right there to remind them of it. And, in a few minutes, David saw a
man come out of the house and lock the door, and walk up the road and
turn the corner.
The next day, David watched the new house for a long time, but nothing
happened, and he couldn't see that there was anybody there, so he
wandered into the thin woods behind his house.
His cat started with him, but two crows came and flew at the cat, and
she was frightened and ran home as fast as she could go, with her
bushy tail sticking straight out behind her.
David laughed to see her running away from the crows, and he walked
along slowly, and he came where were some crusts of bread and other
things which the maid at his house had taken out there for the birds.
David's mother had the maid throw out crusts of bread and tie lumps of
fat on the trees all winter, because when the snow is on the ground it
is sometimes hard for the birds to find things enough to eat.
There was a plenty of things for the birds to eat now, and they were
easy enough to get, but some birds were picking at the scraps.
Suddenly the birds flew up into a tree and two gray squirrels came and
gnawed at the bread crusts, when the two crows that had chased David's
cat came flapping down and tried to get at the scraps.
But the squirrels stopped eating and chased the crows savagely; and
the crows didn't fight back, but they just flew up a little bit of a
way and hovered there until the squirrels began to eat again.
Then they flapped down on the ground and began to sneak up toward the
scraps; and the squirrels darted at them and chased them again.
[Illustration: THE SQUIRRELS CHASED THE CROWS]
David wasn't very near, and he had watched the squirrels and the crows
for some time.
Then he just happened to look up, and he saw a maid come out of the
cellar door of the new house and get some wood from the pile that the
carpenters had left.
And she picked out the little pieces and put them in her apron and
went in; and, almost as soon as she was in, smoke began to come out of
the chimney, and David thought he had better go there and see what was
going on.
He walked up past his house, and stopped and got his cart and called
his cat. And his cat came running, and he walked along, dragging his
cart, with his shovel and his hoe rattling in the bottom of it.
But when he got to the road he looked up to the corner to see if there
was anything coming, and he saw what he thought must be the circus
just turning the corner.
First there came three great horses, harnessed abreast, and their
harness was glittering with chains and little brass things and with
ivory rings; and the horses were dragging a great big shiny van which
seemed almost as big as a house.
The driver's seat was up high, and the top of the van stuck over and
made a little roof for it; and on the side of the van was a picture of
two lions, and the lions in the picture were about as big as real
lions.
And behind that van came another three-horse van like the first, with
lions painted on the side.
And behind that came a smaller van drawn by two horses, and that had
lions painted on the side, and a little dog trotted under the
two-horse van, and his tongue was hanging out because he had trotted a
long way and he was thirsty.
When these three vans had turned the corner, no more came, although
David watched for as much as half a minute.
By that time the first van was past him and his cat had caught sight
of the little dog and the little dog had caught sight of the cat.
But the cat didn't do anything, and the little dog was too tired to
chase her. So he pretended that he didn't see her, and he trotted
along under the van as far as the new house.
All the vans stopped at the new house, and the horses backed them up
side by side in the gutter. There wasn't any curbstone, and the
sidewalk was a new one of gravel, and there would be a border of grass
when the grass had time to grow.
As soon as the vans had stopped, the little dog trotted out from under
the two-horse one, and went around the house looking for some water.
And he came to the faucet where they screw on the hose, and he saw
that there was a drop of water hanging on the bottom of the faucet. So
he licked that up and waited until another drop came, and he licked
that up.
Then one of the moving-men saw him.
"Poor little Dick!" said the moving-man.
And he went to the faucet and the little dog wagged his stump of a
tail and backed away a step and waited.
Then the moving-man turned the handle of the faucet so that a little
thin stream of water ran out, and the little dog came up and lapped
out of the little thin stream, wagging his stump of a tail very fast.
He wagged and he lapped until he had had enough.
[Illustration: HE LICKED UP THE DROPS OF WATER]
And the moving-man turned the handle of the faucet the other way, and
the water stopped running.
Then the little dog licked the man's hand, and he trotted back to the
van, and he went under and curled up and slumped down, and he put his
head on his paws, and he drew two or three long breaths, and he went
to sleep.
There were three men with each three-horse van and two men with the
two-horse van; and they had all got down and taken off their coats,
and they had unlocked the great tall doors at the back of each van,
and they had opened the doors, and had taken some of the things out.
The things were covered with a great many old soft cloths: old coarse
burlaps, and old quilts and comforters. These soft cloths belonged to
the moving-men, and they kept them to use in that way, so that the
things which they moved shouldn't get scratched or broken.
When they took anything out of a van, they took off the cloths and
threw them in a pile on the sidewalk, and they put the things in a
sort of a clump, along the front walk of the new house.
David had come up close, dragging his cart, but his cat had run off
into the field.
Then the moving-men noticed David standing there.
"Hello," said one of the men. He seemed to be a kind of a foreman. "Do
you live around here?"
David pointed to his house.
"I live in that house. Do you know whether there are any little boys
coming to live in this house?"
"I think likely," said the moving-man, "but I don't know for certain."
"Well, are you going to take all these things into the house?" David
asked again, pointing at the things.
There were a hat-rack, and two waste-baskets filled with little things
done up in newspaper, and a little table, and a paste-board box filled
with hats, and two mirrors about as tall as David, and a maid's
wash-stand, and a bundle of pictures tied up in newspapers, and a
wooden box full of rubbers, and some crockery things, and a barrel of
kitchen things, and a great enormous paste-board box tied up with tape,
and another great paste-board box with the side broken in, and three
kitchen chairs, and a chamber chair, and a bundle of magazines, and
some other things; and they were all spread out on the walk.
