Chapter 3

He wasn't allowed to go beyond that corner, and his mother didn't like to have him go so far as the corner.

But he was pretending, and he didn't know how far he had come.

He played in the gravel of the gutter for a long time, and he was talking nearly all the time.

His cat was there, taking little runs away, with her bushy tail sticking straight up in the air. Then she would lie down on her back and play with the air, and then she always jumped up in a great hurry and ran back to David and rubbed against him.

But David wasn't talking to his cat, and he wasn't talking to himself.

He was talking to the pretend child who was his playmate and who had come there holding to the other handle of his cart and helping him drag it.

And he was so busy that he didn't notice the great wagon that was just about to turn the corner.

The driver called to him.

"Hey, little boy! Don't get run over."

David scrambled up on the sidewalk before he even looked, for he remembered to be careful.

Then he looked, and he saw a big wagon that was drawn by two horses, and the wagon was loaded with short, shiny boards, tied together in bundles, and on top of the bundles of short, shiny boards were bundles of shingles, a great many of them.

David knew what shingles looked like when they came in bundles, but he wondered what the shiny, short boards were.

But he didn't ask, because the horses were almost trotting, they were walking so fast, and the driver seemed to be pretty busy.

He supposed that the shingles and things were going to the new house, and he watched the wagon until it stopped there.

Then he took up the handle of his cart, and he walked off with it as fast as he could walk, and then he began to run, and his shovel and his hoe rattled so that you would have thought they would rattle out.

The pretend child didn't go with David, for he had forgotten all about her.

Sometimes the child was a girl and sometimes it was a boy; but it was a girl that morning. She was left in the gutter at the corner.

And David didn't call his cat, and the cat stayed at the corner for a while, and first she looked at the pretend little girl and then she looked after David, and she didn't know which to go with.

But at last she went running after David, and she caught up with him, and she ran on ahead, with her bushy tail sticking straight up in the air.

When David got to the house, he found the wagon there, and the horses were standing still, and the driver was throwing off the bundles of shingles and another man was piling them up.

They had got almost to the shiny, short boards.

And the foreman was there, and he was putting something down with a very short pencil in a little old book.

"Hello," said David. "What are--"

But the foreman interrupted him.

"Just wait a minute, Davie, until I get these checked up."

So David waited a long time, but the wagon was unloaded at last, and the little book put in the foreman's pocket.

"Now, Davie," the foreman said, "what was it that you were asking me?"

"I was asking what are these," said David, putting his hand on a bundle of the shiny boards.

"Those are clapboards, Davie."

The foreman stooped down and pointed to the house.

"You see they have begun to put them on the outside of the walls of the house, but we had to have some more. You see that one edge of a clapboard is thin and the other edge is thick."

He pulled one of the clapboards from a bundle and showed David.

"The thick edges go over the thin edges, very much like shingles, and they keep the rain and the wind out. You know about shingles?"

David nodded doubtfully.

"I don't know whether I do or not."

"Well," the foreman said, "you ought to know about them. Those two men have just begun to shingle the piazza roof. If you can wait a few minutes, I'll take you up there. You aren't very busy this morning, are you?"

David smiled and shook his head.

The foreman smiled too.

"You wait right here, and I'll come and get you pretty soon."

So David waited, and while he was waiting he watched the men putting on clapboards.

They had begun at the top and had got about halfway down that side.

The side of the house was all covered with red stuff which looked something like cloth and something like thick paper. It was paper, and it rippled and waved in the wind.

The men were putting the clapboards on outside of that red paper.

A man had a pile of clapboards beside him, and he took one up and he lifted the edge of the one above, and he tucked the thin edge of the clapboard that he held in his hand under the edge that he had lifted; and he gave it little taps with his hammer until it was in the right place, and then he drove fine nails through the thick edge that he had lifted, and through the thin edge of the clapboard beneath, and into the wall of the house.

Then he took up another clapboard and put it close up to the one that he had just fastened, with its thin edge tucked under the thick edge of the one above.

The men put on clapboards very fast, and David was so interested in seeing them do it that he forgot that the foreman had not come back for him.

He had gone up nearer, so as to see just how the clapboards went on, when he heard the foreman's voice behind him.

"Well, Davie," said the foreman, "do you think you could put on clapboards as fast as that?"

David shook his head.

"No, I couldn't."

"Perhaps not. But come on, and we'll see what you can do with shingles."

And the foreman took David's small hand in his big one, and they went to where a ladder stood leaning against the edge of the piazza roof.

A little way below the edge of the roof there was a rough sort of a platform, made of two boards laid on some other boards that were nailed to the posts of the piazza and to long sticks which went up and down and had their ends resting on the ground.

