132 THE LAND OF PLUCK

“Why, what a cough you have, Tom! It’s from work-
ing so much in this windy shop. Oh, Tom, I’ve just
thought! If Katy had a door to her shed and a bench
with a back to it, she ’d be so comfortable!”

“She shall have both,” said Tom. “I ll do it this very
evening. It’s full moon.”

“Oh, you dear, blessed Tom! Good-by.”

“Wisk!”

But she was already running down the street. Tom
turned back slowly. I think he was wondering, though
he had really conquered that old habit. But it is so dif-
ficult, sometimes, to say just what we feel to those whom
we like very much!

“First the shavings, then the chips,” sang Wisk’s happy
heart, as she hurried along ; “ first the shavings, and then
the chips, and then a spark from old Katy’s tinder-box,
and sha’n’t we have a beautiful blaze!”

That night, the one-eyed dog in the butcher’s yard had
a hard time of it. There was the moon to be barked at;
the pigs to be barked at; the sheep, the oxen, and the
lambs to be barked at every time they moved in their
stalls. The skin-heap, too, required a constant barking
to keep it from stirring while the rats were burrowing
beneath. And then there was the strange lad to be
barked at, coming in twice, as he did, with a hand-cart
heaped high with chips, shavings, and blocks, and again
coming back with planks, hammer, and saw. And the
sudden smoke from the sick woman’s fire; ah, how it
bothered old Beppo!

He had lived long in the yard, and remembered well