ing I'm to help
you with the jackdaws' house."

Dennis did not forget, and the following day Maisie was supplied with a
hammer, and began her work with great zeal, but alas! two minutes had
not passed before the heavy hammer came crashing down on her chubby
fingers instead of on the nail she was holding. It was a dreadful
moment, not only because of the pain, which was severe, but because she
felt that it stamped her inferiority as a girl for ever. She looked
piteously up at Dennis with her fingers in her mouth, and her eyes full
of tears.

"There!" he began tauntingly, but seeing Maisie's round face quiver with
pain, he stopped, threw down his tools, and knelt beside her on the
grass.

"Does it hurt much?" he said. "Come in to Aunt Katharine."

Maisie suffered him to lead her into the house without saying a word,
for she wanted all her strength to keep from sobbing. The poor fingers
were bathed and bound up, and after she had been kissed and comforted,
Aunt Katharine said that on the whole she thought Maisie had better not
use hammer and nails again. Maisie thought so too just then, but
presently, when the pain went off, she began to feel sorry that she was
not to help with the jackdaws' house any more. Certainly, as Aunt
Katharine pointed out, she could watch Dennis at his work and give
advice; but as he never by any chance took any one's advice but Tuvvy's,
that would not be very amusing.

"You can hand me the nails, you know," said Dennis, as she sat with a
sorrowful face on Aunt Katharine's knee, "and after the jackdaws are in,
you can always help to feed them." And with this she was obliged to
console herself.

CHAPTER TEN.

ONE WHITE PAW.

The jackdaws' house got on slowly, and this was not surprising, as
Dennis had a way of pulling his work to pieces and doing it all over
again. Maisie grew impatient sometimes, for at this rate she thought
the jackdaws would not be settled in their home until summer was over.

"Hadn't you better let Tuvvy finish it off?" she said one day, when
Dennis had spent a full hour in trying to fix a perch to his
satisfaction; "it wouldn't take a real carpenter more than half an
hour."

Dennis made no answer at first to this taunt. Maisie was only a girl,
who did not understand, so it did not matter what she said. Whistling
softly, he tried all manner of different positions for the perch, but
none pleased him. After all, it would certainly be necessary to have