Produced by Suzanne Shell, Claudine Corbasson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net THE DOERS BY WILLIAM JOHN HOPKINS WITH ILLUSTRATIONS [Illustration] HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON--NEW YORK--CHICAGO--DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO The Riverside Press Cambridge COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY WILLIAM JOHN HOPKINS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK OR PARTS THEREOF IN ANY FORM _School Edition_ The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE--MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. CONTENTS I. THE DIGGING-MEN STORY 1 II. THE MASON STORY 10 III. THE DINNER-TIME AND JONAH STORY 22 IV. THE CARPENTER STORY 34 V. THE WATER-MEN STORY 46 VI. THE SHINGLE AND CLAPBOARD STORY 57 VII. THE PLUMBER STORY 73 VIII. THE PAINTER STORY 86 IX. THE TREE-MEN STORY 101 X. THE CLEARING-UP STORY 113 XI. THE SETTING-OUT STORY 125 XII. THE POLE-MEN STORY 138 XIII. THE MOVING-MEN STORY 155 [Illustration] I THE DIGGING-MEN STORY Once upon a time there was a little boy who was almost five years old. And his mother used to let him wander about the garden and in the road near the house, for there weren't many horses going by, and the men who drove the horses that did go by knew the little boy and they were careful. So this boy wandered about and played happily by himself. He had his cat and his cart and his shovel and his hoe, and he always wore his overalls. And wherever he went his cat went too. One morning he saw some men come with a big cart and two horses, and they stopped in a field near his house where there were some queer boards nailed on sticks that were stuck in the ground; and the boards turned corners, and there were strings across from one board to another. And the men got out of the big cart and unhitched the horses from the cart, and the little boy thought he had better go there and see what they were going to do. So he went, dragging his cart behind him, with his shovel and his hoe rattling in the bottom of it. And his cat saw him going, and she ran on ahead with her bushy tail sticking straight up in the air. And the little boy came to the men and the horses and he stopped and stood still. And his cat stopped too, but she didn't stand still; she rolled over on her back on the ground and wanted to play, but nobody would pay any attention to her. Pretty soon one of the men looked down and saw the little boy. "Hello!" he said. "Hello," said the little boy. "What are you going to do?" "Why," said the man, "we're going to dig dirt." "Are you going to dig a hole?" the little boy asked. "Yes," said the man; "a great big hole."