t the great hole that was under the front steps,
and he went around there and looked, and the hole wasn't there any
more, but the ground came up to the steps, and a man was raking gravel
smooth, to make a front walk like the one that went into David's house.

David didn't say anything, and the man didn't say anything either, but
kept on raking.

So David went back to the place where the men were, with the shovels.

Those men were digging a round hole in the ground, about big enough
for David to sit in and stretch his legs out straight.

And when they had the hole dug, another man came, carrying a little
tree.

There were a whole pile of little trees out near the road, and they
all had their roots tied up in bagging, or a kind of coarse cloth.

The tree which the man was carrying was a little Christmas tree. He
had taken the cloth off of the roots, and he was cutting off, with his
knife, some of the ends of roots.

Then he put it in the hole, carefully, and the men spread the roots
out all around in the bottom of the hole, and they sifted some
dark-colored dirt all about them, and they worked it in between the
fine roots with their fingers, and they pressed it down hard.

The man who had put the tree in was holding on to it all the time, so
that it should grow up straight.

And when the roots were all right and the dirt was pressed down hard,
he let go of the tree and took up the end of a hose that was lying on
the ground, right behind him.

David hadn't noticed the hose before. It came from a shiny hose-faucet,
and the hose-faucet stuck out of the house just above the foundation,
halfway along the side.

The man let water run from the hose into the dirt that had just been
put around the roots of the tree, and he let it run for a long time.

And when the top of the hole was just a puddle of mud, he stopped the
water and dropped the hose, and the men scattered a little
dark-colored dirt that was dry over the top of it.

That dark-colored dirt is called loam, and it is the best kind of dirt
to make things grow.

David saw that from the house down to where the path would be to the
back door was already covered with the same dark-colored dirt.

The other side of the path was nice and smooth, but it looked sort of
raw and the dirt was a yellow color.

Just beside the road was a great pile of dark-colored dirt, and there
was a two-wheeled cart backed up to the pile, and a man was shoveling
the dirt into the