And he took hold of the stick, and he walked off, down a ladder into the cellar.

And he dumped the mortar out of the hod on to a board near the men who were building the wall. Then he came up again.

The little boy watched him until he had come up out of the cellar. And he asked the man whether he would want any more sand, but the man said that he wouldn't for some time.

So the little boy went and played in the sand-pile for a long time, and, while he was playing, his cat came and rubbed against him. Then the little boy got up.

"I've got to go now," he said to the mortar man. "Good-bye."

"Good-bye," said the man. "Come again."

"Yes," said the little boy, "I will."

And he put his shovel and his hoe into his cart, and he took hold of the handle of the cart, and he walked off, with his shovel and his hoe rattling behind him.

And his cat ran on ahead, with her bushy tail sticking straight up in the air.

And that's all of this story.

III

THE DINNER-TIME AND JONAH STORY

Once upon a time there was a little boy and he was almost five years old. 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 hoe, and he always wore his overalls when he was playing.

They were building a house in the field next to that little boy's house, and he used to go there almost every day to watch the men and to help.

One day it was late when he went, because his mother had taken him with her down to the Square to do an errand, and when he came back he had to change his clothes and put on his overalls. His mother wouldn't let him wear his overalls down to the Square.

And when he had his overalls on, he hurried and got his cart and his shovel and his hoe, and he called his cat, and she came running, with her bushy tail sticking straight up in the air.

And he hurried to the new house, dragging his cart; and his shovel and his hoe rattled in the bottom of it.

The mortar man saw him.

"h.e.l.lo," he said.

"h.e.l.lo," said the little boy. "Did you wonder where I was?"

"I did that," said the mortar man.

"Well, I had to go on an errand with my mother," the little boy said, "but I hurried and came as soon as I could, and here I am. Do you want some sand?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MORTAR MAN]

But the mortar man didn't want any more sand then. He filled his hod with mortar, and he stooped down and took the hod of mortar on his shoulder, and he went trotting to the ladder, and he went down the ladder.

Then the little boy couldn't see him, because the cellar walls were done and the carpenters had come, and they had put on the great square beams that lie on top of the cellar walls, and they had put in the beams that go across from one side to the other and hold up the floors.

But there were some men in the cellar, for the little boy could hear them laughing and talking.

And the mortar man had told him that they were the bricklayers who were building the chimneys and two of the masons who were smearing mortar over all the cracks of the wall, so that the water wouldn't leak through from the ground into the cellar.

The little boy wished that he could see those men, but he was afraid that it wouldn't be being careful to go down that ladder, and he didn't think he could do it, anyway, for the steps were too far apart.

So he looked about and he saw the man who had held the handles of the scoop, and who had held him that other day, while he looked down into the cellar and saw the masons building the wall. He was called the foreman.

The foreman was glad to see the little boy, and beckoned to him.

And the little boy went, and the foreman took hold of his hand, and they went together right up on the floor beams; but the foreman carried him when they got up there, because there weren't any boards on the beams yet, and the little boy might have fallen through between the beams.

And when they got to the right place, they both stooped over and looked down between the beams, through a great big square hole. A chimney would come up through the hole, and the bricklayers were building it.

The little boy was surprised to see how enormous a chimney had to be at the bottom.

There were four men laying bricks as fast as ever they could, but it was all the little boy could do to watch one of the men.

First, he took up a brick from the pile, with his left hand, and he generally tossed the brick up a little way in the air, and it turned over before he caught it again, so that he saw all sides of it; and, with the flat trowel which he held in his right hand, he scooped up some mortar.

And he slapped the trowelful of mortar down on the bricks where he wanted to put that other brick, and he gave a little wipe with the trowel around the edges, and he pressed the brick that he was holding in his left hand down into place, and he tapped the brick with the handle of the trowel, and the mortar squeezed out all around, and, with his trowel, he scooped off the mortar that had squeezed out, and he slapped that down in a new place.

Then he began again, and reached down for another brick.

The little boy was so busy watching the bricklayer that he forgot all about the masons who were putting mortar on the wall.

But, pretty soon, all the men said something to all the other men, and they stopped laying bricks, and they began to take off their overalls.

"What are they going to do now?" the little boy asked.

"They are going to eat their dinner," said the foreman. "Come on."

So the foreman and the little boy got down on the ground again, and the foreman set the little boy down, and he took his hand, and they went back, near the pile of sand, where there were some nice boards to sit on.

And the men all came trooping out of the cellar, and each man went and got his dinner from the place where he had put it when he came there in the morning.

Some of the men had their dinner in pails and some had theirs in baskets and one man had his in a newspaper, so that he wouldn't have anything to carry home at night.

And the men came where the nice boards were, and they sat around anywhere, and they opened their pails and their baskets and the newspaper bundle, and they began to eat their dinners.

The little boy had sat down, too, but he didn't feel very comfortable.

He thought that, perhaps, he ought to have brought his dinner, but he didn't know about it, so how could he have brought it?