Suddenly there was a great scurrying, and every squirrel went racing up the nearest tree, and David's cat came running, with her bushy tail sticking straight up in the air, and she ran a little way ahead of David, and she flopped over on her back in a little pile of leaves, and she began playing with the leaves.
David laughed at her. "Funny kitty!" he said.
Then he turned and went on talking, but he wasn't talking to his cat and he wasn't talking to himself.
His pretend playmate had come, and it was the boy, this time, and he had brought the cat.
So David and that pretend little boy played together for a long time.
Sometimes they dragged the cart together, and sometimes they stopped and hunted for chestnuts, and they put into the cart the chestnuts that they found.
And after a while they came into that part of the woods which was behind the new house.
And David heard some men talking together up at the new house, and he looked and saw them squatting down beside the house, and two of the men had shovels.
So David and the pretend little boy hurried to go to the new house, to see what the men were doing, and they dragged the cart, and the shovel and the hoe and the chestnuts all rattled about together in the bottom of it; and the cat went running on ahead.
But, when David got there, the pretend little boy had gone, for David had forgotten about him.