could, dragging his cart, and his shovel and his hoe rattled in the
bottom of it; and his cat ran on ahead, with her bushy tail sticking
up in the air.
I don't know why David took his cart that time, for there wasn't any
mortar man, and there wasn't any sand-pile. He almost always took his
cart.
When David got to the house, there was the foreman standing in almost
the same place, but the painters had lowered the staging some more.
And David didn't say anything, but he dropped the handle of his cart,
and he went to the foreman and reached up for the foreman's hand.
And the foreman's big hand closed over David's little one, and the
foreman smiled, but he didn't say anything, either. He waited for
David to speak.
David watched the painters for some time.
"What color are they painting it?" he asked at last. "It looks like
white on the brushes, but sort of watery when they put it on, just as
my paints look when I put a great deal of water with them. Have they
got a great deal of water with their paint?"
"Not water, Davie," the foreman answered, "but oil. This is the first
coat of paint, you see, put right on the bare wood, and the wood soaks
the oil out of the paint at a great rate. They won't put so much oil
in the second and third coats."
"Oh," said David, "will they paint it three times?"
"Three times for new wood," the foreman said.
[Illustration: PAINTING]
He didn't say any more then, but he watched and so did David while the
painters dipped their brushes and patted them against the sides of
their paint-pots and brushed them quickly back and forth over the new
clapboards.
"Come with me, Davie," the foreman said at last, "and let's see if we
can't scare up something else that's interesting."
And so David went with the foreman, and they went around by the cellar
door.
And there they saw a great pile of shutters or blinds which were to go
on the outside of all the windows of the house.
These blinds were leaning, one against another, and they had already
been painted a kind of bluish gray, and each one had whole rows of
little slats that you could turn back and forth.
And beyond the pile of bluish gray blinds was a smaller pile of dark
green blinds, and the dark green blinds glistened with fresh paint,
and they were leaning, one against another.
And between the pile of bluish gray blinds and the pile of dark green
blinds were two painters, painting for dear life, and they were
painting the bluish gray blinds dark green.
David watched them for a few minutes. It seemed to be a good deal of
trouble to get the slats well painted.
"These," said the foreman, putting his hand on the bluish gray blinds,
"are just as they come from the mill--the factory where they are made.
This first coat of paint is put on there. Then our painters paint them
whatever color is wanted."
David nodded, but he didn't say anything, for he didn't understand why
the carpenters didn't make the blinds.
Pretty soon he pulled at the foreman's hand.
"I want to go back," he said.
So they went back to the painters who were painting the side of the
house.
They had lowered the staging so low that the foreman could reach it.
"I'll tell you what, Davie," the foreman said. "Do you suppose you
could paint a clapboard?"
"Oh," cried David, "will they let me?"
"I guess so," the foreman answered. "You ask them."
David looked up at the painters, and the painters looked down at David,
and they were smiling.
David started to speak, but he couldn't ask what he wanted to. And the
painters saw what was the matter, and one of them spoke.
"Want to paint a board?" he asked. "Well, come on up here."
So the foreman put his hands under David's arms, and he lifted David
right up, over the staging, and set him down with his feet hanging
over. And the painter dipped his brush into the paint, and patted it
gently against the side of the paint-pot, _plop_, _plop_, _plop_, and
he handed the brush to David.
"Oh," David said, "it's heavy!"
"So it is," the painter said. "The paint is mostly lead, that's why.
Now, you move the brush away from you as if you were sweeping the
floor or dusting the board. Then, when it has gone as far as you can
reach, you bring it back on the other side."
David tried, but he didn't do it very well and the paint squeezed out
of the brush and ran down and dripped from the edge of the clapboard.
"Not that way," the painter said. "I'll show you."
Then he took hold of David's wrist, but he left the brush in David's
hand, and he moved it the way it ought to go, and he swept up all the
little rivers of paint and all the little drips, and spread it
smoothly over the clapboard.
"There!" said the painter. "Now, do you see?"
David nodded, and he tried again.
This time he did better, but the paint was all gone from the brush,
and he held it out to the painter for more.
