Once upon a time there was a little boy, and he was almost five years old, and his name was David. And there weren't any other children near for him to play with, so he used to play happily all by himself.
He had his cat and his cart and his shovel and his hoe, and he always wore his overalls when he was playing.
They were building a new house in the field next to David's house, and it was all done on the outside, but it wasn't painted.
And the men were working inside, for David could hear the hammering, and sometimes he could hear them sawing.
One morning, after breakfast, David went to his mother and said that the foreman wanted him to come to the new house that morning, for the plumbers would be there.
He didn't know what plumbers were.
"They are men who mend the pipes, dear," his mother answered.
"What pipes?" he asked. "Are the pipes broken?"
His mother laughed. "Well, I suppose they put in the water pipes, and the bathtubs and the basins and the hot-water boiler and all those things."
David nodded, and let his mother kiss him, and then he went out.
And his cat was there, waiting for him, and his cart was there, with his shovel and his hoe in the bottom of it. And he stooped down and took hold of the handle of his cart, and he trudged to the new house, dragging his cart.
The mortar man had gone some time before, and there wasn't any sand-pile, but the foreman saw him coming.
"Hello, Davie," he called.
"Hello," David called back.
"You're just in time to go into the house with me," the foreman said.
So David dropped the handle of his cart and the foreman took hold of his hand, and they went up the steps and into the house.
The partition walls between the rooms weren't all done, and David could see right through them in some places into the next room.
And the foreman and David went through the place that would be the front hall when it was done, with the front stairs going up out of it; and some carpenters were working there now and there was a great mess.
"What are the carpenters doing?" David asked.
"They're nailing on laths, Davie," the foreman answered. "Laths, you see, are the little thin sticks that go on the up-and-down sticks of the walls, and the plaster goes on them and squeezes between them. Then, when it hardens, the part that is between the laths holds the rest of the plaster up and against the wall."
David nodded, but they were in the back hall now, with the back stairs going up out of it, and he forgot the carpenters and the laths.
Under the back stairs were some stairs that went down to the cellar, and the foreman started down.
"Be careful of the steps, Davie," said the foreman. "They have to have these rough boards on them now, while the workmen are here, so that the real steps won't get all dirty and worn. When the men are almost through, about the last thing they do is to lay floors and put nice boards on the stairs."
David couldn't see very well, but he could feel that the boards of the stairs were uneven and rough, and some of them were small; but he was careful, and he went slowly, and at last he was on the cellar floor.
Far off in the very end of the cellar he saw a lantern lighted, and a flickering light which moved about, high up.
Then, as he got used to the darkness, he saw the legs of two men; and they had great wrenches and were doing something to long pipes, and they had a candle which they held close up to the pipes, so that they could see.
And the pipes went along close to the beams overhead, so that the men were all the time bumping their heads and knocking their elbows on the beams, and they didn't have room enough to work.
That was the reason why David had seen only their legs when he first came down.
It wasn't a very convenient way to work, but the men didn't seem to mind. Perhaps they were used to it.
"Are those the pipes that the water goes through?" David asked.
"Yes, Davie," the foreman said. "It comes in through the wall there, close down to the floor, from that pipe that you saw the men laying in the street.
"Then it goes up and through these pipes to the back of the cellar, and then up again to the kitchen and the pantry and the bathrooms.
"It isn't much fun being down here, is it?"
"No," David said, "it isn't."
The foreman laughed.
"Well, you wait a half a jiffy and we'll go up."
So David waited while the foreman took a paper out of his pocket.
And first he looked at the paper and then he looked at the pipes, and then he looked at the paper again.
Then he folded the paper and put it into his pocket, and he took David's hand and they went up the cellar stairs, and through a door into the kitchen.
There David saw the legs of two other men who were lying down under the sink.
They had a stump of a candle, too, for David could see its flickering light.
And there was a kind of a lamp out on the floor beyond, and it burned with a sputtering and a hissing and a roaring, and it threw a big bluish kind of a flame straight out, like water out of a hose.
David watched the men for nearly a minute without saying anything, but he couldn't guess what they were up to.
"What are they doing?" he asked at last.
"They're putting in the waste pipe and the trap," said the foreman; "but you don't know what that is, of course. They're putting in the pipe that the water runs through when it runs out of the sink."
"Oh, I know," David cried. "It's for the dirty water that the pots and pans have been washed in; the soapy water."
