Then the men went to the pile again, and they picked out a stone that was nearly as big as the bottom stones, and they hammered it with great hammers and split off some thin, flat pieces.
That was to make it fit better in the place where it was to go. The ground all about the wall was covered with thin, flat pieces that had been hammered off other stones.
And they got a great thick board, and they put one end of the board on top of the bottom stones which they had just put in the trench, and they put the other end of the board on the ground in front of the stone which they had been hammering, and they rolled the stone slowly up the board until it came to the end.
And they rolled it off the end upon the bottom stones, and got it into its place with their crowbars.
And where it did not fit well enough, they put in thin, flat pieces that they picked up from the ground.
The man who knelt on one knee at the edge of the cellar told the little boy about it as the men worked.
And, when the men had put in the little flat pieces of stone, one of them looked up and smiled at the little boy and said that they called the thin, flat pieces "chocks."
"Not woodchucks," he said, "but just chocks."
The little boy smiled and nodded. He had never seen a woodchuck, but there was a picture of one in his animal-book. It wasn't a very good picture.