ticks and bits of duck-weed, and then he
started in.

First he scooped out a hollow place, and that was for the cellar. Then
he stuck sticks up around the edges of the hole, and began to pile up
the sand, to make the walls of the house. Just as he was doing this,
what should he hear but footsteps running along the sand. He looked, up
and gave a shout of delight.

"Hello, Billie and Johnnie Bushytail!" he cried, as he saw the two
little squirrel boys. "You're just in time! Come on and help me build
this sand house!"

"Sure!" agreed Billie and Johnnie, as they frisked their tails, just as
the cook sometimes frisks the dusting brush when she wants to knock the
crumbs from the table to the floor. "Can you stay long?" asked Buddy.

"As long as papa and mamma do," answered Johnnie. "They are in your
house now, and so is Sister Sallie. We're going to stay to dinner, but
first we'll help you build the sand house."

So they all three got busy. They piled and scooped the sand up around
the upright sticks, and, pretty soon, believe me, if it really didn't
begin to look like a real house. It was about as big as a big box, and
nearly as high; and the cellar was quite large.

"What will we do with the house when we've finished it?" asked Billie
Bushytail.

"We'll go in it and play we're robbers," suggested Johnnie, as he patted
the sand with his paws, to make it smooth.

"No, we'll be pirates," decided Buddy. "Pirates always stay near salt
water, and this is salt water, because Percival emptied a whole bag of
salt in it."

"All right," agreed the squirrel boys, so they went on building the
house. They put little pebbles all around it for a fence, and laid a
gravel walk up from the pond to the front door, and stuck up little
sticks for trees in the front yard, and made a garden, because Buddy
said, even if they were pirates, they would have to have something to
eat, and they planted duck-weed in the garden and made believe it was
radishes and lettuce and cabbage and ever so many things; even apples
and pears and peaches.

Well, pretty soon the sand house was finished; that is, all but the top.

"What will we have for a roof?" asked Billie.

"I'll show you," said Buddy, so he laid sticks across the top of the
sand walls, and on top of the sticks he placed duck-weed. Then, on top
of the weed he and the squirrel boys put sand, until it was really the
nicest house of its kind you could find if you walked a mile, or, maybe