ble castle which they had
completed on Catnip Creek. When they came to that charming stream, their
eyes flew open in amazement and their jaws dropped.

"Why, mamma, look at daddy!" they cried in unison. "Daddy's workin'!"

Incredible though it seemed, it was true indeed. Father worked. Mrs.
Cadge wondered whether she, too, was to have a vacation, after her years
of drudgery.

Cadge worked furiously, his rage uncooled by the waters of the Catnip
which flowed through his shoes. He had discarded coat, vest, and hat,
and was hurling rocks with the strength of a maddened giant, clear
across the stream. What splendid muscles he had!

A tier or two of Mrs. Pipkin's wall was already down. The telephone
within her cottage was ringing madly.

Even as the Cadgelings watched their parent sweating at his toil, a
blue-coated figure ran swiftly down the bank, caught the hard-working
man by the collar, and firmly led him away to where steady work awaited
him.

Mrs. Cadge watched him go with mingled feelings. She had seen him depart
thus before, and remembered how much easier it was that month to feed
four mouths instead of five. Besides, the exercise on the rock pile
would do him good, poor man. A night-watchman's position was so
confining.

Mr. Snavely had driven up to the curb, and the Widow Pipkin ran out all
of a flutter. They sympathetically related to Mrs. Cadge the events of
the morning which had led to her husband's arrest.

"And there was only an hour's work to be done on the job," said Mr.
Snavely judicially.

"I would gladly pay six dollars cash to have it just as it was this
morning," added the tremulous Widow Pipkin, "and I'd make it ten if it
were done as Mr. Snavely says."

"And I'd still be willing to write a receipt for the full seven dollars
for six dollars cash," interposed that astute philanthropist.

Mrs. Cadge's shrewd, birdlike eyes were half closed in mental
computation; ten dollars for the wall and one dollar discount on the
grocery bill, that would make eleven dollars clear.

"Come along, kiddies," she said, "you and me will pitch in and finish
that wall to the queen's taste in an hour or two!" And she did.

Eleven dollars clear, and the watchman's pay still going on, Cadge on
the rock pile, hence the biggest mouth of the family fed by the city.
Indeed, indeed, the little Cadges were not the only ones who enjoyed a
vacation when father worked!

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of