VI
THE SHINGLE AND CLAPBOARD STORY
Once upon a time there was a little boy, and he was almost five years old, and his name was David. And there weren't any other children near for him to play with, so he used to play happily all by himself.
He had his cat and his cart and his shovel and his hoe, and he always wore his overalls when he was playing.
One day he wandered up to the corner of the road that he lived on.
He wasn't allowed to go beyond that corner, and his mother didn't like to have him go so far as the corner.
But he was pretending, and he didn't know how far he had come.
He played in the gravel of the gutter for a long time, and he was talking nearly all the time.
His cat was there, taking little runs away, with her bushy tail sticking straight up in the air. Then she would lie down on her back and play with the air, and then she always jumped up in a great hurry and ran back to David and rubbed against him.