This was what the carpenters called a staging or scaffolding, and when they got through their work, they would take it down.

"Now, Davie," said the foreman, "you take hold of the rungs and climb up. It's a pretty long stretch for little legs, but I'll hold you, and I won't let you fall. Don't look down. Look up."

So David took hold of a rung and stretched his leg as high as it would go, and he managed to get his foot on the first rung.

Then he pulled himself up and reached up with one hand and took hold of the next rung; and then he put his other hand up, and he stretched his leg up as high as it would go, and he stepped up another rung.

The rungs of a ladder are the little round sticks that go across that you put your feet on.

David climbed very slowly, and he was rather scared at first; but he felt the foreman's arm around him, and the foreman kept just behind him, so that he stopped being scared.

And he climbed a little faster, and he came to the platform.

"Now, what shall I do?" he asked.

"Now you hold your breath," the foreman said, "and I'll put you over on to the staging."

So Davie held his breath and one of the shingle men came and held him by the arms when the foreman had set him down upon the boards.

Then the foreman stepped upon the staging and put his arm around David again.

"There!" said the foreman. "You've climbed your first ladder. Now we'll see about the shingling."

There was a whole bundle of shingles on the staging, and another bundle that had been opened, and the shingle men had thrown a good many of these shingles up on the roof, so that they would be handy.

And David saw that there were three rows of shingles on already, and that a string was stretched tight across the last row; and the string was chalky-looking, and blue.

"They're just going to mark another row," the foreman said. "You watch."

Then one of the shingle men lifted the stretched string between his thumb and his forefinger, and he let it go, and it snapped down hard upon the shingles.

And they took the string away, and there was a blue line all along the row of shingles.

"What is that?" David asked.

"Chalk, Davie. They put chalk on the string by rubbing a lump of chalk on it. That line shows where the edge of the next row of shingles goes.

"And they lay the shingles on so that each crack in the row beneath is covered. The shingles are different widths, you see, and they can always find one that fits up close to the next one and covers a crack.

"If the cracks were not covered, the rain would get through and the roof would leak.

"Now let's see if you can lay shingles. Pick out one that you think will be right to cover the crack in the row beneath, and lay it down close up to the last one and with its thick edge to that blue line."

David was rather excited at the thought that he was to lay the shingles.

"Shall I?" he asked.

The foreman nodded, and he pointed to a shingle.

"Try that one."

So David took the one that the foreman pointed at, and he laid it down as well as he could, close up to the last one which the shingle man had put on, and with its thick edge at the blue line.

It took him some time, because he had never laid shingles before; but the shingle man had only to change it a tiny bit, and then he drove in two nails about halfway up toward the thin edge.

And David took another shingle which the foreman pointed at, and he fitted it in its place a little more quickly, and the shingle man didn't have to change that one at all, but drove the nails with hardly more than two blows of his hammer.

So David kept on laying shingles, and the shingle man nailed them.

At first the foreman pointed to the right shingles; but, after a while, he didn't point, but David chose them himself.

And they finished that row, and they began the next.

"I'm afraid, Davie," the foreman said, "that we'll have to go down now. Aren't you ready to go?"

David was getting a little bit tired, for the shingle man nailed his shingles before he could wink, and he felt hurried all the time.

So he said that he was ready, and the foreman took him under his arm and carried him down the ladder that way.

"Good-bye," he called to the shingle men as he was going down.

"Good-bye," the shingle men called to David. "We're much obliged."

"You're welcome," David called back to the shingle men.

Then he was set down on the ground, and he was rather glad to feel the ground again.

And his cat came running, with her bushy tail straight up in the air, and David started off.

"Where are you going so fast?" the foreman asked.

David stopped for a moment.

"I've got to go home now."

"To tell your mother that you've been shingling?"

David nodded, and he smiled shyly.

"Well, good-bye, Davie," the foreman said.

"Good-bye," said David.

And he turned again and ran to his cart, and he took up the handle.

And he started walking as fast as he could, dragging his cart, with his shovel and his hoe rattling in the bottom, and his cat ran on ahead; and she ran right up the front steps and in at the door, and David came after.

But he left his cart in the path.

And that's all of the shingle story.

VII

THE PLUMBER 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.

They were building a new house in the field next to David's house, and it was all done on the outside, but it wasn't painted.

And the men were working inside, for David could hear the hammering, and sometimes he could hear them sawing.

One morning, after breakfast, David went to his mother and said that the foreman wanted him to come to the new house that morning, for the plumbers would be there.

He didn't know what plumbers were.

"What are plumbers, mother?"

"They are men who mend the pipes, dear," his mother answered.

