the
Curlytops she called Mr. Bardeen by this name.

"Of course!" Uncle Toby answered. "The more the merrier! And if your
mother is able to come from the hospital, we'll have her here for
Christmas," and he nodded at Mary and Harry. This made that boy and girl
very happy, for it is often happiness just to think of something
pleasant that may happen.

One morning, several days after the first of the toboggan riding, the
boys, who had gotten up ahead of the girls for once, began shouting
outside the cabin.

"What's going on, I wonder?" asked Janet.

"Oh, I guess they're just yelling for the fun of it," answered Lola.

"They're saying something about a house," said Mary.

Janet raised the window and listened. Just then Ted shouted:

"Come on out, girls, and help us build a snow house. We're going to make
the biggest snow house you ever saw!"

"And when it's finished you can have a tea party in it," added Tom.

"Oh, what lovely fun that will be!" cried Mary.

Soon the boys and girls, with Skyrocket frolicking around them, began
making the snow house. The sun had so warmed the snow that it packed
well.

First a number of big snowballs were rolled and placed one after the
other in the form of a square on the ground. This was to be the
foundation of the house.

Other snowballs were lifted on top of the first large ones, and snow
packed in the cracks until, when afternoon came, there were four walls
of snow, much higher than the heads of the children.

"It looks more like a fort than a snow house," said Lola.

"We've got to put the roof on," Tom answered. "How we going to do that,
Ted?"

"I don't know," was the reply. "I never made such a big snow house. If
we make the roof only of snow it will fall in on us."

"You'd better ask Uncle Toby," suggested Janet, and this they did.

"I'll show you how to make a good roof," Uncle Toby told the children.
"Just get me a lot of poles from that pile over there. I used them to
raise beans this summer. Bring me a lot of those long poles."

The children ran to carry them to him, wondering how Uncle Toby could
make a roof on a snow house out of poles.

[Illustration: OTHER SNOWBALLS WERE LIFTED ON TOP OF THE FIRST LARGE
ONES. Page 195]

CHAPTER XVIII

THANKSGIVING

Perhaps if the Curlytops and their playmates had thought about it a
little harder they might have guessed how Uncle Toby intended to make
the roof of their snow house with the bean poles. It wa