wistful--"I'm afraid I didn't do it very well. My bacon was
never as nice and crisp as father's, and the fire was always
spoiling my potatoes."

"Humph! bacon and potatoes, indeed!" scorned Simeon Holly. "Well,
boy, we call that women's work down here. We set men to something
else. Do you see that woodpile by the shed door?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very good. In the kitchen you'll find an empty woodbox. Do you
think you could fill it with wood from that woodpile? You'll find
plenty of short, small sticks already chopped."

"Oh, yes, sir, I'd like to," nodded David, hastily but carefully
tucking his violin into its case. A minute later he had attacked
the woodpile with a will; and Simeon Holly, after a sharply
watchful glance, had turned away.

But the woodbox, after all, was not filled. At least, it was not
filled immediately. for at the very beginning of gathering the
second armful of wood, David picked up a stick that had long
lain in one position on the ground, thereby disclosing sundry and
diverse crawling things of many legs, which filled David's soul
with delight, and drove away every thought of the empty woodbox.

It was only a matter of some strength and more patience, and
still more time, to overturn other and bigger sticks, to find
other and bigger of the many-legged, many-jointed creatures. One,
indeed, was so very wonderful that David, with a whoop of glee,