The colony had chosen for their home one of the largest of the seven hills, squarish in form and more or less covered with woodland. They began at once to fence it around, to keep their beasts from wandering out and thieves and wild beasts from getting in, for all this country was very lonely. They had done this sort of thing so often since they left their old home that they did it quickly and rather easily. It was the habit of their people to save time and strength wherever they could, without being any less thorough. To do a thing right, in the beginning, saved a great deal of loss and trouble in the end.

While some cut down trees that grew on the land where they intended to make their permanent settlement, others trimmed off the branches as fast as the trees were down, and cut the logs to about the same length, and pointed the ends. The boys gathered up the branches and cut firewood from them. The brush that was not needed [pg 109]for the fires was made into loose fagots and piled up on the logs, as they were laid along the line where the wall was to be. This made a kind of brush fence, not of much use against a determined enemy but better than none at all. Even this would keep an animal from bouncing into the camp without being heard, and in fact most wild beasts are rather suspicious of anything that looks like a trap.

When they had logs enough to begin fencing, all placed ready for use, they dug holes along the line they had marked out with a furrow, and planted the logs side by side as closely as they could, like large stakes. In any newly settled place, where trees are plenty, this is the most easily built fortification settlers can have, and the strongest. A stone or earth wall takes much longer to build. It is still called a palisade, a wall of stakes,—just as it was by men who built so, thousands of years ago and called a sharpened stake a “palum.” A fence built of boards set up in this way is called a paling fence, and the boards are called palings. The word fence itself is only a short word for “defence,”—a defence made of pointed stakes planted in the ground.

The earth that was dug up was always thrown inside and formed the basis of a low earthwork [pg 110]that made the palisade firmer. It was made as high as possible from the outer side by being built on the edge of the hilltop so that the ground sloped away sharply from it. The pointed tops of the logs were a foot or two too high for a man to grasp at them and climb up, but from the inside the defenders could mount the earthwork and look through high loopholes.

There was a gateway at the top of a slope that was not so deep as the others, placed there so that if the colonists were outside and had to run for shelter, they could get in quickly. Almost anywhere else, a person who tried to get in and was not wanted would have to climb the hill under fire from the slingers and bowmen above. He must then get over the perfectly straight log wall, which afforded no foothold, because all the nubs of the branches had been neatly pared off, and force his way over the sawlike top in the face of men with long spears. No matter what sort of neighbors the colonists might have, they would think twice before they tried that.

The gate was made as strong as possible, of smaller tree trunks lashed together, and strengthened on the inside by crosspieces. When it was closed, two logs, one at the top and one at the bottom, were laid in place across it. Some one was always there to guard it, day and night, and [pg 111]could see through a little window who was coming up the hill.

Although strongholds like this had not been necessary for many years in their old home, there was one, built of stone in the ancient days, and never allowed to go to ruin. It seemed very adventurous to the boys to be erecting defences like that for their own families. But Romulus and Remus had told them that this would be the only way of being quite safe. They had a great deal that petty thieves might want to steal; and the chief Amulius might take it into his head to send a force to attack them, if he knew that so large a party of strangers had come in. When they had been there some years, and more people had joined the colony, the seven hills could be fortified so that nobody could take them. Colonus himself could see that, and it gave him a feeling of confidence and respect for his young cousin to know that he had seen it too.

By the time the palisade was finished, not only most of the land within it was clear, but the material for the huts was ready and some huts had been built. The timber was piled as it was cut, by the boys of the various families, on the lots marked out for the houses. The younger children cut reeds and grass for thatching and for the fodder of the cattle. They did this work [pg 112]in little companies and had a very pleasant time. Sometimes they caught fish, or shot waterfowl with their bows and arrows, or set snares for game.

Later the men would gather stone for a stone wall in place of the palisade, to run along the same line, and then the seasoned timbers of their log wall would still be good for building purposes. There was a steeper and narrower hill near the river which would make an excellent fortress. But the thoughts of the colony now were given to laying out farms.

They cleared and laid out wheat fields and orchards and vineyards as soon as they found land suitable. As any farmer knows, the sooner land is cultivated the more can be got out of it; it is not work that can all be done in a year, or two years, or three. This is especially true of land never used before for anything but pasture, and much of this had never been used even for that. Sheep do not like wet ground, and both sheep and cattle, unless they were tended constantly, might stray into the swampy low grounds. Drainage would help that land; when some of it was drained it would make rich lush meadows and golden grain fields. The land-loving Vitali could see visions of richer crops than any they had ever harvested, growing on that [pg 113]unpromising plain, if only they could have their way with it.

The children who were here, there and everywhere, watching all that was done and helping where they could, felt as if they were looking on at the making of a new world. It was really almost like a miracle—some of the ignorant marsh folk thought it was one—when that uncultivated hilltop, overgrown with bushes and wind-stunted trees and with the rocky bones of it cropping out here and there, became a trim encampment of orderly thatched huts. The beasts grew sleek and fat on the good fodder and grazing, and no one had appeared so far who had any evil designs. In fact, few persons came near them at all. It was as if they had the new world all to themselves.

In the house-building the children helped considerably after the men got the timber frames up. Instead of building stone walls, they were going to do what they had sometimes done before when a wall was run up temporarily,—use mud. They set stakes in rows along the walls, not close together like the palisade, but far enough apart for twigs and branches to be woven in and out between them like a very rough basketry. When this was done the men built a kind of pen on the ground, for a mixing bowl, and brought lime [pg 114]and sand and clay and water, and mixed it with tough grass into a sort of rough plaster. This was daubed all over the walls with wooden spades until the whole was quite covered, and when it hardened it would be weather-proof and warm. Small houses built in this “wattle and daub” fashion have been known to last hundreds of years.

The thatched roof was four-sided, running up to a hole in the middle to let out the smoke. When it rained, the rain dripped in around the edges of the hole and ran into a tank under it. The altar with the sacred fire was at one side of this tank, and when the room was dark the flame was reflected in the wavering, shining depths of the water. The space opposite the door, beyond the altar, was where the father and mother slept, and later it might be walled off into a private room. Other rooms could be partitioned off along the sides. In later times there was a small entry or vestibule between the door and the inner rooms. But although the other rooms might vary in number and size and use, the atrium, the middle space, in which were the altar and the impluvium or water pool, remained the same. It was the heart of the home. Here the family worship was held, and this was the common room of the family.