In a few weeks' time she
had seen a big cellar scooped out of the plateau, had seen it
lined and rising to foundation height above the surface in solid
concrete, faced outside with cracked boulders. She had seen a
framework erected, a rooftree set, and joists and rafters and
beams swinging into place. Fretworks of lead and iron pipe were
running everywhere, and wires for electricity. Soon shingles and
flooring would be going into place, and Peter said that when he
had finished acrobatic performances on beams and girders and
really stepped out on solid floors where he might tread without
fear of breaking any of his legs, he would perform a Peacock
Dance all by himself.
"Peter, you sound like a centipede," said Linda.
"Dear child," said Peter, "when I enter my front door and get to
the back on two-inch footing, I positively feel that I have
numerous legs, and I ache almost as badly in the fear that I
shall break the two I have, as I should if they were really
broken."
And then he added a few words on a subject of which he had not
before spoken to Linda.
"It was like that in France. When we really got into the heat of
things and the work was actually being done, we were not afraid:
we were too busy; we were 'supermen.' The time when we were all
legs and arms and head, and all of them were being blown away
wholesale was when the shells whined over while we had a rest
hour and were trying to sleep, or in the cold, dim dawn when we
stumbled out stiff, hungry, and sleepy.
Pages:
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366