Thus far they might make believe, acting as if they were a backwoods party, but not bringing the pretence to the point of utterance. They both laughed at Pobbles when he said: "We'd better stick together when we're picking up sticks, or one of us may get scalped in the wood," and Jane said: "We're helping Harry; he's not playing a silly game with us." Pobbles thought it would have been more amusing if they had boldly played the game which seemed to be in their thoughts no less than in his, but accepted the correction, and half understood it. Harry, who was so wonderful at making things, would belittle himself by playing children's games about them.
But there was no diminution in his dignity when he showed that his mind was full of the reality of what they were playing at. They sat on the chips and sawdust outside the cabin, when they had devoured everything in their baskets, and talked. Harry leant against the new built wall of the cabin with his legs stretched out in front of him, his dog at his feet, and Pobbles leant against the wall beside him, in as near an imitation of his attitude as he could contrive without making himself too uncomfortable. Jane reclined gracefully on her elbow, and occasionally pulled her too-short skirt over her knees. The shadows of the trees had perceptibly lengthened. There were two hours of daylight yet, but the heat had declined, and the evening freshness was mingled with the evening peace. The cuckoo was calling, now here now there, and its grey form could be seen sometimes flitting from tree to tree across the glade. The rabbits were out at the far end of it, and the wood pigeons were swinging home to the high woods behind them. But of human occupation, besides their own, the world seemed empty. They were secure in their retreat.
"It must be a grand thing, you know," Harry said, "to find a new place in the world which you can make what you like of. Supposing this were really right away from everywhere, in a new country, we should begin just like this, with a cabin a bit bigger but much the same in plan. Then we should make our garden round about it. After that we should prepare our fields. We should cut down trees, for more building when we wanted it, and for logs for burning in the winter. We should have our animals; we should have everything that we wanted round us, and what we hadn't got we should have to do without until we could go and bring it from the nearest town, which might be hundreds of miles away. There'd be a tremendous lot to do every day, but you'd like doing it, and you'd see the whole thing grow and grow till you had a splendid place which you had made out of nothing, and hundreds of people working on it."