"Oh, just talk," said Sidney happily. "Why weren't you at church this morning?"
"I don't like it. I—I washed the yabbits' house." Chuckles "r's" had a way of escaping him sometimes. "And then I wented down and built sand castles on the sand, but the sea comed in, and I had to come home. Aunt Dannie says I'll never go to heaven."
He said this quite cheerfully.
"I'm going to tell you a story," said Sidney promptly. "One fine day two men walked along by the seashore, and they suddenly said to each other: 'We'll build a house to live in by the sea; it's so beautiful here.' So they began to build, and first they walked about to choose the place. And one was quicker than the other, and he started the very next day. He chose a nice flat place on the sand, a good way from the sea, and he got some men to help him, and every day his house grew bigger and higher. When his doors and windows were in, he looked at his friend's house, and he could see no sign of it. At last he went over and called his friend.
"'What are you doing? Just look at my house. You've done nothing but dig, dig, dig. Every day you dig, and I have had no digging at all.'
"'Yes,' his friend said, 'I've been watching you, and I'll allow your house is getting built very quickly, but, you see, I want a good strong foundation, for this is a stormy part, so I am digging into the rock.'
"'Oh, that's waste of time; there's nothing to show for your labour.'
"'We'll wait and see,' the slow builder said. And so days passed; his house grew very slowly, but it was firm.
"The house on the sand was finished very soon, and the man furnished it, and took his family to live in it, and everybody said what an industrious worker he had been, and how quick and how clever he was. And they laughed at the rock builder; they said he would be an old man before his house would be finished. But he did not care; he went slowly and steadily on. At last his house, too, was complete, and he went into it to live with his family.
"Now, Chuckles, which house would you lived in?"