Chapter 2
And the foreman said that they would give him some of their dinner, and that there were all sorts of nice things that their wives had cooked.
And the little boy said that he would ask his mother, and he would hurry as fast as he could.
In a few minutes, the little boy came back to the place where the men were sitting.
He walked very carefully, because he was carrying a cup of milk; and his cat walked beside him and looked up at the cup of milk all the time, and, every few steps, she stood on her hind legs and tried to reach the milk.
But she couldn't, and the little boy didn't pay any attention to her.
When he got to the men, the foreman asked him what his mother said.
And the little boy told him that his mother said he could have some of their things if they didn't give him any cake or any pie, and that any of the men could have their tea or coffee warmed for them if they would take it to his house.
The men who had tea or coffee were glad to hear that, and they went to the little boy's house and took their tea and their coffee.
Some had it in bottles and some had it in the covers of their dinner-pails, with the cup to drink out of fitting over the top.
The foreman didn't go, and the little boy sat down close to him and began to drink his milk; but his cat bothered him by trying to get it.
So the little boy gave her a push with his foot.
"Get away, kitty," he said. "You can't have any."
Then the foreman laughed, and he broke off a piece of white bread and gave it to the little boy. And the little boy took a great enormous bite.
"Is it good?" the foreman asked.
The little boy nodded. "M--m--m!" he said. He couldn't really say anything because he had his mouth full of bread.
"My wife made it," said the foreman. "I think she's a very fine cook."
The little boy put his mouthful of bread in his cheek so that he could speak.
"Yes," he said, "I think so too."
The foreman laughed again, and then the men began to come back.
They all wanted to give the little boy something; and some of them gave him other little pieces of white bread, and some of them gave him little corners of their sandwiches, and some gave him little pieces of dark-colored bread.
And he ate his pieces of bread and drank his milk, and the foreman gave him two of some little thin molasses cookies that were all crackly and crumbly; for little crackly cookies like those aren't much like cake.
When all the men had finished their dinner and had drunk their tea and their coffee, they went and put their pails and their baskets away and then came back and sat down again, and some of them got out their pipes and filled them.
The little boy was very happy, and he sat on the board with his hands in his lap, and he smiled.
"Now," said the foreman, "there's time for a story before you go to work again. Do any of you know a story?"
He looked all about and, last of all, he looked at the little boy. "Do you know any story?"
"Well," the little boy said, "I know about Jonah."
"Will you tell us about Jonah?" the foreman asked. "I should like to hear that story."
"Yes," said the little boy, "I will tell it. Well, once upon a time there was a man named Jonah. And he had to go to Nineveh to tell the people how bad they were. But he didn't want to go; so he didn't. He ran away in a ship.
"And when he got into the ship, he lay down and went to sleep. And the ship started, and pretty soon the wind began to blow terribly hard, and there were 'normous great waves, and the ship got all tippy. And the sailors were afraid, and they threw out the things that were in the ship.
"So the captain went to the place where Jonah was. 'Wake up, Jonah!' he said. 'Why don't you get up and pray?'
"Then the sailors talked together, and said that it must be Jonah's fault. 'Who is this Jonah, anyway?' they said. 'Where did he come from, and what is he doing here? Let's ask him.'
"So they did. And Jonah told them, and said: 'I guess you'll have to throw me out of the ship.' So they threw Jonah over into the water, and there wasn't any more storm.
"And Jonah, he went down and down and down in the water, and I guess he thought he was going to be drowned. Then a great, big whale came along and saw Jonah, and he opened his mouth wide and went at Jonah and swallowed him. But he didn't bite him or chew him or anything.
"But Jonah was terribly scared, 'cause he couldn't hardly guess where he was. The insides of the whale were all wet, and it was all pitchy dark in there.
"There wasn't anything for Jonah to do but to think, and after he had thought for a long, long time, the whale up-swallowed him and spitted him out on to the beach. And I s'pose Jonah went and washed his clothes, because they were all whaley.
