Rollo and Nathan measured with the reel and line, while Oliver planted a stake firmly in the snow at the four corners of the square.
According to Jonas's advice, the evening before, they had agreed to make their fortification twelve feet square, and the walls about one foot thick.
Rollo and Nathan held the cord, stretched from corner to corner, just along the surface of the snow, while Oliver, with the shovel, cut the snow square down to the ground, more than a foot and a half deep.
In this way they went round the whole enclosure, outside. They then went inside, and, by a similar process, cut away the snow so as to leave an unbroken line of snow wall about ten feet square and one foot wide.
"There," said Oliver, "there are the sills, as Jonas called them. It is what I call a good foundation."
After this, Oliver asked Rollo to bring in the measuring-board inside of the fort.
Oliver and Rollo remembered what Jonas had told them about "commanding and obeying," and agreed to take turns in being "director."
It was Oliver's turn for the first hour, and Rollo was to obey him. Nathan was to assist them both, when he was wanted.
Oliver, therefore, took the command, and directed where and how to cut out the snow, in the manner which Jonas had described.
They proceeded with the measuring-board, to mark off, and cut out by it, solid blocks of snow about four feet long, one foot wide, and one thick.
Rollo laid down the measuring-board on the snow, and then both of them, with the shovels, cut down the snow perpendicularly along the edges, so as to have all the snow-blocks of precisely the same length, breadth, and thickness. These they laid in courses, on the top of the foundation.
It took just three blocks to form a side, excepting the side where the door was, which they left three feet wide.
After working more than two hours, and laying two courses, they shoveled out all the broken snow that remained inside, and then sat down on the sled to eat their luncheon and rest.
"How do you like the looks of it, Rollo?" said Oliver.
"Well," said Rollo; "only I don't see how we can make a roof."
"Jonas will help us do that," said Oliver, "if we do the rest of the work well."
The boys, however, were now pretty tired. They had worked very hard. They pulled off their caps, and with their handkerchiefs wiped the perspiration from their foreheads.
"Don't let us work any longer now," said Nathan, rubbing his hands, and knocking one foot against the other. "I think we have done enough for one day; and my feet are so cold!"
"We've done enough!" said Oliver. "I think Rollo and I have had the principal doing to do. You and Franco have been looking on."
"'What you've to do
Get done to-day,
And do not for to-morrow stay;
There's always danger in delay'—
said Rollo. "I think we had better finish it now. Come, Nathan, jump about here on the sled, and you will soon be warm."
So they went briskly at work again, Rollo taking the command. They found it very hard, after the second course, to get the snow-blocks up on the snowy wall. Often they would slip away out of their hands, just as they were lodging them safely on the top, and fall over on one side of the wall, and break to pieces.
"Let us cut them in two," said Oliver; "we can handle them better so."
Before they got through the fourth course, they were glad to cut all their materials into pieces of one foot square.
"How high are the walls now?" said Rollo, as they stopped to look at the appearance of the last course.
"Between five and six feet," said Oliver. "The foundation is at least a foot and a half high, and we have laid four courses."
Oliver, Rollo, and Nathan went to work together, then, stopping up all the chinks in the wall, inside and out, with soft snow.
When this was well done, Oliver took the hoe, and with the sharp edge shaved down all around on both sides, making the walls look even and true.
"Well," said Rollo, "that is the best snow fort I ever saw. Jonas does know how to do things, doesn't he, Oliver? But I don't see how we are to get a roof on."
"I don't care about a roof," said Oliver. "We don't want to play in it only in pleasant weather."
"I'll tell you what we might do," said Rollo. "We could make a partition through the middle, and put a roof over half of it."
"So we can," said Oliver. "We'll do that this afternoon. It's time to go to dinner now."
The boys then gathered all the tools, &c., and laid them together, as Jonas had taught them to do, when they finished work, and then started for home.
"Halloo, Franco," said Rollo, "are you here still?" They had been so busy at work, they had taken no notice of him. But Franco had watched their operations, and now went running on in the path before the boys, wagging his tail, as if he had as much pleasure as they, in contemplating the result of their morning's labor.
When Jonas came home to dinner, at noon, the boys were impatient to tell him what they had done.
But Jonas was too much engaged in some work about the new barn to listen to their story then. He told them, however, that he would go down about sunset, and look at their work, and hear the account, in the evening, of the experiment in doing work like workmen.
After dinner, Oliver was excused from many of his regular duties, on account of the visit of Rollo and Nathan; and the three boys hastened to return to their fort. They were so intent on finishing it, that they lost all interest in playing with Franco, or each other.
"What shall we call our fort?" said Oliver, as they walked along.
"We don't want any name, do we?" said Rollo.
"O, yes," said Oliver, "let us have a name. I always like to have a name. There's the old 'General,'—we have had many a good time with him; and my 'Conqueror,'—there isn't a boy in town that doesn't know my sled."
"We might call it 'Gibraltar,'" said Rollo.
"Yes, that's a good name," said Oliver. "How do you like 'Iceberg Castle'? Jonas was telling us all about the icebergs the other evening; and I read a story, about a famous 'Ice Palace' in Russia; how do you like that?"
"I don't like that," said Rollo. "Ours is a fort; it isn't a palace."
"If you are going to have it a palace," said Nathan, "whom will you have for a king?"
"You may be king, Nathan," said Rollo, "and we will soon demolish your palace, and make a prisoner of you."
"No, no," said Oliver, "the fort shall stand as long as ice will last. I mean to pour water all over it, and freeze it into solid ice; and I expect the last ice to be seen any where about next spring, will be the ruins of the old fort."
After some discussion, the boys agreed to call it "Iceberg Castle."
They then took a survey, inside and out, of their morning's work, and decided to proceed at once and build the partition which Rollo proposed before dinner. At Oliver's suggestion, Rollo was director.