"That's just right, Davie."
"Well," David said, "why do they have to be lying down to do it? I should think they'd rather do it standing up or sitting down."
At that, one of the men poked his head out and smiled at David.
"You got that just right, too," he said; "but here's where it has to go, and there's no other way that I know of."
"The pipe has to be under the sink, Davie, for the water to run into it," the foreman said. "Now come on, and we'll go upstairs again."
So the foreman and David went up the back stairs very slowly and carefully, for there were rough boards on those stairs, too; and they went through a door and through the upstairs hall, and through another door into a small square room.
The foreman said that that room would be the bathroom. No plaster was on the walls yet, but the laths were all on. And there wasn't any bathtub yet, nor any basin; only some pipes sticking up out of the floor.
And David saw the bodies and the legs of two more men.
These men had their heads and shoulders through a great square hole in the floor, and their bodies and their legs were lying on the floor and sticking out straight.
David laughed. "Water-pipe men are funny men," he said.
One of the men lifted his head out of the hole in the floor and smiled at David, but he didn't say anything.
"They're putting in the waste pipe and the trap," the foreman said; "that is, the pipe that the water will run through when it runs out of the bathtub. A tub will be here Davie, after the floor is laid."
David nodded.
"Would you like to be a plumber, Davie?" the foreman asked, smiling.
David shook his head.
"I think I'd better go now," he said. "My kitty won't know where I am."
So the foreman laughed, and he tucked David under his arm and carried him downstairs and out of the front door, and he set him down on the ground.
"Good-bye, Davie," said the foreman.
"Good-bye," said David.
And he took hold of the handle of his cart, and walked home as fast as he could, dragging his cart, and his shovel and his hoe rattled in the bottom of it.
When he got home, there was his cat waiting for him.
David dropped the handle of his cart, and ran around to the back of the house and got an old grocery box that he used to play with.
He kept all his things at the back of the house: old broken grocery boxes and old tin cans and rows of bottles, some of them filled with water and some filled with thin mud and some empty, and nails and pieces of iron and sticks; but not his toys.
And David dragged the old grocery box around to the front, and put it opposite the end of a step.
Not all of the boards which had been nailed on for a cover were taken off, so that the inside of the box was hard to get at, and it was rather dark.
Then he picked up two short sticks and put them on the step.
David hurried to do all these things, and when he had them done, he hurried into the house and into the dining-room, and he climbed up in a chair and took a short candle out of one of the candlesticks which they used on the table.
Then he pushed the chair over near where the matches were, and he climbed up again and got three matches. And then he hurried out again.
He scratched one of the matches on the piazza floor and managed to get the candle lighted with that first match.
So he dropped the other two matches, he didn't know where, and he carried his candle to the grocery box, very carefully, so that it shouldn't blow out, and he reached in and put it in a corner.
Then he lay down on the step and put his head and shoulders and his arms inside the box, and he took the two short sticks in his hands.
David's mother had heard the chair scraping on the dining-room floor, when he pushed it over to get the matches, and she thought that, as likely as not, that was David, and she thought that she had better see what he was doing.
She didn't think there was any great hurry about it, and so she came downstairs in a few minutes, and she went out upon the piazza.
There she saw David's body and his fat little legs sticking out straight on the step, but his head and his arms were in the box, so she couldn't see them.
And there was a light flickering inside the box, and there was a noise of scraping and knocking, once in a while.
But she wasn't surprised.
"What in the world are you doing, dear?" she asked.
David drew his head out of the box so that he could see his mother and answer her. His face was pretty red.
"I'm a plumber, mother," he said, "and I'm doing the work in the bathroom. Plumbers always do it this way."
David's mother laughed.
"So they do, dear, pretty nearly," she said. "Be very careful of the candle, and don't burn yourself or set the box afire, and be sure to blow it out when you are through."
And David nodded and put his head back in the box, and his mother went in, smiling.
And his cat came and stood on the cover boards that had been left on, and she put her head down and peered into the box, but she didn't get in.
And that's all of the plumber story.
Once upon a time there was a little boy, and he was almost five years old, and his name was David. And there weren't any other children near for him to play with, so he used to play happily all by himself.
He had his cat and his cart and his shovel and his hoe, and he always wore his overalls when he was playing.
