“Oh no,” said Stuyvesant, “he did not say exactly that.”
“What did he say?” asked Mrs. Henry.
“Why, he said,” replied Stuyvesant, “that as there was a pen and ink in the shop, and hammer and nails, and as the paper was found nailed up early one morning, when nobody had slept in the shop the night before but Frink, if it did not turn out that Frink himself wrote the lines, he should never believe in any squirrel’s writing poetry as long as he lived.”
Mrs. Henry laughed at this, and she then began to look about the shop to see the tools and the arrangements which had been made by the boys for their work.
She found the premises in excellent order. The floor was neat, the tools were all in their proper places, and every thing seemed well arranged.
“I suppose the tools are dull, however,” said Mrs. Henry, “as boys’ tools generally are.”
“No,” said Phonny, “they are all sharp. We have sharpened them every one.”
“How did you do it?” asked Mrs. Henry.
“Why, we turned the grindstone for Beechnut while he ground his axes, and then he held our tools for us to sharpen them. We could not hold them ourselves very well.”