Even a hammer makes a good pillow if one is tired enough, and the freight-car family slept until the nine-o'clock church bells began to ring faintly in the valley. There were at least a dozen churches, and their far-away bells sounded sweetly in so many different keys.  
"They almost play a tune," said Violet, as she listened.
 
"I like music all right," replied Henry in a business-like way, "but I for one shall have to get to work."
 
"This will be a good day to wash all the stockings," said Jess. "We'll all be so much in the , anyway."
 
After breakfast the first thing Henry did was to survey, with critical eyes, the spot they had chosen for a pool. It was a hollow about three yards across. There were no stones in it at all.
 
"It's big enough already," remarked Henry at last, "but it hasn't enough water in it." He measured its depth with a stick. "We'll have to guess at inches," he said.
 
"I have a little tape measure in my workbag," ventured his sister Violet.
 
Henry flashed a smile at her. "Is there anything you haven't got in your workbag?" he asked her.
 
The children measured the wet stick carefully. The water was just ten inches deep in the deepest part.
 
Henry explained his plan of engineering to his sisters. "We will have to haul some big logs across this narrow part and stuff them from this end with stones and underbrush. It ought to be three feet deep before we get through."
 
"O Henry!" protested Jess. "Benny would get drowned."
 
"Drowned!" echoed Henry. "How tall do you think he is, anyhow?"
 
They measured the little boy and found him to be forty-two inches tall. That settled it; the pool was designed to be three feet in depth.
 
Luckily the largest logs were not far away; but as it was, it was a matter of great for the builders to drag them to the scene of operations.
 
"Let's get all the logs up here first," suggested Jess. "Then we can have the fun of laying them across."
 
The two older children dragged all the logs, while Violet and Benny attended to the stones, with the help of the cart. Occasionally Henry was called upon to assist with a heavy stone, but for the most part Benny out his cheeks and heaved the stones himself. In fact, Henry at this point to let Benny drop them into the water as he gathered them. "Splash 'em right in, old fellow," he directed. "Only keep them in a nice straight line right across this place between these two trees. It won't make any difference how wet he gets," he added in an aside to Jess. "We can dry him in the sun."
 
Jess thought a little differently, although she said nothing. She took off Benny's little crinkled blouse and one pair of bloomers, and started to hang them on the line.
 
"Good time to wash them!" she exclaimed.
 
"Let me wash them," begged Violet. "You're more useful building the dam." There was wisdom in this suggestion, so Jess accepted it gratefully, and even added Henry's blouse to the laundry.
 
"When we finish the dam they will surely be dry," she said.
 
As for Henry, he was only too glad to work without it. "Makes me feel lighter," he declared.
 
Rare and beautiful birds came and watched the barefooted children as they around, building their wall of . But the children did not have any eyes for birds then. They watched with delighted eyes as each stone was added to the wall under the clear water, and it began to rise almost to the surface.
 
"That makes a solid foundation for the logs, you see," explained Henry with pride. "They won't be floating off downstream the minute we lay them on."
 
Then at last the time arrived when they were to lay the logs on.
 
"Let's wedge the first one between these two trees," said Jess, with a happy thought. "Then if each end of the log is on the upper side of the trees, the harder the water pounds the tighter the dam gets."
 
"Good work!" exclaimed Henry admiringly. "That's just what we'll do."
 
But the children were not at all prepared for what happened the moment the first big log was splashed into its place on top of the stone wall.
 
The water, defeated in its course down the rocky bed, gurgled and chased about as it met the opposing log, and found every possible hole to escape.
 
"Leaks," said Henry , as the water began to rush around both ends and pour over the top of the log. "We'll make the logs so thick it can't get through. We'll lay three logs across, with three logs on top of them, and three more on top of that."
 
The children set about stubbornly to accomplish this. Violet held great sprays of fine underbrush in place until each log was laid. Wetter children never were seen. But nobody cared. They plugged the ends with more stones, more underbrush, and more logs. Each time a leak was discovered, someone dropped a stone over it. Even Benny caught the fever of conquering the water which slipped from their grasp like quicksilver.
 
When the three top logs were at last dropped into place, the excited children sat down to watch the pool fill. This i............