They were building a new house in the field next to David's house, and the masons were through their work, and the bricklayers were through, and the water men were through, and the plumbers were through, and the gas men were through, and the plasterers were through, and the carpenters were almost through, for they were laying nice clean boards on the floors, and they had the floors almost done.
David had watched them do it, and had seen how they put one board down after another, and gave the last board whacks with a hammer, to drive it close up against the next board, and nailed it through the edge, so that the nails shouldn't show.
But they always put a piece of a board against the floor board, and whacked the hammer on that, because they wanted the floor to be all smooth and shiny and not to show any marks of a hammer.
And now the house had to be painted.
So, one morning, a great big wagon came to the new house.
And on the wagon were ladders, some of them very tall, and they stuck out far beyond the ends of the wagon; and there were great enormous hooks, and boards that were all painty; and a great many pots of paint, some dark green for the blinds, and some a lemon-yellow for the corners of the house and what the painters call the trimmings.
But most of the paint was white.
There were two kinds of white paint, one kind for the outside of the house and another for the inside.
And there were all the kinds of brushes that the painters would need, and there were great bundles of cloth, which the painters would spread over the floors, so that the nice clean floors shouldn't get all spattered with paint; and there were some odds and ends besides.
And the painters came, and they took the things all off the wagon.
Of course, the carpenters had some ladders that would reach, but those were the carpenters' ladders, not the painters'; and the carpenters had some boards, but those were the carpenters' boards, not the painters'.
That is why the painters had brought boards and ladders.
David had gone on the train with his father and his mother, that morning, but the painters didn't know about him, so they kept right on with their work.
The foreman was there, and he was sorry that David wasn't there to see what the painters were doing, but he knew that David would see them before they were through with their work.
The wagon was unloaded, and some of the painters went inside the house, to paint the parts that had to be painted in there; and some of the painters got ready to paint the outside of the house.
And they took thick pieces of board, and bored a hole in the middle, and they nailed those pieces of board on the roof, near the edge.
And they put the great enormous hooks up there, with the pointed ends in the holes in the boards, and the other ends hanging over the edge of the roof, over the gutter and the eaves.
The ends of the hooks which hung over had pulleys in them, and through the pulleys ran long ropes which hung down to the ground.
And the painters fastened the end of one of the ropes to one end of a ladder, and the end of another rope to the other end of the ladder.
Then they put some of the painty boards along over the rungs, so that the men shouldn't fall through or drop their pots of paint through, and they had made a sort of a staging which could be highered or lowered by the ropes.
And they tried the ropes, to see that it was all right, and two painters got on it, with their pots of paint and their brushes and everything they needed.
And one man sat at each end, and they pulled on the ropes, and hoisted the staging, with themselves sitting on it, up off the ground.
And the staging, with the two men on it, and their pots of paint, went slowly higher and higher, until it was as high as it could go, and the men could reach the highest board that they had to paint.
Then they fastened the ropes carefully, and they stirred up the paint, and they took up the brushes and they dipped the brushes in the paint, and they knocked them gently against the side of the paint-pot, plop, plop, plop, and they began to move them quickly over the boards, swish, swish, swish, first one side of the brush, and then back again on the other side.
And the first thing you knew they had all those boards painted, and they had to lower the staging so that they could reach the boards lower down.
"Hello!" called a little clear voice, and the painters looked down.
The foreman was standing there, watching the painters; and he looked, and there was David, all dressed in his go-to-town clothes.
And the foreman looked again, and there was David's mother, standing by her gate and waiting for David.
And she had on her go-to-town clothes, too.
"Hello, Davie," the foreman called. "You're all dressed up, aren't you? You'd better go and get into your overalls, quick, and then come back."
David's mother had heard what the foreman said, and she nodded and smiled to thank him, because she would have to call very loud, indeed, to make him hear, and she didn't like to.
And David nodded, and he ran back to his mother.
"Mother," he said, "the foreman said to get into my overalls. What did he mean, mother? Does that mean to put them on?"
"Yes, dear," his mother said, smiling.
So David paid no attention to his cat, who was coming to meet him and to rub against him, but he hurried to change his clothes and to put on his overalls.
And when he had his clothes changed and his overalls on, he ran out, and there was his cat waiting for him.
And he took up the handle of his cart, and he walked off as fast as he could, dragging his cart, and his shovel and his hoe rattled in the bottom of it; and his cat ran on ahead, with her bushy tail sticking up in the air.
