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.

He wasn't allowed to go beyond that corner, and