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.