Then the little boy couldn't see him, because the cellar walls were done and the carpenters had come, and they had put on the great square beams that lie on top of the cellar walls, and they had put in the beams that go across from one side to the other and hold up the floors.
But there were some men in the cellar, for the little boy could hear them laughing and talking.
And the mortar man had told him that they were the bricklayers who were building the chimneys and two of the masons who were smearing mortar over all the cracks of the wall, so that the water wouldn't leak through from the ground into the cellar.
The little boy wished that he could see those men, but he was afraid that it wouldn't be being careful to go down that ladder, and he didn't think he could do it, anyway, for the steps were too far apart.
So he looked about and he saw the man who had held the handles of the scoop, and who had held him that other day, while he looked down into the cellar and saw the masons building the wall. He was called the foreman.
The foreman was glad to see the little boy, and beckoned to him.
And the little boy went, and the foreman took hold of his hand, and they went together right up on the floor beams; but the foreman carried him when they got up there, because there weren't any boards on the beams yet, and the little boy might have fallen through between the beams.
And when they got to the right place, they both stooped over and looked down between the beams, through a great big square hole. A chimney would come up through the hole, and the bricklayers were building it.
The little boy was surprised to see how enormous a chimney had to be at the bottom.
There were four men laying bricks as fast as ever they could, but it was all the little boy could do to watch one of the men.