"What pipes?" he asked. "Are the pipes broken?"

His mother laughed. "Well, I suppose they put in the water pipes, and the bathtubs and the basins and the hot-water boiler and all those things."

David nodded, and let his mother kiss him, and then he went out.

And his cat was there, waiting for him, and his cart was there, with his shovel and his hoe in the bottom of it. And he stooped down and took hold of the handle of his cart, and he trudged to the new house, dragging his cart.

The mortar man had gone some time before, and there wasn't any sand-pile, but the foreman saw him coming.

"Hello, Davie," he called.

"Hello," David called back.

"You're just in time to go into the house with me," the foreman said.

So David dropped the handle of his cart and the foreman took hold of his hand, and they went up the steps and into the house.

The partition walls between the rooms weren't all done, and David could see right through them in some places into the next room.

And the foreman and David went through the place that would be the front hall when it was done, with the front stairs going up out of it; and some carpenters were working there now and there was a great mess.

"What are the carpenters doing?" David asked.

"They're nailing on laths, Davie," the foreman answered. "Laths, you see, are the little thin sticks that go on the up-and-down sticks of the walls, and the plaster goes on them and squeezes between them. Then, when it hardens, the part that is between the laths holds the rest of the plaster up and against the wall."

David nodded, but they were in the back hall now, with the back stairs going up out of it, and he forgot the carpenters and the laths.

Under the back stairs were some stairs that went down to the cellar, and the foreman started down.

"Be careful of the steps, Davie," said the foreman. "They have to have these rough boards on them now, while the workmen are here, so that the real steps won't get all dirty and worn. When the men are almost through, about the last thing they do is to lay floors and put nice boards on the stairs."

David couldn't see very well, but he could feel that the boards of the stairs were uneven and rough, and some of them were small; but he was careful, and he went slowly, and at last he was on the cellar floor.

Far off in the very end of the cellar he saw a lantern lighted, and a flickering light which moved about, high up.

Then, as he got used to the darkness, he saw the legs of two men; and they had great wrenches and were doing something to long pipes, and they had a candle which they held close up to the pipes, so that they could see.

And the pipes went along close to the beams overhead, so that the men were all the time bumping their heads and knocking their elbows on the beams, and they didn't have room enough to work.

That was the reason why David had seen only their legs when he first came down.

It wasn't a very convenient way to work, but the men didn't seem to mind. Perhaps they were used to it.

"Are those the pipes that the water goes through?" David asked.

"Yes, Davie," the foreman said. "It comes in through the wall there, close down to the floor, from that pipe that you saw the men laying in the street.

"Then it goes up and through these pipes to the back of the cellar, and then up again to the kitchen and the pantry and the bathrooms.

"It isn't much fun being down here, is it?"

"No," David said, "it isn't."

The foreman laughed.

"Well, you wait a half a jiffy and we'll go up."

So David waited while the foreman took a paper out of his pocket.

And first he looked at the paper and then he looked at the pipes, and then he looked at the paper again.

Then he folded the paper and put it into his pocket, and he took David's hand and they went up the cellar stairs, and through a door into the kitchen.

There David saw the legs of two other men who were lying down under the sink.

They had a stump of a candle, too, for David could see its flickering light.

And there was a kind of a lamp out on the floor beyond, and it burned with a sputtering and a hissing and a roaring, and it threw a big bluish kind of a flame straight out, like water out of a hose.

David watched the men for nearly a minute without saying anything, but he couldn't guess what they were up to.

"What are they doing?" he asked at last.

"They're putting in the waste pipe and the trap," said the foreman; "but you don't know what that is, of course. They're putting in the pipe that the water runs through when it runs out of the sink."

"Oh, I know," David cried. "It's for the dirty water that the pots and pans have been washed in; the soapy water."

"That's just right, Davie."

"Well," David said, "why do they have to be lying down to do it? I should think they'd rather do it standing up or sitting down."

At that, one of the men poked his head out and smiled at David.

"You got that just right, too," he said; "but here's where it has to go, and there's no other way that I know of."

"The pipe has to be under the sink, Davie, for the water to run into it," the foreman said. "Now come on, and we'll go upstairs again."

So the foreman and David went up the back stairs very slowly and carefully, for there were rough boards on those stairs, too; and they went through a door and through the upstairs hall, and through another door into a small square room.

The foreman said that that room would be the bathroom. No plaster was on the walls yet, but the laths were all on. And there wasn't any bathtub yet, nor any basin; only some pipes sticking up out of the floor.

And David saw the bodies and the legs of two more men.

These men had their heads and shoulders through a great square hole in the floor, and their bodies and their legs were lying on the floor and sticking out straight.

