And the horses dragged the scoop, upside down, and it bumped over the stones and made a ringing kind of noise, and they dragged it in between the boards and over the dirt that had been loosened by the pickaxes, and when they got to the end of the loosened dirt, they stopped. [Illustration: THE DIRT-SCOOP] Then the man turned the horses around, and he took hold of the handles of the scoop and turned it over; and he kept hold of the handles, and the horses started, and the scoop dug into the loose dirt and scooped it right up and carried it along. Now the field, where they were digging the cellar, sloped down behind where the cellar was to be, so that, when the horses came to that part, they were walking down-hill. And the man let go of the handles of the scoop, and it turned over and dumped its load of dirt. And when the horses heard the scoop bumping and banging on the ground, they turned around of their own accord and walked back to get a new load. And so they did until they had scooped out all the dirt that had been loosened. Then the pickaxe men went back and began again on the part that had been scooped, but the horses had to wait for the dirt to be loosened, and they stood outside of the cellar. It was beginning to look a little bit like a cellar now, but a very shallow one. And the little boy was getting tired of watching the pickaxes rise and fall and of listening to the noise the ground made. So he got up. And his cat saw him getting up, and she ran to him, and she saw that he was going to the man with the horses, so she ran ahead, with her bushy tail sticking straight up in the air. The man saw them coming, and he looked at the little boy and smiled. "I've got to go now," the little boy said, when he had come to the man. "So soon?" asked the man. "I hope you aren't tired." "I think I'd better go home," the little boy said. "P'r'aps my mother would like to see me." "I shouldn't wonder if she'd like to see you pretty often," the man said. "You tell her that you'll be safe here. I'll keep my eye on you." "How will you get your eye on me?" the little boy asked. The man laughed. "Will you come again?" "I'll come to-morrow," the little boy said. "P'r'aps I'll come this afternoon. Good-bye." "Good-bye," said the man. And he watched the little boy as he trudged away, dragging his cart, with his hoe and his shovel rattling in the bottom of it, and with his cat walking beside him and looking up into his face. And that's all of this story. II THE MASON STORY Once upon a time there was a little boy and he was almost five years old. 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.