I don't know why David took his cart that time, for there wasn't any mortar man, and there wasn't any sand-pile. He almost always took his cart.
When David got to the house, there was the foreman standing in almost the same place, but the painters had lowered the staging some more.
And David didn't say anything, but he dropped the handle of his cart, and he went to the foreman and reached up for the foreman's hand.
And the foreman's big hand closed over David's little one, and the foreman smiled, but he didn't say anything, either. He waited for David to speak.
David watched the painters for some time.
"What color are they painting it?" he asked at last. "It looks like white on the brushes, but sort of watery when they put it on, just as my paints look when I put a great deal of water with them. Have they got a great deal of water with their paint?"
"Not water, Davie," the foreman answered, "but oil. This is the first coat of paint, you see, put right on the bare wood, and the wood soaks the oil out of the paint at a great rate. They won't put so much oil in the second and third coats."
"Oh," said David, "will they paint it three times?"
"Three times for new wood," the foreman said.
He didn't say any more then, but he watched and so did David while the painters dipped their brushes and patted them against the sides of their paint-pots and brushed them quickly back and forth over the new clapboards.
"Come with me, Davie," the foreman said at last, "and let's see if we can't scare up something else that's interesting."
And so David went with the foreman, and they went around by the cellar door.
And there they saw a great pile of shutters or blinds which were to go on the outside of all the windows of the house.
These blinds were leaning, one against another, and they had already been painted a kind of bluish gray, and each one had whole rows of little slats that you could turn back and forth.
And beyond the pile of bluish gray blinds was a smaller pile of dark green blinds, and the dark green blinds glistened with fresh paint, and they were leaning, one against another.
And between the pile of bluish gray blinds and the pile of dark green blinds were two painters, painting for dear life, and they were painting the bluish gray blinds dark green.
David watched them for a few minutes. It seemed to be a good deal of trouble to get the slats well painted.
"These," said the foreman, putting his hand on the bluish gray blinds, "are just as they come from the mill—the factory where they are made. This first coat of paint is put on there. Then our painters paint them whatever color is wanted."
David nodded, but he didn't say anything, for he didn't understand why the carpenters didn't make the blinds.
Pretty soon he pulled at the foreman's hand.
"I want to go back," he said.
So they went back to the painters who were painting the side of the house.
They had lowered the staging so low that the foreman could reach it.
"I'll tell you what, Davie," the foreman said. "Do you suppose you could paint a clapboard?"
"Oh," cried David, "will they let me?"
"I guess so," the foreman answered. "You ask them."
David looked up at the painters, and the painters looked down at David, and they were smiling.
David started to speak, but he couldn't ask what he wanted to. And the painters saw what was the matter, and one of them spoke.
"Want to paint a board?" he asked. "Well, come on up here."
So the foreman put his hands under David's arms, and he lifted David right up, over the staging, and set him down with his feet hanging over. And the painter dipped his brush into the paint, and patted it gently against the side of the paint-pot, plop, plop, plop, and he handed the brush to David.
"Oh," David said, "it's heavy!"
"So it is," the painter said. "The paint is mostly lead, that's why. Now, you move the brush away from you as if you were sweeping the floor or dusting the board. Then, when it has gone as far as you can reach, you bring it back on the other side."
David tried, but he didn't do it very well and the paint squeezed out of the brush and ran down and dripped from the edge of the clapboard.
"Not that way," the painter said. "I'll show you."
Then he took hold of David's wrist, but he left the brush in David's hand, and he moved it the way it ought to go, and he swept up all the little rivers of paint and all the little drips, and spread it smoothly over the clapboard.
"There!" said the painter. "Now, do you see?"
David nodded, and he tried again.
This time he did better, but the paint was all gone from the brush, and he held it out to the painter for more.
So the painter dipped it again, and David took it, and painted some more.
And each time he did better than he had done the last time, and he hitched along on the staging, and that clapboard was all painted before he knew it.
And David sighed and started to get up on his feet.
But the other painter called to him.
"Hey, David!" he called. "Aren't you going to do any painting for me? That isn't fair. You come over and do a board for me."
David smiled with pleasure. "Yes, I will," he said.
So he crawled on his hands and knees along the staging, and the foreman walked along on the ground beside him.
And he painted a clapboard for that other painter, but a great drop of the paint got on the leg of his overalls.
