make places for
the chimneys to come through and so people can go upstairs without
knocking their heads. Did you ever think of that?"

The little boy shook his head, and he came nearer. "Show me."

So the carpenter went to a little pile of short beams; and he took one
and brought it back.

And he turned the big beam on edge, and fitted the end of the little
beam into the hole.

The end of the little beam had already been made small, so that it
would go in.

"There," he said. "Now here, where I stand, will be the stairs for
people to go up, and there will be that other big beam on the other
side. We have to leave this big hole in the floor so that a man can go
on the stairs without hitting his head, you know. Everywhere else will
be a floor, except where the chimneys come through. Do you understand?"

The little boy nodded. He thought that he understood, although it was
not very easy to understand.

And while he was trying to understand better, there came a voice
behind him.

"Hello! I wondered where you were."

And he looked around and there was his friend the foreman, and the cat
had gone to meet him and was coming back beside him, and she was
looking up into the foreman's face, and her bushy tail was sticking
straight up into the air.

"Hello," said the little boy; and he leaned back against the horse
that the beam rested on.

"Your kitty," said the foreman, "came up here all by herself, and she
followed me about."

The little boy laughed.

"She's a funny kitty," he said.

The foreman stooped down.

"I think you'd better tell me your name," he said. "I like to know the
names of my friends."

"My name is David," the little boy answered.

"And mine is Jonathan," said the foreman quickly. "Think of that! Now,
Davie, come with me and let's see how the other men are getting on."

So David put his little hand into the foreman's big one, and they
started; and David saw some men putting up a great, tall beam on one
of the corners.

Two men were holding it, and another man reached up as high as he
could and nailed a board to it, and the other end of the board was
fastened down low, so that the tall beam shouldn't fall over when the
men let go.

"What are those men doing?" David asked. "That sticks up like my
kitty's tail, doesn't it?"

"So it does," the foreman said. "There'll be more of them presently,
sticking up all along every side."

"Will there? How many of those sticks will there be?"