These things were all the things that had been left over and put in
last in packing the vans, or little things which filled up chinks.
"We are going to take them in as soon as somebody comes to tell us
where to put them," the moving-man answered. "And we want to take in
some of the big things first, such as beds and dining-room table and
heavy things like those. They are all packed in the bottom of the
vans."
David nodded his head.
Just then one of the men took out of a van a little upholstered
armchair.
"Hello!" said the moving-man. "That looks as if there was a youngster
of some kind coming, either a boy or a girl."
Then another man came with a box of toys, and set it down beside the
armchair.
David saw it and smiled.
"That looks so, too, doesn't it now?" said the moving-man. He looked
up. "And here he is, I guess."
David turned around, and he saw a very pleasant-looking man coming
along, and, holding by his hand, there was a little boy who looked as
if he might be almost five years old.
They came near, and David looked at the little boy, but he didn't say
anything, and the little boy looked at David, and he didn't say
anything either, but he held to his father's hand tighter than ever.
"Well, here we are. You have not been waiting long, I judge. Now I'll
go in and you can come along with the things as fast as you like. What
will you do, Dick?"
At the sound of his name, the little dog raised his head and wagged
his stump of a tail and was all ready to get up; but nobody saw him,
for the little boy was whispering to his father, who turned to David.
"I guess that your name is David," he said; and David nodded. "I know
your father, David. How would you like it if Dick stayed out here with
you? You two can play anywhere that you are used to, David, or you can
stay and watch as long as you like."
[Illustration: THEY WATCHED THE MEN]
David thought that that would be nice, and he turned his cart around
and took out the backboard, and he told Dick that he might sit in it
if he wanted to, or he could sit in the little armchair.
Dick chose the cart to sit in, and David sat in the armchair, and they
watched the men, who were beginning to carry in the things.
They had taken some more things out of one of the vans, and they had
come to the heavy things.
One man was in the van, unpacking the things and pushing them to the
back, where the other men could reach them.
And a man would take as much as he could carry under his arms, and
march into the house with it; and another man would come and get his
load, and he would march in with it.
There was a procession of men going in with their loads and coming out
without any, and Dick's father stood just inside the front door and
told each man where to leave his load, and the man went to that room
and left it, and came out again.
But when they had all the parts of a bed in the room where the bed was
to be, they put the bed together, so that it was all ready to be made
up.
Two men carried in the dining-table, and the library table, and the
ice-chest, and each bureau, and each dressing-table, and each bookcase,
and the tall clock, and each sofa, and each of the washstands, and
everything that was either too big or too heavy for one man.
They had come to a lot of boxes, all just alike, each box just about a
load for one man. The men were taking them up as fast as they could,
and going in, and piling them up in the hall, and they joked about
them, they were so heavy.
David was curious about the boxes, and he asked Dick what was in them;
and Dick said that books were in them, and his mother and his father
packed them, and it took them a long time, for they had to wrap every
book in newspaper and stuff newspapers in all the cracks. Then his
father had screwed the tops on with a screwer.
And David said it was funny how heavy books were, because they were
made of paper, and paper was one of the lightest things there was, and
his kitty liked to play with pieces of newspaper, out of doors, where
the wind blew them.
Then he got up and called his cat, but she didn't come.
"I'll tell you," David said; "let's go and find her."
So Dick and David each took hold of one handle of the cart, and walked
along to David's house, and David called his cat again, but she didn't
come.
Then he thought that she must be in the woods, and they would go there
and find her.
But first he went into his house and asked the maid to give him and
Dick some cookies, and the maid gave him three for Dick and three for
himself.
And he gave Dick his three, and the two little boys wandered on into
the woods, eating their cookies and dragging the cart behind them, and
David thought how much better a real little boy was than a pretend
little boy.
And David told Dick about the squirrels and the crows and the other
birds that were there, and he showed him where there were some
chestnuts; and they picked up some chestnuts and got them out of the
burs and put them into the cart.
Then suddenly there was David's cat walking along, with her bushy tail
sticking straight up in the air; and she went to David and rubbed
against him, and she went to Dick and rubbed against him, and she went
to the cart and rubbed against that.
Then she ran on ahead, and they came after, and they went to the place
where the squirrels and the crows had been.
But no squirrels were there.
So the two little boys wandered on through the thin woods, looking for
squirrels, and sometimes the cat was with them and sometimes she
wasn't, and at last they were just behind Dickie's house, for the new
house was his house now.
And they looked up and saw the vans just starting away, and the horses
were trotting.
They watched until they couldn't see the vans any longer, and they
heard them turn the corner.
"I guess I've got to go," said Dickie then.
"Why have you got to go?" David asked. "Aren't you going to live in
that house?"
"Yes," Dick said, "I am, but we're going back for to-night. To-morrow
the maids will have it all ready, and we'll come and bring my mother
and my baby sister."
"Oh," said David.
That was the first time Dick had told him that he had a baby sister.
Dick had already started up to his house, but he stopped and turned
around.
"Good-bye, David," he said.
"Good-bye, Dick," said David.
And Dick turned again and hurried to the new house, but David stood,
holding the handle of his cart and looking after him.
And he saw Dick's father come around the corner of the house and take
Dick by the hand.
Then Dick's father stood for a minute looking at the house, as if he
was afraid that he had forgotten something.
But he couldn't think of anything, and he and Dick began to walk away,
and Dick was talking to his father and his father was smiling.
David stood still, watching them, until he couldn't see them any
longer.
Then he began to gallop along toward his house, dragging his cart, and
his shovel and his hoe rattled like everything in the bottom of it;
and his cat ran on ahead, with her bushy tail sticking straight up in
the air.
And that's the end of this book.
THE END