"And then he went to Nineveh and told them to be more better, and they did be."
And that's all of Jonah.
IV
THE CARPENTER STORY
Once upon a time there was a little boy and he was almost five years old. And there weren't any other children near for him to play with, so he used to play happily all by himself.
He had his cat and his cart and his shovel and his hoe, and he always wore his overalls when he was playing.
They were building a house in a field near that little boy's house; and, one morning, he had heard the sounds of hammers and of mallets all the time he was at breakfast.
So he hurried to get through, and he slipped down from his chair and took off his napkin and he wiped his mouth and he turned to his mother.
She was sitting still, smiling because he was in such a hurry.
"You seem to be in a good deal of a hurry," she said.
"Yes," he said, nodding, "I am. I think I had better go over to the new house."
"To see whether the men are doing their work right?" she asked.
"You see, I have to help the mortar man," he explained. "Good-bye."
"Good-bye, dear," she said. Then she kissed him. "Be very careful."
"Yes, I will."
Then he went out, and he got his cart, and he put his shovel and his hoe in it, and he called his cat; but no cat came. And he called her again, but she didn't come then.
So he took up the handle of his cart, and he walked over to the new house, dragging his cart behind him, with his shovel and his hoe rattling in the bottom of it.
The mortar man was still there, hoeing mortar for the bricklayers to use, for the chimneys weren't done yet.
"Hello," said the mortar man.
"Hello," the little boy said. "I came as soon as I could."
"Where's your kitty?" the mortar man asked. "You couldn't find her, could you? Well, look around behind you."
The little boy looked around behind him.
He was standing with his back to the house, so that, when he looked behind him he saw the new house and the carpenters who were working at great beams which were on wooden horses that stood on the ground.
And he saw his cat, too. She was walking toward him, with her bushy tail sticking straight up in the air.
But the little boy was too much interested in what the carpenters were doing to pay much attention to his cat.
"What are those men doing?" he asked of the mortar man.
"The carpenters? They are cutting mortises in those girts. That is, little holes in those big beams. The ends of other beams will be made small enough to go in those holes, and they will hold the floor up."
"Mor--tar!" shouted one of the men who were building the chimney.
The mortar man hurried off with his hod of mortar, and the little boy wandered over to where the carpenters were.
His cat went, too, but he left his cart by the pile of sand.
There were two carpenters there, and they both looked up and smiled.
They had great thick chisels and heavy wooden mallets in their hands, and there was a big bit, or "borer," as the little boy called it, lying on the ground between them. And I don't know why "borer" isn't a better name for it.
There were some round holes in the beams which had been made by the borer, and the men were making those round holes square with the chisels.
One of the men had just finished a hole when the little boy came, and he went ahead to the next round hole, and he put the edge of the chisel carefully against the wood, and he struck it with the mallet.
_Plack!_ _Plack!_ _Plack!_ shrieked the mallet on the chisel.
_Ugh!_ _Ugh!_ _Ugh!_ the wood grunted, and it seemed to shiver when the mallet struck.
Then there was a splintering noise and a part of the wood broke away.
_Plack!_ _Plack!_ _Plack!_ screamed the mallet again.
The wood grunted again, but it was of no use, and another piece broke away.
And then the man hit the chisel again and another piece broke off, and the chisel came through on the other side of the beam.
And the carpenter drove the chisel through at the other side of the hole, in the same way; and what had been a round hole was a square one.
Then he laid the mallet down and took the chisel in both hands, and he leaned over the square hole and made the sides all smooth with the chisel.
Then he made a sort of sloping hole, a kind of a little square trench, and it went from the side of the beam into the square hole.
Then he put his tools down and looked at the little boy again and smiled.
"There!" he said. "That's done."
The little boy smiled back at him.
"Is it?" he said. "What goes in that hole? I could put my hand in it."
"It's not for little boys' hands," answered the carpenter. "The end of a short beam goes in there. I'll show you. We have to make places for the chimneys to come through and so people can go upstairs without knocking their heads. Did you ever think of that?"
