So Rollo got his chisel and mallet, and inserted the cent according to his father’s directions, and by that time there were a good many branches and twigs on the ground, which his father had taken off from the trees, and so he began to pick them up, and put them into his wheelbarrow.
They went on working together for some time, and talking while they worked. Rollo was continually asking his father questions, and his father sometimes answered them, and sometimes did not, but was silent and thoughtful, as if he was thinking of something else. But whether he got answers or not, Rollo went on talking.
“Father,” said Rollo, at length, after a short pause, during which he had been busily at work putting twigs into his wheelbarrow, “Henry has got a very interesting book.”
His father did not answer.
“I think it is a very interesting book indeed. Should not you like to read it, father?”
His father was just then reaching up very high to saw off a pretty large limb, and he paid no attention to what Rollo was saying. So Rollo went on talking half to himself—
“One story is about Aladdin and his lamp. If he rubbed his lamp, he could have whatever he wished; something would come, I have forgotten what its name was, and bring him whatever he asked for.”
Just then, down came the great branch which his father had been sawing off, falling from its place on the tree to the ground.
Rollo looked at it a moment, and then, when his father began sawing again, he said,