--still it had lovely white sand and dainty little waves and
was quite the nicest place for play that Mary Jane had seen.

"I'll tell you what let's do," suggested Alice, as she saw that all the
children were going to play in the sand, "let's each build a castle and
make it any way we like best and then when they're all finished, have an
exhibition and everybody look and see which is the best."

"All right, let's," agreed the children and they set to work.

Mary Jane chose for her castle a place down close by the water. She loved
the nearness of the waves and the thrill of knowing that maybe, if she
didn't watch out, a wave would come up really close and get her wet. Betty
picked out a spot nearer the fire on the side away from the smoke and
Alice chose a place where a few pretty pebbles would give her material
with which to pave a "moat" she intended to make.

And then everybody set to work. So busy were they that Linn had to tend
the fire all by himself and Ed forgot he was hungry.

Before very long that beach looked like a picture book. Towers and ditches
and castles and bridges were where flat sand had been a few minutes
before. The Holden children had made many a sand house and they knew just
how to pack the damp sand so it would stay in place and just how to put a
small board here and there to hold a second story or a tower straight and
tall.

But with all their experience, Alice's castle was as pretty as theirs, or
at any rate she thought it was, and Mary Jane's was quite wonderful. She
smoothed off the "garden" in front of her palace, stuck in a few sticks
for flowers, made a pebbly path down to the tiny lake she had scooped out
at one side and then shouted, "Mine's done! Look at mine!" and stepped
aside so all could see her handiwork.

[Illustration: And then, sliding in the wet sand, she sat right down in
the lake and sent a wave of ripples right over her castle _Page 61_]

But Mary