So the painter dipped it again, and David took it, and painted some
more.
And each time he did better than he had done the last time, and he
hitched along on the staging, and that clapboard was all painted
before he knew it.
And David sighed and started to get up on his feet.
But the other painter called to him.
"Hey, David!" he called. "Aren't you going to do any painting for me?
That isn't fair. You come over and do a board for me."
David smiled with pleasure. "Yes, I will," he said.
So he crawled on his hands and knees along the staging, and the
foreman walked along on the ground beside him.
And he painted a clapboard for that other painter, but a great drop of
the paint got on the leg of his overalls.
"Oh," he said, "I got some paint on my overalls."
"Gracious!" said the painter. "That's nothing. Look at my overalls."
The painter's overalls were made of strong white cloth, and they were
all splashed up with paint, all colors. But he had painted a great
deal more than David had.
So David finished the clapboard, and then he got up on his feet, and
the foreman took him and lifted him down to the ground.
"Thank you," said the painter.
"Thank you," said the other painter.
"You're welcome," David said. "Good-bye."
"Good-bye," said both the painters.
And David began to run to his cart.
"Good-bye, Davie," the foreman said.
David stopped a moment and looked around.
"Good-bye," he said.
Then his cat came running to meet him, and he grabbed up the handle of
his cart, and he kept on running, dragging his cart, and his shovel
and his hoe rattled away like everything in the bottom of it.
And when he got to his house, he didn't stop running, but just dropped
the handle of the cart, and he climbed up the steps as fast as he
could and ran into the house.
"Mother," he called, "I painted two boards and I got some paint on my
overalls. But you ought to see the painter's overalls. They're _awful_
painty."
And that's all.
IX
THE TREE-MEN 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.
Behind David's house were some thin woods. And in those woods were oak
trees, several kinds, but he didn't know the difference between the
kinds.
And there were cedar trees and chestnut trees and birch trees of three
kinds; and there were white pine trees and pitch pine trees, and the
pitch pine trees were sticky all over.
David knew the pitch pine trees, because he had got his clothes all
covered with their stickiness.
And there were a few great sycamore trees, and some ash trees, and
some beech trees, and a lot of other kinds that I can't remember the
names of.
All summer there were lots of birds in these woods and about the edge
of them; and in the winter, when all those summer birds had gone away,
other birds came.
And four blue jays stayed there all the year, and the crows stayed, of
course, but they didn't live in those woods especially.
And there were chickadees and juncos, which are one kind of snowbird;
and there were a lot of little birds which looked like sparrows, and
there were red-polled linnets, and occasionally a flock of cedar-birds
would cover the cedars like gray snowflakes, and once David's mother
called him to come quick and see the pine grosbeaks.
And when David came, he saw a great flock of birds which looked gray,
but three of them had the most beautiful rose-colored feathers on
their breasts and shoulders and heads, making them look as if they had
tied rose-colored aprons about their necks. David watched them until
they flew away.
All these birds were very busy feeding on the seeds of weeds or the
berries of the trees, and some of them dug insects out of the bark.
And there were gray squirrels which raced along the branches of the
trees, and jumped from one branch to another, and poked about on the
ground and opened the chestnut-burs which had just fallen from the
trees, and ate the chestnuts, or scampered over the roof just above
David's head, and made a great racket.
They were great fat fellows with warm, thick fur, not much like the
squirrels on Boston Common, but they got almost as tame with David,
although he never could get quite near enough to one to pat it. That
was better, for the squirrel might have bitten David.
David used to try to get near them, but he always told his cat to stay
at home when he was going after them, for the squirrels were afraid of
his cat.
One morning in the fall David had gone after the squirrels. There were
a great many squirrels about, for the chestnuts had begun to fall, and
the squirrels were very busy.
And David had got farther and farther from his house, but he was where
he could see the road.
And he heard the rattle of a wagon, and he looked and saw a very
spick-and-span new wagon, painted red, with yellow and black stripes
on it, and the wheels were flashing in the sun as they turned.
On the wagon were ladders and long slender poles, and four men were
riding on it.
