t."

"What did he say?" asked Mrs. Henry.

"Why, he said," replied Stuyvesant, "that as there was a pen and ink
in the shop, and hammer and nails, and as the paper was found nailed
up early one morning, when nobody had slept in the shop the night
before but Frink, if it did not turn out that Frink himself wrote the
lines, he should never believe in any squirrel's writing poetry as
long as he lived."

Mrs. Henry laughed at this, and she then began to look about the shop
to see the tools and the arrangements which had been made by the boys
for their work.

She found the premises in excellent order. The floor was neat, the
tools were all in their proper places, and every thing seemed well
arranged.

"I suppose the tools are dull, however," said Mrs. Henry, "as boys'
tools generally are."

"No," said Phonny, "they are all sharp. We have sharpened them every
one."

"How did you do it?" asked Mrs. Henry.

"Why, we turned the grindstone for Beechnut while he ground his axes,
and then he held our tools for us to sharpen them. We could not hold
them ourselves very well."

"We are going to keep them sharp," continued Phonny,--"as sharp as
razors. Won't we, Stivy?"

"We are going to try it," said Stuyvesant.

Phonny took up the plane to show his mother how sharp it was.

"Yes," said she; "I like that tool too, very much--it is so safe."

The plane is a very safe tool, indeed, for the cutting part, which
consists of a plate of iron, faced with steel for an edge, is almost
embedded in the wood. It is made in fact on purpose to take off a
_thin shaving_ only, from a board, and it would be impossible to make
a deep cut into any thing with it.

Phonny then showed his mother his chisels. He had four chisels of
different sizes. They were very sharp.

"It seems to me that a chisel is not so safe a tool as a plane," said
Mrs. Henry.

"Why not, mother?" asked Phonny.

"Why you might be holding a piece of wood with your fingers, and then
in trying to cut it with the chisel, the chisel might slip and cut
your fingers."

"Oh no, mother," said Phonny, "there is no danger."

Boys always say there is no danger.

Phonny next showed his gimlets, and his augers, and his bits and
bit-stocks. A bit is a kind of borer which is turned round and round
by means of a machine called a bit-stock.

Phonny took the bit-stock and a bit and was going to bore a hole in
the side of the bench, by way of showing his mother how the tool