"They'd about half kill themselves if we'd let 'em," had been the solemn comment of old Squire Garrison, and nobody dreamed of disputing his decision, for he was President of the Board, and the wisest man in the village.
Rory was not gone long, and when he returned, and went through the yard and garden into the orchard, half a dozen boys were following him.
Fred had been at work. He had carried out the big wooden snow-shovel and the grain-scoop shovel and the spade, but the first question Bob Sanders asked was:
"Boards? What are they for? You don't want any boards in a snow house."
"And the Esquimaux don't have any," said Rory.
Fred had put down four of them flat on the snow, and was now shovelling a heap of snow upon them from the spot he had chosen for the house.
"Boards?" he said. "Why, boys, that's our brick-yard."
"Brick-yard? Snow bricks? What's the saw for? You can't cut snow with a saw."
"I'll show you. Just you fellows pile on snow, and bang it down hard with a spade. We're going to do just what the Esquimaux do."
"I've brought my own shovel," said Bill Evans, "and so has Barney Herriman."
"We want this foundation trodden hard and level first. It's pretty near ready. Now I'll mark it out."
There were other boys in that crowd who could beat Fred at some things, even at base-ball and swimming, and he had not taken a single prize at the end of the school term; but when it came to "making" anything, he could step right ahead, and they all knew it.
It was just as Barney Herriman said: "Come on, boys. Fred Park is boss of this job."
He was bossing it, as a matter of course, and it looked as if he knew pretty well what he was about.
He stuck a peg in the snow for a centre, and around that, with a string five feet long and another peg, he marked a circle that was just ten feet across.
"Now, boys, there's eight of us, and we can build the biggest snow house you ever saw. The snow packs splendidly. We'll make our bricks a foot wide and a foot high and a foot and a half long."
How they did pile the soft snow upon those boards, now they understood what they were meant for!
Bang! stamp! bang! down went the sticky heap, until Fred said he guessed it would cut.
They couldn't help stopping to watch him, though, while he cut out his first bricks with that saw. It went through the snow so nice and easy, and Bill Evans remarked, "Can't he handle a saw!"