Kate marshalled a corps of boys who would be her older pupils and they dragged out the dry branches, saved all that were suitable for firewood, and made bonfires from the remainder.

They raked the tin cans and town refuse of years from the water and banks and induced the village delivery man to haul the stuff to the river bridge and dump it in the deepest place in the stream.
They cleaned the creek bank to the water's edge and built rustic seats down the sides.

They even rolled boulders to the bed and set them where the water would show their markings and beat itself to foam against them.

Mrs.Holt looked on in breathless amazement and privately expressed to her son her opinion of him in terse and vigorous language.

He answered laconically: "Has a fish got much to say about what happens to it after you get it out of the water ?" "No!" snapped Mrs.Holt, "and neither have you, if you kill yourself to get it." "Do I look killed ?" inquired her son.
"No.