Part 2 (1/2)
Now, however, winter was on in earnest, and d.i.c.k & Co. were in their element, for, of all sports, they loved those that went with winter. All six were fearless coasters; no hill was too steep, too long or too dangerous. On the ice d.i.c.k & Co. felt all the bounding pulse of life.
This day was the twenty-fourth of December. School had closed in order to give the Gridley youngsters a free hand on the last day before Christmas.
The river had been frozen in fine condition for more than a week. Not more than four inches of snow had fallen, but all the boys knew that the season gave promise of more snow ere long.
As d.i.c.k & Co. skated along the number of other skaters became fewer. At last they reached a part of the river where they had the ice all to themselves.
”There's Payson's orchard, Greg,” sang out Dave Darrin. ”The place where you got grabbed last fall, by Dexter and Driggs, and carried off to be shut up in that cave.”
”Say, we ought to hunt up that cave, fellows,” called Greg. ”Whee! It might make a bully place for a winter camp. Now, that we've got the two weeks and more of holiday vacation, wouldn't it be fine to slip off and camp a few days in that cave?”
”Nothing doing,” retorted Tom Reade.
”Why not?” Dan asked.
”You remember that I went off, yesterday after school, on a sleigh ride with Jim Foley?”
”Yes.”
”Well, we went by that cave,” Tom continued. ”Nothing would do but that we stop. Jim had a lantern on the sleigh. We lit the lantern and got into the cave. Whew! We nearly got drowned. I meant to tell you fellows about it, but forgot it.”
”How did you come near getting drowned in a cave?” Greg demanded.
”Why, the outlandish place isn't weather-tight,” responded Tom. ”You know, the flooring slopes slightly upward from the entrance. There are a lot of cracks that rain and snow-water leak through. It was all little rivulets inside the place. Camp? Huh! It'd make a better extra reservoir for the town water-works, that place would!”
”Too bad!” muttered Greg. ”I have had a notion that it would be huge fun to camp out in such a place.”
”I've got another idea about that,” spoke up Dan.
”Fire away!” begged Reade.
”A cousin of mine who visited me last summer told me about the kind of camp he and some of his chums had. It was a sort of manufactured cave.
The fellows dug an oblong hole in the ground. Just like a cellar in shape, you know. It was eight feet wide and twelve feet long. When they had it all dug out the fellows laid boards over the hole for a roof.
Then they piled dirt back on top of the boards, and on top of the dirt they laid the sods that they first dug up. At a corner in one end the fellows left a square hole in the roof, to use for an entrance. For a door they made a square board cover to fit over the entrance hole. At the upper end of the cave they dug into the dirt wall and made a stove.
They dug another hole down from above to connect with it, and that made a dandy stove and chimney. My cousin and his chums used to do a lot of cooking there. Then they laid down more old boards to make a floor, and boarded most of the wall s.p.a.ce, too. Last of all, they took up an old table and old chairs, and they had just a dandy camp! Say, fellows, why couldn't we have a camp like that?”
”It would do all right for springtime,” declared Tom Reade, ”but we couldn't work it in winter.”
”Why not?” challenged Dan.
”Not unless, Danny, you want to be the strong man who's going to dig down into the ground through two or three feet of frost.”
Dan looked a bit crestfallen.
”Besides,” declared d.i.c.k thoughtfully, ”every time there was a thaw or a big rain the cave you're talking about making would be nothing but a big cistern, half-full of water. But we could dig and fit up such a cave somewhere in the woods in springtime, fellows.”
”Only we don't have much vacation in the spring,” broke in Greg disappointedly, ”and it certainly would be grand to go into camp right after Christmas Day, if we could be warm enough and have enough to eat.”
”It would be great sport,” nodded d.i.c.k.