"And can my kitty watch too?"
The man laughed and said his kitty could watch if she wanted to.
And the other men took pickaxes out of the cart, the handles of the pickaxes and their iron heads, and each man slipped the head of his pickaxe over the handle and gave it a tap on the ground to drive the head on.
And they walked slowly in under the strings between the boards and they got in a line.
And the little boy sat down on a stone that was just the right size and watched them. His cat came and got right between his feet.
Then the man at the end of the line raised his pickaxe high above his head, and the next man did the same, and then the third man, and so on to the other end of the line.
And the first man struck his pickaxe down hard into the ground, and it made the ground grunt, Mnh!
And the second man did the same, and the ground gave another grunt, Mnh!
And then the third man did the same thing, and so on to the other end of the line.
Then the first man was ready again, so that the sound of the pickaxes was as regular as the ticking of the tall clock.