n his mother looked out of a window, and then she came
running out.

"My dear little boy," she said, "what are you digging?"

The little boy got up, and the cat scampered away a few feet, with her
bushy tail straight up in the air.

"I'm digging a cellar for a house," said the little boy.

"Oh," said his mother. "Well, don't you think you'd better build the
house over near the sand-pile? People coming in might not see this
house, and they might kick it over and walk on it. But the masons have
come to work on the real cellar."

"The masons?" the little boy asked.

"The men to build the cellar wall. You may go and watch them if you
like."

The little boy nodded again. Then he put his shovel into his cart, and
took hold of the handle of the cart. Then he looked back.

"Good-bye," he said.

"Good-bye, my dear little son," his mother said.

And she watched him trudging away, dragging his cart, with his shovel
and his hoe rattling in the bottom of it.

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

The little boy saw a man hoeing slowly at something in a big shallow
wooden box.

And the something that he was hoeing at was all white and it slopped
here and there; and the hoe was all white, and the outside of the box
was all covered with slops of the same white stuff, and the man's
shoes were white, too, and the bottoms of his overalls.

And there was a pile of new sand that looked all moist and just right
to play in.

There was another man standing at the edge of the cellar and looking
down into it.

The cellar itself was so deep now that the little boy could just see
the tops of the hats of the men who were working in it.

The man who had been looking down into the cellar heard the shovel and
the hoe rattling in the cart and looked up.

"Hello!" he called.

"Hello," said the little boy. "What are you doing?"

"I'm just looking to see if the men do their work right. Come over
here and I'll show you."

So the little boy left his cart beside the pile of sand and walked
over to where the man was.

And the man met him and took hold of his hand; and they walked
together to the edge of the cellar and looked down into it, and the
man stooped down and kneeled on one knee, with his arm half around the
little boy so that he wouldn't fall in.

In the cellar the little boy saw a great many big stones that lay all
about the middle, where they had been dumped; and there were s