and lock the door, and walk up the road and
turn the corner.

The next day, David watched the new house for a long time, but nothing
happened, and he couldn't see that there was anybody there, so he
wandered into the thin woods behind his house.

His cat started with him, but two crows came and flew at the cat, and
she was frightened and ran home as fast as she could go, with her
bushy tail sticking straight out behind her.

David laughed to see her running away from the crows, and he walked
along slowly, and he came where were some crusts of bread and other
things which the maid at his house had taken out there for the birds.

David's mother had the maid throw out crusts of bread and tie lumps of
fat on the trees all winter, because when the snow is on the ground it
is sometimes hard for the birds to find things enough to eat.

There was a plenty of things for the birds to eat now, and they were
easy enough to get, but some birds were picking at the scraps.

Suddenly the birds flew up into a tree and two gray squirrels came and
gnawed at the bread crusts, when the two crows that had chased David's
cat came flapping down and tried to get at the scraps.

But the squirrels stopped eating and chased the crows savagely; and
the crows didn't fight back, but they just flew up a little bit of a
way and hovered there until the squirrels began to eat again.

Then they flapped down on the ground and began to sneak up toward the
scraps; and the squirrels darted at them and chased them again.

[Illustration: THE SQUIRRELS CHASED THE CROWS]

David wasn't very near, and he had watched the squirrels and the crows
for some time.

Then he just happened to look up, and he saw a maid come out of the
cellar door of the new house and get some wood from the pile that the
carpenters had left.

And she picked out the little pieces and put them in her apron and
went in; and, almost as soon as she was in, smoke began to come out of
the chimney, and David thought he had better go there and see what was
going on.

He walked up past his house, and stopped and got his cart and called
his cat. And his cat came running, and he walked along, dragging his
cart, with his shovel and his hoe rattling in the bottom of it.

But when he got to the road he looked up to the corner to see if there
was anything coming, and he saw what he thought must be the circus
just turning the corner.

First there came three great horses, harnessed abreast,