raging
expeditions it was found that there were more than enough boards to
build the hut, so the work began at once. Holes were dug in the ground,
and some posts planted as supports for the structure, and then the
boards were hastily nailed together from post to post. In three hours
the hut was practically completed, and it remained only to lay a floor
until they could hold their first meeting in the new club-house. The
floor itself was down by noon, and the club then served a memorable
dinner to mark the completion of the structure.

A hole was dug in the ground outside the door, and a furnace made. A
skillet was brought from Archie's house, together with some dishes and a
coffee-pot, and Dan Sullivan brought some more dishes, and six eggs from
his nests under the barn. The boys were obliged to make several trips
to and from the houses, but finally nearly everything was ready, and the
eggs were carefully cooked by Archie, who was really a good housekeeper,
from long experience in the kitchen with his mother. Some potatoes were
fried in the grease remaining in the skillet after the eggs were cooked,
and then the feast began. The eggs may have been rather black with
grease, and the potatoes were certainly not done, but the boys all
pronounced it the finest meal of their lives, notwithstanding the bitter
coffee, and the dirty bread, which had been allowed to fall into the
gutter beside the railway track. They were eating in their own house,
and they had cooked in the open air, "just like tramps," Harry Rafe
said, and it was little wonder that they enjoyed the novel experience.

The only trouble came when the meal was finished. No one wanted to
wash the dishes, and, finally, it was decided to return them to their
respective kitchens just as they were, and to let them be washed with
the rest of the dinner dishes at home. And this decision came near
putting an end to Hut Club dinners, for both Mrs. Dunn and the Widow
Sullivan were determined not to wash any more dirty dishes from the hut.

When the meal was over, the boys lounged about the hut, and Dan Sullivan
brought a lot of things from his sister's playhouse with which to
furnish it more suitably. Archie Dunn brought a lot of hay from the loft
in his mother's barn, and when a piece of old carpet was spread upon it
it made an acceptable couch. A piece of old carpet was laid in front of
the hut, too, where the boys could sit and watch the trains switching
back and forth