He had his cart and his shovel and his hoe, and he was walking slowly
along, kicking the dead leaves and looking up at the leaves on the
trees.

Not nearly all the leaves had fallen from the trees yet, but those
leaves that were still on the trees had turned to all kinds of pretty
colors: red and yellow and a great many pretty browns which looked
alive. And some leaves were red and yellow together, and some were
still green with red and yellow spots on them, and some leaves had not
changed their color at all, but were green all over.

And the squirrels were very busy hunting chestnuts and they didn't pay
much attention to David.

Suddenly there was a great scurrying, and every squirrel went racing
up the nearest tree, and David's cat came running, with her bushy tail
sticking straight up in the air, and she ran a little way ahead of
David, and she flopped over on her back in a little pile of leaves,
and she began playing with the leaves.

David laughed at her. "Funny kitty!" he said.

Then he turned and went on talking, but he wasn't talking to his cat
and he wasn't talking to himself.

His pretend playmate had come, and it was the boy, this time, and he
had brought the cat.

So David and that pretend little boy played together for a long time.

Sometimes they dragged the cart together, and sometimes they stopped
and hunted for chestnuts, and they put into the cart the chestnuts
that they found.

And after a while they came into that part of the woods which was
behind the new house.

And David heard some men talking together up at the new house, and he
looked and saw them squatting down beside the house, and two of the
men had shovels.

So David and the pretend little boy hurried to go to the new house, to
see what the men were doing, and they dragged the cart, and the shovel
and the hoe and the chestnuts all rattled about together in the bottom
of it; and the cat went running on ahead.

But, when David got there, the pretend little boy had gone, for David
had forgotten about him.

And David stopped a little way from the men, and looked about.

The grading men must have got their work all finished, for the ground
all about didn't look at all as it had when the foreman and David had
left it.

There weren't any signs of the rubbish, and the dirt was up higher on
the foundation in a nice straight line, and it sloped down to the
field all around, and it had been made all smooth.

David wondered abou