The little boy shook his head, and he came nearer. "Show me."
So the carpenter went to a little pile of short beams; and he took one and brought it back.
And he turned the big beam on edge, and fitted the end of the little beam into the hole.
The end of the little beam had already been made small, so that it would go in.
"There," he said. "Now here, where I stand, will be the stairs for people to go up, and there will be that other big beam on the other side. We have to leave this big hole in the floor so that a man can go on the stairs without hitting his head, you know. Everywhere else will be a floor, except where the chimneys come through. Do you understand?"
The little boy nodded. He thought that he understood, although it was not very easy to understand.
And while he was trying to understand better, there came a voice behind him.
"Hello! I wondered where you were."
And he looked around and there was his friend the foreman, and the cat had gone to meet him and was coming back beside him, and she was looking up into the foreman's face, and her bushy tail was sticking straight up into the air.
"Hello," said the little boy; and he leaned back against the horse that the beam rested on.
"Your kitty," said the foreman, "came up here all by herself, and she followed me about."
The little boy laughed.
"She's a funny kitty," he said.
The foreman stooped down.
"I think you'd better tell me your name," he said. "I like to know the names of my friends."
"My name is David," the little boy answered.
"And mine is Jonathan," said the foreman quickly. "Think of that! Now, Davie, come with me and let's see how the other men are getting on."
So David put his little hand into the foreman's big one, and they started; and David saw some men putting up a great, tall beam on one of the corners.
Two men were holding it, and another man reached up as high as he could and nailed a board to it, and the other end of the board was fastened down low, so that the tall beam shouldn't fall over when the men let go.
"What are those men doing?" David asked. "That sticks up like my kitty's tail, doesn't it?"
"So it does," the foreman said. "There'll be more of them presently, sticking up all along every side."
"Will there? How many of those sticks will there be?"
"Oh, I don't know; more than fifty, I should think."
"A cat with fifty tails." And the little boy laughed. "Did you ever see a kitty with fifty tails?"
"All sticking straight up in the air!" said the foreman. "That _would_ be funny. She'd look like a porcupine."
"What _is_ a porcupine?" David asked. "Did I ever see one?"
"I guess not," the foreman answered. "Anyway, I never did. It's a little animal all covered with sharp things. It's just as if your kitty's fur was about three or four times as long as it is, and every hair was stiff and sharp. There's a great rattling as they walk, I'm told. The Indians used to sew the quills--the sharp things--on their soft leather slippers, because they looked pretty."
"Tell me some more about them," said David.
"I don't know any more. See, Davie, the men are putting up another stick."
So David watched the men put up that stick, and he forgot about the porcupine, which was what the foreman wanted.
And then he watched them put up another, and then another.
"They look as if they were the bones of the house," he said.
"So they do, Davie," the foreman said, "and so they are. And the whole frame, before it's boarded in--before any boards are nailed on--looks like the skeleton of a house, and so it is. They'll have pretty near the whole frame up by the time you eat your supper; or to-morrow morning, at any rate. Then you look and see. It's much the same way that your body's made: your ribs and the other bones are the frame, and inside you there are a lot of rooms, and it's all covered with soft skin instead of boards."
"Am I? What are my ribs?"
"These bones." And the foreman stooped and ran his finger quickly down David's ribs, and David shrieked with laughter.
"Tickles," said David. "Show me my ribs again."
"It isn't good for little boys to be tickled too much," said the foreman. "Now we'll go over to the sand-pile for a while. I don't want to take you into the house until they get the frame all up and some floors down. It isn't safe."
So they turned around and went to the sand-pile, and the foreman stayed there a little while and played in the sand.
Then he had to go away; and the mortar man had gone away, and nobody was there but David and his cat.
And David thought that he would help the mortar man, so he filled his cart with sand and dragged it over to the mortar box and shoveled it in.
Then he took up the handle of his cart, and he called his cat, and he walked along to his house, dragging his cart.
