of little space inside
them, as large as--how big is it, Doad?"

"Oh, I should think that it was as large as our sitting-room," she
replied.

"It is bigger than that," said Ellen. "It is as big as the sitting-room
and parlor together."

"Perhaps it is," assented Theodora. "But it isn't like rooms at all; it
is an odd place and there are nooks like little side rooms running back
between where the sides of the great rocks approach each other. It is a
real pleasant place, sort of gigantic and rustic. I don't wonder that
Thomas and Kate like to go there."

"None of these big rocks quite touch together," continued Addison, "but
Tom has built up between them with stones, all around, except one narrow
place which he calls the fort gate. He has built up all the open places,
six or seven feet high, so that it is really like a fort: and he has
made a stone fireplace against one of the rocks inside, with a little
chimney of flat stones running up the side of the rock, so that he can
have a fire there without being plagued by the smoke."

"And he's got a woodpile in there," said Ellen, "and seats to sit on,
round his fireplace. It is a cozy place, I tell you; the wind doesn't
strike you at all in there; and the knoll is quite a good deal higher
than the ground about it. You climb up a little path and turn the corner
of one big rock, and then go in between that one and another, for
fifteen or twenty feet, till you come to the open place inside, where
the fireplace is. Tom and Kate gave a little party there last fall. Tom
was a number of days building the fireplace and the wall and getting
ready. We all went there one evening and Kate and I played there one
afternoon, a week after that. But I guess they haven't been there at
all this spring and summer. I haven't heard them say anything about it
for a long time, till this afternoon. 'Tell the boys and Doad to come
over here this evening,' Tom said, as I was coming away. 'I'm going to
roast corn down at my fort to-night.'"

"Let's all go over after it gets dark and storm his fort!" exclaimed
Halse. "We can take sods and pitch them over the rocks into his fort
after he gets in there and is roasting corn!"

"I don't think that would be a very polite way of accepting his
invitation," said Theodora.

"That would be contrary to all the laws of war, to storm a neighboring
nation's fort, before war was declared!" said Addison, laughing. "That
would be a sad piece of international t