"Oh," he said, "I got some paint on my overalls."
"Gracious!" said the painter. "That's nothing. Look at my overalls."
The painter's overalls were made of strong white cloth, and they were all splashed up with paint, all colors. But he had painted a great deal more than David had.
So David finished the clapboard, and then he got up on his feet, and the foreman took him and lifted him down to the ground.
"Thank you," said the painter.
"Thank you," said the other painter.
"You're welcome," David said. "Good-bye."
"Good-bye," said both the painters.
And David began to run to his cart.
"Good-bye, Davie," the foreman said.
David stopped a moment and looked around.
"Good-bye," he said.
Then his cat came running to meet him, and he grabbed up the handle of his cart, and he kept on running, dragging his cart, and his shovel and his hoe rattled away like everything in the bottom of it.
And when he got to his house, he didn't stop running, but just dropped the handle of the cart, and he climbed up the steps as fast as he could and ran into the house.
"Mother," he called, "I painted two boards and I got some paint on my overalls. But you ought to see the painter's overalls. They're awful painty."
And that's all.
Once upon a time there was a little boy, and he was almost five years old, and his name was David. And there weren't any other children near for him to play with, so he used to play happily all by himself.
He had his cat and his cart and his shovel and his hoe, and he always wore his overalls when he was playing.
Behind David's house were some thin woods. And in those woods were oak trees, several kinds, but he didn't know the difference between the kinds.
And there were cedar trees and chestnut trees and birch trees of three kinds; and there were white pine trees and pitch pine trees, and the pitch pine trees were sticky all over.
David knew the pitch pine trees, because he had got his clothes all covered with their stickiness.
And there were a few great sycamore trees, and some ash trees, and some beech trees, and a lot of other kinds that I can't remember the names of.
All summer there were lots of birds in these woods and about the edge of them; and in the winter, when all those summer birds had gone away, other birds came.
And four blue jays stayed there all the year, and the crows stayed, of course, but they didn't live in those woods especially.
And there were chickadees and juncos, which are one kind of snowbird; and there were a lot of little birds which looked like sparrows, and there were red-polled linnets, and occasionally a flock of cedar-birds would cover the cedars like gray snowflakes, and once David's mother called him to come quick and see the pine grosbeaks.
And when David came, he saw a great flock of birds which looked gray, but three of them had the most beautiful rose-colored feathers on their breasts and shoulders and heads, making them look as if they had tied rose-colored aprons about their necks. David watched them until they flew away.
All these birds were very busy feeding on the seeds of weeds or the berries of the trees, and some of them dug insects out of the bark.
And there were gray squirrels which raced along the branches of the trees, and jumped from one branch to another, and poked about on the ground and opened the chestnut-burs which had just fallen from the trees, and ate the chestnuts, or scampered over the roof just above David's head, and made a great racket.
They were great fat fellows with warm, thick fur, not much like the squirrels on Boston Common, but they got almost as tame with David, although he never could get quite near enough to one to pat it. That was better, for the squirrel might have bitten David.
David used to try to get near them, but he always told his cat to stay at home when he was going after them, for the squirrels were afraid of his cat.
One morning in the fall David had gone after the squirrels. There were a great many squirrels about, for the chestnuts had begun to fall, and the squirrels were very busy.
And David had got farther and farther from his house, but he was where he could see the road.
And he heard the rattle of a wagon, and he looked and saw a very spick-and-span new wagon, painted red, with yellow and black stripes on it, and the wheels were flashing in the sun as they turned.
On the wagon were ladders and long slender poles, and four men were riding on it.
The wagon stopped, and the men got off. One of the men took a halter out of the wagon and tied the horse to a tree, while the others took off the ladders.
Then each man took one of the long, slender poles, and a big can and a little can. And they took the ladders on their shoulders and held them with one hand, and the poles in the other hand, and the handles of the cans in that other hand, too, and they began to walk right to where David was.
THE TREE-MEN
And all the squirrels heard them coming, and they stopped eating chestnuts, and each squirrel scurried to a tree, with his chestnut in his mouth, and he scrambled up the tree, on the opposite side of the trunk from the men, so that the men couldn't see him.
They scrambled up the trunks very fast, until they came to a branch; and each squirrel sat on his branch, next to the trunk, and made a sort of a scolding, barking noise, and every time he made the noise his tail gave a queer little jerk.