David laughed. "Water-pipe men are funny men," he said.

One of the men lifted his head out of the hole in the floor and smiled at David, but he didn't say anything.

"They're putting in the waste pipe and the trap," the foreman said; "that is, the pipe that the water will run through when it runs out of the bathtub. A tub will be here Davie, after the floor is laid."

David nodded.

"Would you like to be a plumber, Davie?" the foreman asked, smiling.

David shook his head.

"I think I'd better go now," he said. "My kitty won't know where I am."

So the foreman laughed, and he tucked David under his arm and carried him downstairs and out of the front door, and he set him down on the ground.

"Good-bye, Davie," said the foreman.

"Good-bye," said David.

And he took hold of the handle of his cart, and walked home as fast as he could, dragging his cart, and his shovel and his hoe rattled in the bottom of it.

When he got home, there was his cat waiting for him.

David dropped the handle of his cart, and ran around to the back of the house and got an old grocery box that he used to play with.

He kept all his things at the back of the house: old broken grocery boxes and old tin cans and rows of bottles, some of them filled with water and some filled with thin mud and some empty, and nails and pieces of iron and sticks; but not his toys.

And David dragged the old grocery box around to the front, and put it opposite the end of a step.

Not all of the boards which had been nailed on for a cover were taken off, so that the inside of the box was hard to get at, and it was rather dark.

Then he picked up two short sticks and put them on the step.

David hurried to do all these things, and when he had them done, he hurried into the house and into the dining-room, and he climbed up in a chair and took a short candle out of one of the candlesticks which they used on the table.

Then he pushed the chair over near where the matches were, and he climbed up again and got three matches. And then he hurried out again.

He scratched one of the matches on the piazza floor and managed to get the candle lighted with that first match.

So he dropped the other two matches, he didn't know where, and he carried his candle to the grocery box, very carefully, so that it shouldn't blow out, and he reached in and put it in a corner.

Then he lay down on the step and put his head and shoulders and his arms inside the box, and he took the two short sticks in his hands.

David's mother had heard the chair scraping on the dining-room floor, when he pushed it over to get the matches, and she thought that, as likely as not, that was David, and she thought that she had better see what he was doing.

She didn't think there was any great hurry about it, and so she came downstairs in a few minutes, and she went out upon the piazza.

There she saw David's body and his fat little legs sticking out straight on the step, but his head and his arms were in the box, so she couldn't see them.

And there was a light flickering inside the box, and there was a noise of scraping and knocking, once in a while.

But she wasn't surprised.

"What in the world are you doing, dear?" she asked.

David drew his head out of the box so that he could see his mother and answer her. His face was pretty red.

"I'm a plumber, mother," he said, "and I'm doing the work in the bathroom. Plumbers _always_ do it this way."

David's mother laughed.

"So they do, dear, pretty nearly," she said. "Be very careful of the candle, and don't burn yourself or set the box afire, and be sure to blow it out when you are through."

And David nodded and put his head back in the box, and his mother went in, smiling.

And his cat came and stood on the cover boards that had been left on, and she put her head down and peered into the box, but she didn't get in.

And that's all of the plumber story.

VIII

THE PAINTER 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.

They were building a new house in the field next to David's house, and the masons were through their work, and the bricklayers were through, and the water men were through, and the plumbers were through, and the gas men were through, and the plasterers were through, and the carpenters were almost through, for they were laying nice clean boards on the floors, and they had the floors almost done.

David had watched them do it, and had seen how they put one board down after another, and gave the last board whacks with a hammer, to drive it close up against the next board, and nailed it through the edge, so that the nails shouldn't show.

But they always put a piece of a board against the floor board, and whacked the hammer on that, because they wanted the floor to be all smooth and shiny and not to show any marks of a hammer.

And now the house had to be painted.

So, one morning, a great big wagon came to the new house.

And on the wagon were ladders, some of them very tall, and they stuck out far beyond the ends of the wagon; and there were great enormous hooks, and boards that were all painty; and a great many pots of paint, some dark green for the blinds, and some a lemon-yellow for the corners of the house and what the painters call the trimmings.

But most of the paint was white.

There were two kinds of white paint, one kind for the outside of the house and another for the inside.

And there were all the kinds of brushes that the painters would need, and there were great bundles of cloth, which the painters would spread over the floors, so that the nice clean floors shouldn't get all spattered with paint; and there were some odds and ends besides.

And the painters came, and they took the things all off the wagon.

Of course, the carpenters had some ladders that would reach, but those were the carpenters' ladders, not the painters'; and the carpenters had some boards, but those were the carpenters' boards, not the painters'.

That is why the painters had brought boards and ladders.