The wagon stopped, and the men got off. One of the men took a halter
out of the wagon and tied the horse to a tree, while the others took
off the ladders.
Then each man took one of the long, slender poles, and a big can and a
little can. And they took the ladders on their shoulders and held them
with one hand, and the poles in the other hand, and the handles of the
cans in that other hand, too, and they began to walk right to where
David was.
[Illustration: THE TREE-MEN]
And all the squirrels heard them coming, and they stopped eating
chestnuts, and each squirrel scurried to a tree, with his chestnut in
his mouth, and he scrambled up the tree, on the opposite side of the
trunk from the men, so that the men couldn't see him.
They scrambled up the trunks very fast, until they came to a branch;
and each squirrel sat on his branch, next to the trunk, and made a
sort of a scolding, barking noise, and every time he made the noise
his tail gave a queer little jerk.
David was watching them, and he heard their noises, and he couldn't
help laughing to see their tails jerk.
And then the men were there, and they saw David laughing.
"Hello," said one of the men. "What's so funny?"
"I was laughing at the squirrels," David said; "they make their tails
go."
"Yes," said the man, "I hear them, and I see some of them. How they do
scold! But we wouldn't hurt them."
He put his cans down, and he leaned his pole against a tree, and he
stood the ladder against the tree.
David looked in the cans. There wasn't anything in the little can, but
the big can was full of something that was about as thick as molasses
and almost as black as ink, only it was brownish black.
"What is it?" he asked. "Is it molasses? It smells horrid."
The man laughed.
"No," he answered, "it isn't molasses or anything good to eat. It's
creosote. That's a poisonous kind of stuff. We put it on these things."
He pointed to a place on a tree. It looked as if somebody had daubed
dirt on the trunk, and the place was about the size of David's thumb,
and it was rounded out a little at the middle.
"I guess you never noticed those places," the man said. "Inside of
that are the eggs of a moth that eats things up and does a great deal
of harm. Those eggs would hatch when it gets warm enough, and little
worms would come out, and they would begin to eat, and the worms would
change into moths later on, and the moths would lay more eggs. We are
trying to get rid of them, so we paint some creosote on every bunch of
eggs we can find, and that kills them.
"If you look carefully you can see a good many places just like this,
all over the trunks of the trees and on the under sides of branches.
Some trees have a good many on them, and some don't have any. There's
a lot on this tree."
David looked and saw the little mud spots farther up the trunk, and
then he looked higher and he saw some of the spots on the under sides
of the branches, as the man had said.
He nodded.
"You paint some now," he said, going nearer, "with that stuff."
The man laughed.
"You want to see me do it right off, do you?" he asked.
So he took a stubby paint brush from his belt, and he dipped it into
the big can, and he wiped it over as many of the spots as he could
reach. The spots looked as if they had been painted with tar.
"Now," he said, "I am going to walk right up that tree."
He pointed to his legs, and David saw that a long iron thing was
strapped to each leg, and the iron thing had a sharp point which stuck
down about as far as the soles of his shoes.
"Those are climbers, or spurs. We can walk right up any tree that
isn't too large around, and you see that those points are bent in a
little so that they will stick into the trunk of the tree on each
side. You watch."
So the man poured some of the stuff from the big can into the little
can, and he hung the little can from his belt, and he stuck the stubby
paint brush in his belt.
Then he went to the tree, and he put his hands half-around the trunk,
and he lifted up one foot and jabbed it down, so that he jabbed the
spur into the tree. Then he lifted the other foot and jabbed that spur
in; and he walked right up the tree.
And when he had got to other spots that had been too high for him to
reach, he stopped and held on with one hand, while he took the paint
brush and painted those egg bunches with stuff from the little can.
But there were some egg bunches left on branches that were too little
for the man to go on.
So the man put one leg over a branch, and he took his pole, which was
leaning against a twig just beside him, and he fixed the paint brush
in the end of the pole, in a place that was meant for it, and he
reached out with the pole and painted all those egg bunches on the
small branches.
Then he put the pole back, leaning against the twig, and he came
slowly down to the ground.
