XII
THE POLE-MEN 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 morning he had just started to wander along the road toward the corner of the next street.
He wasn't allowed to go beyond that corner, but he could look and see what was coming, and perhaps he could see the postman and the black dog.
His cat was walking along beside him, looking up into his face, and he was dragging his cart, with his shovel and his hoe rattling in the bottom of it, for he might want to play in the sand of the gutter.
But before he got more than halfway to the corner, he heard a great rattling and shouting, and two horses came around the corner.
They made a very wide turn, because they were dragging a wagon, and behind that came two great logs which looked like trees, except that they were all smoothed off.