Mr. Jenkins had been talking a long time with Ned Grandmother Burt looked often from her window, and said querulously,

now.

'Dear me, isn't that butcher gone yet? I guess that folk will be tired waiting for him, and trade with some one who is half alive. Ned ought not to be standing there catching cold. I wonder, Matilda, you don't teach him. better. He'll die before he is eighteen, in this way of bringing up.'

Even little Tot knocked often and impatiently with her plump red finger on the window-pane, and called out, with her snub nose flattened up against it, 'Come in, Neddy; my sled 's broke, and wants some new bells; and my horse ran away and broke it all smash; and I haven't got a carriage to ride my old Sue in. Come in! come in!'

I

'Little by little,' repeated Ned to himself, as he flattened his nose too, kissing Tot through the cold window. There is that pile of wood that I fatigued myself with yesterday; but, after all, it's only "little by little "-stick by sticka few to-day, and a few more to-morrow, and it's done. had a feeling as if I ought to saw them at once, as Joe Smith does; but that's not it. I'll mend Tot's sled, carry some wood into grandmother's fire, and then go at it, stick after stick-here a large and there a little one-till my island of wood is done, like the coral-builders.' Half an hour afterwards Ned's saw might be heard moving briskly up and down in the back-yard. No one knew as well as Ned what it said; but to him it kept constantly repeating the maxim Mr. Jenkins had given him, 'Little by little, little by little.'

ISS

CHAPTER. III.

WHAT CAN NED DO?

INTER came swiftly on; after 'Thanksgiving' every one who lives in New England knows that it is time for cold weather. It seemed

to Mrs. Randall that there never was so much to be done as now. The cellar was freezing the scanty supply of vegetables which she had been able to store, and now she remembered that during the last winter there had been banks of earth all around the foundation of the house, covered with thick plank, which her husband had carefully stored away. This banking must be done again, the planks put back, and the cellar made secure; but who should do it? She could not hire any one to do it; she could not do it herself. Strange to say, she never thought of Ned, until looking out from her window early one frosty morning, she saw him at work with a wheelbarrow and a spade. 'What are you going to do?' she asked, raising the window.

'Going to bank in the cellar,' said Ned, rubbing his numb hands together. It's only little by little, you know, mother; a shovelful, a wheelbarrowful, and then it's all

C

done, and the chip dirt in the wood-house is not frozen. yet.'

'My son, you can't do it,' said Mrs. Randall, in much surprise. 'It will take more shovelfuls and wheelbarrowfuls than you imagine.'

'Well, I dare say, mother, but every one helps; at any rate, I am going to try!'

It was a face full of life and love and energy that raised itself to Mrs. Randall's. As the lad spoke, somehow it gave her courage and hope, and when she closed the window again, even Grandmother Burt felt that something fresh and bright had come into the room. Kitty stood by her mother's side watching Ned for a moment, and then she said, 'Mother, I know I am only a little girl, but Ned says, "little by little," every little helps. I think I might take the kitchen shovel and sing to him while I put the chips in; may I?'

'Yes, if you are not in his way. Big boys don't always like to have little girls around.'

'Ned isn't like other big boys; I know he will want me,' said Kitty, hastening to tie on her hood; but no sooner had she opened the door than she was arrested by a loud cry from Tot.

'I be a-going too; I, little by little girl too, I get a little bit of a shovel, and I dig whole heap so high;' and Tot stretched herself up on the tips of her dainty little toes, and measured almost as high as Kitty's head. So Kitty, with many misgivings as to the help they should either of them be, if Tot was there, dressed her up in every warm thing she could put her hand on, and out they went;

Tot having provided herself with her grandmother's brassheaded shovel, which she carried off in the very face of the old lady, protestations to the contrary, trusting to the nimbleness of her feet to take her safely out of the way.

Ned was somewhat astonished at the stalwart help which presented itself in the shape of his two little sisters, armed and equipped with fire-shovels, and at any other time within the last year of his life would have sent them back with some indignation; but as he turned to do so now, they both looked so happy that he could not find it in his heart to give them other than a pleasant welcome.

'Little shovel, little girl, little hands,' said Tot, holding hers out, covered with some old blue worsted mittens of Ned's, which Kitty had tied on around the wrist to keep her warm.

'Little enough,' said Ned, laughing; 'and what does little shovel and little hands and little girl expect to do?' 'Dig whole heaps, way, way up to the sky;' and the blue eyes looked up with a wise look, as if she were measuring the distance.

'Well, go to work then, only keep clear of my spade, for I can't stop to play with you.' At work Ned went, but somehow the 'little shovel or the little hands' were always in his way. Sometimes Tot dug with the shovel, sometimes she dug with the brass handle, sometimes she attempted to throw dirt on to the wheelbarrow, but oftener she found it more convenient and pleasant to knock it off, a trick at which Ned did not catch her, until she called his attention to it, by saying,

'Pile, most up to the sky; look, Neddy, look!'