House construction -- Juvenile literature; Readers (Elementary)
And the men jumped out, and the foreman jumped out, and David hurried
to go over there. He hurried so fast that he forgot to take his cart,
and he forgot to call his cat, but his cat came just the same, and she
ran on ahead, with her bushy tail sticking straight up in the air.
And when the foreman saw the cat, he knew that David couldn't be far
off, and he looked up and he saw him.
"Hello, Davie," he said. "I'm glad to see you."
"Hello," David said. "What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to sort of clear up the place, Davie. Don't you think it
needs it? And I'm going to have all this rubbish carried off or burned
up."
David nodded, but he didn't say anything; and he reached up, and he
put his little hand into the foreman's big one.
Then the two men who had come with the foreman began to pick out the
boards that were good.
There were some great heavy planks which were covered with plaster and
spattered with paint, but they were good planks and could be used
again.
The men took these planks, one man at each end, and they brought them
to the wagon and they put them in.
When they had brought all the planks, they separated the long boards
from the little short ends of boards, and they brought the long boards
to the wagon and they put them on top of the planks.
Then they piled the little short ends of boards near the cellar door.
It was a great pile of wood that the people who moved into the house
could have to burn.
Then they found a couple of saw-horses that were pretty good, and they
put them on top of the boards in the wagon, and the wagon was loaded
with as much as one horse ought to pull.
So the foreman told one of them to go along with that load, and to
hurry back, and he would stay there and help the other man do a little
clearing up.
And the man climbed into the seat, and drove off.
"Now, Davie," the foreman said, "I've got to help my man, and I can't
stay here with you and do nothing, although I should like to."
"What are you going to do?" David asked.
"Oh, we're going to put all the rubbish that will burn over there on
the bare spot, where it can't set anything afire. All the stuff that
we can't burn we'll rake up into piles, and when the wagon comes back,
we'll take it away. And there's a little gravel over there that is
hardly worth taking, and we'll leave it for the graders to use."
"What are the graders?" asked David. "What do they do?"
"Oh, the graders are sort of rough gardeners. They spread the dirt
around where it is wanted, and they make it the right height all along
the foundation, and smooth it off, and they make the walks up to the
front door and the back door, and they spread gravel on the walks.
Sometimes they make terraces or banks, but they won't do that here. It
will be a nice slope from the house down to the field, all around."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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