They have just begun it.

We can hear them working upon it in one place, pretty soon." The party soon came to the place which Mary Erskine had referred to.
It was a point where the new road came near the line of the old one, and a party of men and oxen were at work, making a causeway, across a low wet place.

As the children passed along, they could hear the sound of axes and the voices of men shouting to oxen.

Phonny wished very much to go and see.

So Mary Erskine led the way through the woods a short distance, till they came in sight of the men at work.