David was watching them, and he heard their noises, and he couldn't help laughing to see their tails jerk.
And then the men were there, and they saw David laughing.
"Hello," said one of the men. "What's so funny?"
"I was laughing at the squirrels," David said; "they make their tails go."
"Yes," said the man, "I hear them, and I see some of them. How they do scold! But we wouldn't hurt them."
He put his cans down, and he leaned his pole against a tree, and he stood the ladder against the tree.
David looked in the cans. There wasn't anything in the little can, but the big can was full of something that was about as thick as molasses and almost as black as ink, only it was brownish black.
"What is it?" he asked. "Is it molasses? It smells horrid."
The man laughed.
"No," he answered, "it isn't molasses or anything good to eat. It's creosote. That's a poisonous kind of stuff. We put it on these things."
He pointed to a place on a tree. It looked as if somebody had daubed dirt on the trunk, and the place was about the size of David's thumb, and it was rounded out a little at the middle.
"I guess you never noticed those places," the man said. "Inside of that are the eggs of a moth that eats things up and does a great deal of harm. Those eggs would hatch when it gets warm enough, and little worms would come out, and they would begin to eat, and the worms would change into moths later on, and the moths would lay more eggs. We are trying to get rid of them, so we paint some creosote on every bunch of eggs we can find, and that kills them.
"If you look carefully you can see a good many places just like this, all over the trunks of the trees and on the under sides of branches. Some trees have a good many on them, and some don't have any. There's a lot on this tree."
David looked and saw the little mud spots farther up the trunk, and then he looked higher and he saw some of the spots on the under sides of the branches, as the man had said.
He nodded.
"You paint some now," he said, going nearer, "with that stuff."
The man laughed.
"You want to see me do it right off, do you?" he asked.
So he took a stubby paint brush from his belt, and he dipped it into the big can, and he wiped it over as many of the spots as he could reach. The spots looked as if they had been painted with tar.
"Now," he said, "I am going to walk right up that tree."
He pointed to his legs, and David saw that a long iron thing was strapped to each leg, and the iron thing had a sharp point which stuck down about as far as the soles of his shoes.
"Those are climbers, or spurs. We can walk right up any tree that isn't too large around, and you see that those points are bent in a little so that they will stick into the trunk of the tree on each side. You watch."
So the man poured some of the stuff from the big can into the little can, and he hung the little can from his belt, and he stuck the stubby paint brush in his belt.
Then he went to the tree, and he put his hands half-around the trunk, and he lifted up one foot and jabbed it down, so that he jabbed the spur into the tree. Then he lifted the other foot and jabbed that spur in; and he walked right up the tree.
And when he had got to other spots that had been too high for him to reach, he stopped and held on with one hand, while he took the paint brush and painted those egg bunches with stuff from the little can.
But there were some egg bunches left on branches that were too little for the man to go on.
So the man put one leg over a branch, and he took his pole, which was leaning against a twig just beside him, and he fixed the paint brush in the end of the pole, in a place that was meant for it, and he reached out with the pole and painted all those egg bunches on the small branches.
Then he put the pole back, leaning against the twig, and he came slowly down to the ground.
"There!" he said. "Did you see how I did it? Do you think that you could paint some?"
David's eyes glistened.
"Oh, could I? But I couldn't walk up the tree."
The man smiled.
"I'm afraid you couldn't, but you can paint as far as you can reach with the pole."
The other men were busy on trees near, and they watched while David painted the mud spots on another tree which the man found for him.
He wasn't very tall and there were only two spots which he could reach while he stood on the ground.
But the man held him up in his arms as high as he could, and when he had painted all those spots, the man fixed the paint brush in the end of the pole.
It was pretty heavy for such a little boy to manage, and the end would wave around so that he couldn't make the brush paint where he wanted it to.
So the man helped David to hold the pole steady and paint as far as it could reach.
Just then David heard his mother calling him.
"I've got to go now," he said to the man. "I think my mother wants me."
"Well, good-bye," the man said. "We're much obliged."
"You're welcome," David said. "Good-bye."
And he turned around and went galloping through the woods to his house.
And his cat met him, and then his mother met him.
"Where were you, dear?" his mother asked.
"I was helping the tree-men paint egg-spots. How big are moth-eggs, mother?"
But his mother didn't know.
And that's all.