“It’s too high to climb,” he said, “unless we can get something to climb with. They never leave out a ladder, anywhere. It’s nothing but walls, walls, walls!” He could not solve that problem, yet, but one of Rodney Nelson’s had been solved for him. Mrs. Kirby had permitted Pat’s friend to take his pony and plow through her hall, and the garden had been thoroughly ploughed and harrowed. Rodney was having plenty of work, therefore, although he would rather have been learning a trade. Most of the ground was to be planted in potatoes, but Millie Kirby told Rodney that if it were hers she would make every inch of it grow something. She was over there, at the house, one evening, just after supper and they were all out on the sidewalk, looking at the new door. Billy the goat was standing with his forefeet on the edge of the wall, near them, looking down as if he were anxious to see his new vegetables begin to come up in that garden. “Mrs. Nelson,” came from behind them, “I want to spake to ye about another job.” [Illustration: THEY ALL STOOD STILL WHILE THE DRUM BEAT.] “Pat,” she said, “but what a big door!” “Isn’t it fine, ma’am?” replied Pat. “Now he’s painted it green, with red siding, and all the rest of the hoose white. It’s the good painter he is, for a b’ye----” “But the doors big enough for the biggest kind of house----” began Millie. “That’s it,” said Pat. “It kem out of an owld grocery-sthore front. It’s a sthore dure and not a hoose dure at all. What yez want, Mrs. Nelson, is to put a sthore behind that dure. The front room there is for that. Sure, the big, bay windy is there to show things in. Ye could sell all that comes from the garden, and hooks and eyes, and tay and coffee and sugar, and mebbe onything.” “That’s it, mother,” shouted Rodney, but Pat had more to say and he went on: “What yez want, now, is a counter and some shelvin’, and a whole lot of thim was thrown away from a place I know of, yisther-day. It’ll all go in, there, aisy, and the b’ye could paint it----” “Fetch it right along,” said Rodney, and his mother repeated it. “Fetch it along,” she said. “Why, we could keep a thread-needle store, and no rent to pay.” “I’ll come and ’tend counter, too,” said Millie: “while you’re out and Rodney’s at work in the garden. Besides, he could carry newspapers----” “I must go, now,” interrupted Pat, “but I’ll do that, at wanst, and by-and-bye yez can take out the middle partition, and have the whole flure in wan, and there’s your big sthore.” He was off, leaving them to consider the matter, but the next remark was from Billy and it had a doubtful sound. “Ba-a-ah-eh-beh!” he remarked.