And his shovel rattled in the bottom of it, and his cat ran on before him.
But he had forgotten his hoe. It was in the pile of sand.
And that's all of this story.
V
THE WATER-MEN STORY
Once upon a time there was a little boy and he was almost five years old. And there weren't any other children near for him to play with, so he used to play happily all by himself.
He had his cat and his cart and his shovel and his hoe, and he always wore his overalls when he was playing. And his name was David.
They were building a house in a field near David's house; and, one morning, he heard a curious sound, and he wondered what they were doing, and he asked his mother.
"Mother," he said, "what are they doing? What are they? It sounds as if they were pickaxing the dirt."
His mother laughed. "Well," she answered, "perhaps they are. I don't know what they are doing. I think you'll have to go and see."
"Think I'll have to go and see," David repeated; "but I'll have my breakfast first."
So he had his breakfast first, and he hurried a little because he wanted to know what the noise was.
And when he was through his breakfast he took off his napkin and slipped down from his chair and went around to kiss his mother.
His father had gone off to town in the early train.
"Good-bye," said David.
"Good-bye, dear," said his mother. "Be very careful."
He nodded. "Yes, I will." He was going out, but he stopped. "I don't hear it now, mother. I don't hear the noise. Do you suppose they've stopped doing it?"
"If you go right along over there, I think you'll find out about it."
So the little boy went out, and he picked up his shovel, but he couldn't find his hoe.
And he put his shovel into his cart, and took up the handle of the cart, and his cat came running, and he went toward the new house, dragging his cart behind him with his shovel rattling in the bottom of it. His cat ran on ahead.
Long before he got as far as the house, he saw some men's heads bob up in the middle of the road; heads without any bodies to them.
And he went nearer, and he saw that the men were in a trench that they had dug in the road, as far as the new house.
Some long iron pipes were in the gutter. The pipes were big enough for his kitty to crawl through.
He wanted to ask somebody about them, but there was nobody there except the two men in the trench, so he walked along until he came to the mortar box.
The mortar man wasn't there. He had gone into the house with a hod of mortar.
So David looked all about for somebody.
He saw the pile of sand with his hoe sticking out of it, but he didn't pay any attention to it, for he wasn't thinking about hoes then.
And he saw the bones of the house almost all up, so that they made a pretty good skeleton, and the carpenters were putting up the rafters: the beams that hold up the roof.
And other carpenters had just begun nailing boards on to the outside of the up-and-down beams, and there was a great noise of hammering.
At last he saw the foreman.
"Hello!" David called.
There was such a noise, with the carpenters all hammering, that the foreman didn't hear him.
"Hello!" called David again, louder.
Still the foreman didn't hear.
"Hello!" David shouted as loud as he could shout. "_Hello, Jonathan!_"
The foreman heard, that time, and he looked around and laughed.
"Ho, Davie!" he said in a big round voice. "Just wait a minute and I'll be down there."
So David waited a minute, then two, then five minutes, and the foreman came. Then David asked his question.
"What are the men doing in the road?"
"They're digging a trench. When they get it done, they'll lay water pipes in it. And the water will come all the way from the reservoir on the hill, and it will go through pipes that are already laid under the streets, and it will come to this street, and it will turn into this street and go along, and some will go into your house, and some will keep on to this house and go in through a pipe that will be under the ground just the other side of the sand-pile.
"That pipe will go through the cellar wall, and to all the faucets in the house, so that when the little boy who will live here wants to wash his hands or take a bath, he will turn a faucet and the water will come running. There, now."
"Oh," said David, "will a little boy live here?"
"I don't know who will live here, Davie," the foreman answered. "There most generally is a little boy or so in any family that lives in this town."
"Oh," said David; and he nodded his head, and he saw a faucet that was nailed to a board.
And the faucet was on the end of a pipe which stuck up from the ground near the mortar box.
"Why," he said, "there's a faucet, and water will come. I've seen the mortar man get it there."