"There!" he said. "Did you see how I did it? Do you think that you
could paint some?"
David's eyes glistened.
"Oh, could I? But I couldn't walk up the tree."
The man smiled.
"I'm afraid you couldn't, but you can paint as far as you can reach
with the pole."
The other men were busy on trees near, and they watched while David
painted the mud spots on another tree which the man found for him.
He wasn't very tall and there were only two spots which he could reach
while he stood on the ground.
But the man held him up in his arms as high as he could, and when he
had painted all those spots, the man fixed the paint brush in the end
of the pole.
It was pretty heavy for such a little boy to manage, and the end would
wave around so that he couldn't make the brush paint where he wanted
it to.
So the man helped David to hold the pole steady and paint as far as it
could reach.
Just then David heard his mother calling him.
"I've got to go now," he said to the man. "I think my mother wants me."
"Well, good-bye," the man said. "We're much obliged."
"You're welcome," David said. "Good-bye."
And he turned around and went galloping through the woods to his house.
And his cat met him, and then his mother met him.
"Where were you, dear?" his mother asked.
"I was helping the tree-men paint egg-spots. How big are moth-eggs,
mother?"
But his mother didn't know.
And that's all.
X
THE CLEARING-UP 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 had been building a new house in the field next to David's house,
and it was all done. Even the last coat of paint was dry.
David knew, because he had tried it with his finger to see. He had
tried it three times, and the first two times it wasn't dry, but the
last time it was.
And the carpenters had gone, and the painters had gone, but they had
left great messes and piles of stuff that had been swept out of the
house, and heaps of the sawed-off ends of boards, and some good boards,
and piles of broken laths and plaster and the little pieces that they
had sawed off the laths, and some broken saw-horses, and a lot of
other rubbish.
One morning David heard the rattle of a wagon; and he looked and saw a
wagon stop at the new house, and he saw the nice foreman that he knew,
and there were two other men.
And the men jumped out, and the foreman jumped out, and David hurried
to go over there. He hurried so fast that he forgot to take his cart,
and he forgot to call his cat, but his cat came just the same, and she
ran on ahead, with her bushy tail sticking straight up in the air.
And when the foreman saw the cat, he knew that David couldn't be far
off, and he looked up and he saw him.
"Hello, Davie," he said. "I'm glad to see you."
"Hello," David said. "What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to sort of clear up the place, Davie. Don't you think it
needs it? And I'm going to have all this rubbish carried off or burned
up."
David nodded, but he didn't say anything; and he reached up, and he
put his little hand into the foreman's big one.
Then the two men who had come with the foreman began to pick out the
boards that were good.
There were some great heavy planks which were covered with plaster and
spattered with paint, but they were good planks and could be used
again.
The men took these planks, one man at each end, and they brought them
to the wagon and they put them in.
When they had brought all the planks, they separated the long boards
from the little short ends of boards, and they brought the long boards
to the wagon and they put them on top of the planks.
Then they piled the little short ends of boards near the cellar door.
It was a great pile of wood that the people who moved into the house
could have to burn.
Then they found a couple of saw-horses that were pretty good, and they
put them on top of the boards in the wagon, and the wagon was loaded
with as much as one horse ought to pull.
So the foreman told one of them to go along with that load, and to
hurry back, and he would stay there and help the other man do a little
clearing up.
And the man climbed into the seat, and drove off.
"Now, Davie," the foreman said, "I've got to help my man, and I can't
stay here with you and do nothing, although I should like to."
"What are you going to do?" David asked.
"Oh, we're going to put all the rubbish that will burn over there on
the bare spot, where it can't set anything afire. All the stuff that
we can't burn we'll rake up into piles, and when the wagon comes back,
we'll take it away. And there's a little gravel over there that is
hardly worth taking, and we'll leave it for the graders to use."
"What are the graders?" asked David. "What do they do?"
"Oh, the graders are sort of rough gardeners. They spread the dirt
around where it is wanted, and they make it the right height all along
the foundation, and smooth it off, and they make the walks up to the
front door and the back door, and they spread gravel on the walks.
