"The walls and the floor of this cellar will be waterproofed with a mixture of rich cement and sand mortar, and I think you"ll find, young ladies, that you"ll have a cellar that"ll be hard to beat."
The contractor slapped his notebook emphatically and beamed at them so amiably that they felt the greatest confidence in what he proposed.
"Any way, I haven"t anything better to suggest," said Dorothy dryly.
Mr. Anderson walked off, giving a roar of amus.e.m.e.nt as he left them.
"Where does the sun rise from here?" asked Ethel Blue as she stood at the spot where was to be the front of the house, and gazed about her. "Does the house face directly south?"
"No, it faces just half way between south and west. The corners of the house point to north, south, east and west. Mother said that if the front was due south the back would be due north and she didn"t want a whole side of her house facing north."
"It does have a chilly sound," shivered Ethel Brown.
"With a point stretching toward the north the rooms that have a northern exposure will also have the morning sun and the afternoon sun."
"I know Aunt Louise will have her dining room where the morning sun will shine in."
"Yes, _ma"am_," returned Dorothy emphatically. "It makes you feel better all day if you eat your breakfast in the sunshine. By this plan of Mother"s every room in the house will have direct sunshine at some part of the day."
"It"s great," approved Ethel Blue. "Can"t we ask Mr. Anderson about making a bird"s bath out of cement?" she inquired. "Ethel Brown and I saw a beauty at Mrs. Schermerhorn"s and perhaps he"d let us have some of the concrete to-morrow when the men are mixing it, and we can try to make one."
The girls raced over to the spot where the contractor was just about to get into his Ford, and stopped him.
"Would you mind letting us have a little concrete to-morrow to make a bird"s bath with?" begged Dorothy breathlessly.
"A bird"s bath?" repeated Mr. Anderson. "How are you going to make it?"
"Couldn"t we put some concrete in a pan and squeeze another pan down on to it and let it harden?"
"Why, yes, something like that," returned Mr. Anderson slowly.
"Do you want to make it yourselves?"
"Yes, indeed," all three girls cried in chorus.
He smiled at their enthusiasm and offered a suggestion.
"I suppose you want the bird"s bath for your garden, Miss Dorothy;--why don"t you make a little pool for the garden?"
"Oh, could we?"
"If you could get a tub and lay down a flooring of concrete and then put in another tub enough smaller so that there would be a s.p.a.ce between the walls, then you could fill the s.p.a.ce with concrete. When it set, you could take out the inner tub after two or three days and turn the concrete out of the outer tub and there you"d have a concrete tub that you could move about."
"That sounds great," beamed Dorothy, "but wouldn"t it be awfully heavy?"
"Here"s a better way, then. If you can make up your mind exactly where you want to have it in your garden you can have a hole dug, lay down your floor of concrete and put your small tub on it."
"I see--then you fill the s.p.a.ce between the tub and the earth with concrete."
"Precisely; thump it down hard and let it stand untouched for a while.
Then take away your tub, and there you are again."
"You can"t make the concrete floor and leave it, can you?"
"No, indeed. You must have everything ready to do the whole thing at once. Put in your tub which is to be your mold, while the floor is still plastic--"
"Eh?" inquired Ethel Brown.
"Soft enough to mold; and then pour in the walls right off quick. You can"t fool round when you"re working with concrete."
"How can we keep the water fresh in the tub?" asked Ethel Blue of Dorothy.
Dorothy paused, not knowing what to say.
"It would be fun to keep gold fish in it," she said, "but they would have to have fresh water, wouldn"t they?" She turned appealingly to Mr.
Anderson.
"That"s not hard to manage," he said. "You can put a bit of broomstick between the earth wall and the outer wall of your tub-mold and pour the concrete around it. When the concrete has hardened you pull out the stick and there is a hole. Then you can have a drain dug that will tap that hole on the outside and carry off the water through a few lengths of drain pipe."
"What"s to prevent the water running off all the time?" Ethel Blue wanted to know.
"Keep a plug in it," answered the contractor briefly. "And there should be waterproofing stuff mixed with the materials. You have your gardener dig a hole in the garden," he said, adding, "don"t forget to have plenty of grease."
"What"s that for?"
"Why do you grease your cake pans?"
"So the cake won"t stick."
"Same here. On the cellar wall we lined the inside of the wooden forms with paper. That isn"t so easy with round forms, so you grease them."
"I never thought there was any likeness between concrete and cooking,"
laughed Ethel Brown as the girls watched Mr. Anderson"s skill in taking his little car over the rough ground around the cellar excavation, "but there seems to be plenty."
"Let"s chase off and see if we can collect the things we shall need to-morrow," urged Dorothy. "I"ll have to find Patrick and bring him here and show him just where to dig the hole."
"Where are you going to dig the hole?"
"I think just in the open place on top of the ridge."
"I wouldn"t," objected Ethel Brown.
"Why not?"
"Won"t it be too warm in summer? If you"re going to have gold fish you don"t want to boil them."
"The water would get pretty hot in the sun, wouldn"t it?" considered her cousin. "What do you think of a place under that tree?"