"Yes," said the foreman. "We had to have water to use. It comes through this pipe that lies on top of the ground all the way to your house. See?"
And the foreman showed David the pipe. It was hidden by the long grass.
"They're going to lay the pipes now, Davie. Do you want to see them do it?"
So David put his little hand into the foreman's big one, and they went together to where the men were.
The men had got up out of the trench, and they were going to take up one of the iron pipes that lay in the gutter.
Just as they began to lift it, out of one end of it popped David's kitty. She scurried around and popped into the end of another pipe, and all the men laughed.
"Funny kitty," said David.
Then the men took hold of the pipe that the cat had been in at first, and they lifted it, one at each end, and they carried it and put it down beside the trench.
Then they got into the trench again, and they took hold of the pipe and lowered it to the bottom.
David couldn't see what the men were doing then, and he went to the edge of the trench and squatted there and watched.
He saw the end of a pipe sticking out of the ground into the trench. It looked as if it had been in the ground a long time.
"What is that?" he asked the foreman.
The foreman said it was the end of the old pipe, and there was a place near his house where they could put a long iron thing into the ground, down as far as the pipes, and turn it and let the water into this pipe. The long iron thing was like a clock-key.
"And Davie," he said, "you see that one end of each pipe flares out bigger than the other end. The men put the small end of one pipe into the flaring end of the next. You'll see."
So David looked and the men fitted the small end of the new pipe into the flaring end of the old one, and they blocked the new pipe up with dirt and stones until it was just right.
Then one of the men took some things that were in the trench. All that David saw was what looked like some old frazzled-out rope, and he laid the things he had taken up around the new pipe in the joint, and he hammered them in tight with a kind of a dull chisel. That was so that the water shouldn't leak through.
When the men had the old frazzled-out rope all hammered in tight, the other man came and brought him something that looked all snaky, and it was shiny like the lead of a pencil, and it waved about as if it were heavy and it seemed to be all moist like mud.
And the man took this snaky, wavy thing, and he wrapped it around the pipe, and he drove it into the joint until it looked like a part of the pipe.
Then he felt it all over carefully, and he stood up and looked at it.
And he made up his mind that it was all right, and the other man began to shovel dirt down into the trench, and they punched the dirt until it was all hard under the pipe and at the sides.
Then they went to the gutter and picked up another pipe.
The foreman couldn't wait any longer.
"I've got to go now, Davie."
"Where have you got to go?" David asked. "Can I go with you?"
"I've got to go into the house. I can't take you in there yet. I'm afraid you'd get hurt. In a day or two you can go in."
David nodded. He was thinking about those pipes.
"Will the men keep on putting those pipes together until they come to the house?" he asked. "And how will they get the pipe into the house? They'll have to put it through a window."
"No," the foreman answered, "they won't have to put it through a window. They'll lay the pipes straight past the house, and they'll plug up the end until there are some more houses built on this road.
"Then they'll fit a little pipe into the side of the big pipe and run it through a hole in the cellar wall.
"The little pipe is not much bigger than that pipe that the faucet is on, over by the mortar box. What'll you do now, Davie?--play in the sand?"
David nodded again. "Good-bye," he said.
"Good-bye." And the foreman went into the house.
And David dug in the sand for a while, and then he looked for his cat, but he didn't see her; so he put his shovel and his hoe into the cart, and walked off, dragging the cart, with the shovel and the hoe rattling in the bottom of it.
And when he got to the pipes, the cat popped out of the end of one of them, and she ran ahead of David, with her bushy tail sticking straight up in the air, and David walked along to his house.
And that's all.
VI
THE SHINGLE AND CLAPBOARD STORY
Once upon a time there was a little boy, and he was almost five years old, and his name was David. And there weren't any other children near for him to play with, so he used to play happily all by himself.
He had his cat and his cart and his shovel and his hoe, and he always wore his overalls when he was playing.
One day he wandered up to the corner of the road that he lived on.