And David dragged the old grocery box around to the front, and put it opposite the end of a step.

Not all of the boards which had been nailed on for a cover were taken off, so that the inside of the box was hard to get at, and it was rather dark.

Then he picked up two short sticks and put them on the step.

David hurried to do all these things, and when he had them done, he hurried into the house and into the dining-room, and he climbed up in a chair and took a short candle out of one of the candlesticks which they used on the table.

Then he pushed the chair over near where the matches were, and he climbed up again and got three matches. And then he hurried out again.

He scratched one of the matches on the piazza floor and managed to get the candle lighted with that first match.

So he dropped the other two matches, he didn't know where, and he carried his candle to the grocery box, very carefully, so that it shouldn't blow out, and he reached in and put it in a corner.

Then he lay down on the step and put his head and shoulders and his arms inside the box, and he took the two short sticks in his hands.

David's mother had heard the chair sc.r.a.ping on the dining-room floor, when he pushed it over to get the matches, and she thought that, as likely as not, that was David, and she thought that she had better see what he was doing.

She didn't think there was any great hurry about it, and so she came downstairs in a few minutes, and she went out upon the piazza.

There she saw David's body and his fat little legs sticking out straight on the step, but his head and his arms were in the box, so she couldn't see them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAYING PLUMBER]

And there was a light flickering inside the box, and there was a noise of sc.r.a.ping and knocking, once in a while.

But she wasn't surprised.

"What in the world are you doing, dear?" she asked.

David drew his head out of the box so that he could see his mother and answer her. His face was pretty red.

"I'm a plumber, mother," he said, "and I'm doing the work in the bathroom. Plumbers _always_ do it this way."

David's mother laughed.

"So they do, dear, pretty nearly," she said. "Be very careful of the candle, and don't burn yourself or set the box afire, and be sure to blow it out when you are through."

And David nodded and put his head back in the box, and his mother went in, smiling.

And his cat came and stood on the cover boards that had been left on, and she put her head down and peered into the box, but she didn't get in.

And that's all of the plumber story.

VIII

THE PAINTER 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.

They were building a new house in the field next to David's house, and the masons were through their work, and the bricklayers were through, and the water men were through, and the plumbers were through, and the gas men were through, and the plasterers were through, and the carpenters were almost through, for they were laying nice clean boards on the floors, and they had the floors almost done.

David had watched them do it, and had seen how they put one board down after another, and gave the last board whacks with a hammer, to drive it close up against the next board, and nailed it through the edge, so that the nails shouldn't show.

But they always put a piece of a board against the floor board, and whacked the hammer on that, because they wanted the floor to be all smooth and shiny and not to show any marks of a hammer.

And now the house had to be painted.

So, one morning, a great big wagon came to the new house.

And on the wagon were ladders, some of them very tall, and they stuck out far beyond the ends of the wagon; and there were great enormous hooks, and boards that were all painty; and a great many pots of paint, some dark green for the blinds, and some a lemon-yellow for the corners of the house and what the painters call the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs.

But most of the paint was white.

There were two kinds of white paint, one kind for the outside of the house and another for the inside.

And there were all the kinds of brushes that the painters would need, and there were great bundles of cloth, which the painters would spread over the floors, so that the nice clean floors shouldn't get all spattered with paint; and there were some odds and ends besides.

And the painters came, and they took the things all off the wagon.

Of course, the carpenters had some ladders that would reach, but those were the carpenters' ladders, not the painters'; and the carpenters had some boards, but those were the carpenters' boards, not the painters'.

That is why the painters had brought boards and ladders.

David had gone on the train with his father and his mother, that morning, but the painters didn't know about him, so they kept right on with their work.

The foreman was there, and he was sorry that David wasn't there to see what the painters were doing, but he knew that David would see them before they were through with their work.

The wagon was unloaded, and some of the painters went inside the house, to paint the parts that had to be painted in there; and some of the painters got ready to paint the outside of the house.

And they took thick pieces of board, and bored a hole in the middle, and they nailed those pieces of board on the roof, near the edge.

And they put the great enormous hooks up there, with the pointed ends in the holes in the boards, and the other ends hanging over the edge of the roof, over the gutter and the eaves.

The ends of the hooks which hung over had pulleys in them, and through the pulleys ran long ropes which hung down to the ground.

And the painters fastened the end of one of the ropes to one end of a ladder, and the end of another rope to the other end of the ladder.

Then they put some of the painty boards along over the rungs, so that the men shouldn't fall through or drop their pots of paint through, and they had made a sort of a staging which could be highered or lowered by the ropes.

And they tried the ropes, to see that it was all right, and two painters got on it, with their pots of paint and their brushes and everything they needed.

And one man sat at each end, and they pulled on the ropes, and hoisted the staging, with themselves sitting on it, up off the ground.