ch the
boys called their barn; and Rollo and James went to it, and pulled out
their two little wheelbarrows, which they called their horse-carts. They
wheeled them down to the edge of the water, and began to take up the sand
by double handfuls, and put it in.

When they had got their carts loaded, they began to wheel them around to
the trees, and stones, and bushes, saying,

"Who'll buy my sand?"

"Who'll buy my white sand?"

"Who'll buy my gray sand?"

"Who'll buy my black sand?"

But they did not seem to find any purchaser; and at last Rollo said,
suddenly,

"O, I know who will buy our sand."

"Who?" said James.

"Mother."

"So she will," said James. "We will wheel it up to the house."

So they set off, and began wheeling their loads of sand up the pathway
among the trees. They went on a little way, and presently stopped, and sat
down on a bank to rest. Here they found a number of flowers, which they
gathered and stuck up in the sand, so that their loads soon made a very
gay appearance.

Just as they were going to set out again, Rollo said,

"But, James, how are we going to get through the quagmire?"

"O," said James, "we can step along on the bank by the side of the path."

"No," said Rollo; "for we cannot get our wheelbarrows along there."

"Why, yes,--we got them along there when we came down."

"But they were empty and light then; now they are loaded and heavy."

"So they are; but I think we can get along; it is not very muddy there
now."

The place which the boys called the quagmire, was a low place in the
pathway, where it was almost always muddy. This pathway was made by the
cows, going up and down to drink; and it was a good, dry, and hard path in
all places but one. This, in the spring of the year, was very wet and
miry; and, during the whole summer, it was seldom perfectly dry. The boys
called it the quagmire, and they used to get by on one side, in among the
bushes.

They found that it was not very muddy at this time, and they contrived to
get through with their loads of sand, and soon got to the house. They
trundled their wheelbarrows up to the door leading out to the garden; and
Rollo knocked at the door.

Now Rollo's mother happened, at this time, to be sitting at the
back-parlor window, and she heard their voices as they came along the
yard. So, supposing the knocking was some of their play, she just looked
out of the window, and called out,

"Who's there?"

"Some sand-me