Sometimes they make terraces or banks, but they won't do that here. It
will be a nice slope from the house down to the field, all around."
David looked at the house, which stood high on its foundation, and he
saw that there was a great hole between the ground and the front
steps. He supposed that the graders would fill up that hole.
He nodded.
"I'll get my cart," he said, "and then I'll help you."
So he ran all the way home, and his cat saw him running and she ran
too, faster than David ran, and she ran right up on to the piazza.
But David didn't go there. He took up the handle of his cart, and he
ran back again.
And his cat saw that she had made a mistake, and she ran faster than
ever; and she passed David, and she was running so fast that her bushy
tail didn't stick up in the air at all, but straight out behind.
And David came where the foreman was standing, waiting for him, and
the foreman showed him where he wanted the rubbish piled to be burned,
far from the house.
And the foreman and David worked together, and they piled the rubbish
into the cart; and when it was full, they dragged the cart over to the
place, and they emptied the rubbish out of it.
Then the foreman took a match out of his pocket, and he scratched the
match on his trousers-leg, and he lighted the pile of rubbish.
And a little thin column of smoke went up, and then it blazed, and
then it crackled, and the foreman and David went back for another load.
The foreman and David worked for a long time, getting loads of rubbish,
and dragging them over to the fire.
[Illustration: BURNING RUBBISH]
Then the foreman would take up the cart, all filled with little odds
and ends of sticks and with shavings and with twigs and the ends of
laths, and he would turn the cart upside down over the fire, and empty
all that stuff out.
Then David would drag the cart back.
The other man was working with a rake all this long time, raking over
the places where the foreman and David had been, and he raked the
pieces of plaster and the other stuff that wouldn't burn into little
heaps.
Suddenly they heard the rattle of the wagon, and they all looked up.
And the wagon stopped, and the man who had been driving jumped off,
and the horse just stood where he had stopped, and he breathed hard
and looked after the man, and he pricked his ears forward.
Then the foreman told the men to get all that stuff into the wagon,
and he waved his hand toward the heaps of rubbish that had been raked
up.
So the man held out his hand toward the horse, and he whistled, and
the horse came, and he followed the men to the farthest pile of
rubbish.
And the men took shovels and shoveled the stuff into the wagon in no
time. Then they walked along to the next heap, and the horse came
after.
And they shoveled that stuff into the wagon, and they walked along to
the next heap, and the horse came after.
And so they did until they had shoveled in the last heap; and the
horse walked into the road, dragging the wagon after him, and there he
stopped.
The foreman and David had picked up all the little odds and ends of
things which would burn, and had put them on the fire.
The fire had been blazing up high, but now it wasn't blazing so high,
and it was almost burned out.
And the two men stood still, leaning on their shovels, and looked all
about.
And the foreman stood still, and he looked all about.
And David stood still, leaning on the handle of his cart, and he
looked all about, because he saw the others looking; but he didn't see
anything in particular.
The foreman turned to David and sighed.
"Well, Davie," he said, "I guess that'll be about all."
David nodded and looked over to the fire, which was not much more than
a heap of red coals and white ashes.
The foreman saw where he was looking.
"The fire'll be all right," he said. "It's about out. Now I'll take
just one more look around."
So the foreman walked all around the house, slowly, and he looked
carefully to make sure that he had not forgotten anything.
And he looked at the cellar door and at the places where the heaps of
rubbish had been, and all around the foundations of the house, and at
the great hole under the front steps where the steps didn't come down
to the ground, and at the fire last of all.
The fire had all burned out to white ashes, and every swirl of the
wind made the ashes fly about.
Then the foreman came where David was.
"Now we're going, Davie," he said. "We'll come back some day to build
another house next to this one. Will you help us then?"
"Yes," said David, "I'll help you as much as I can. When are you going
to build it?"
"Oh, I don't know," the foreman said, "but I should think it would be
before long. Somebody's going to move into this house in a few days.
We're much obliged to you for helping us build this."
"You're welcome," said David.
Then the foreman shook David's hand.
"Good-bye, Davie," he said. "Don't forget us."
"Good-bye," said David.