Page:By the Wayside (1908).pdf/30

 farm-house with a large barn and sheds, and that a boy was busily nailing the pickets on to a fence, the frame of which stood a little way back from the road. Marjorie watched him for a few moments, admiring the evenness with which he placed the pickets, and the sure, firm blows of the hammer; at last, however, she began to grow uneasy. "Look," she said to the Dream, "see how close together he is nailing them. That isn't the right way. Why do you suppose he does it so? He's just spoiling the looks of his fence."

"Probably he does it that way because he wants it that way," said the Dream carelessly.

"But they don't look well that way, and it takes more pickets and more nails and a longer time."

The Dream looked at the boy and the fence, critically. "It's not such a bad fence," he said, dryly; "and the boy looks fairly smart, doesn't he?—and he handles his tools as if he had built fences before. Perhaps he knows what he is about."

"Y-e-s, he looks smart enough," agreed Marjorie; "but he is certainly making a mistake now, and I think I ought to tell him about it."