262 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
string so that he might have it for the re-wrapping. 
A strong, well-made knife, with two blades fell out, and 
under it was a hammer, a chisel, a half-inch auger, and 
a medium-sized cross-cut saw. Seeing Tommy’s gifts 
made the others pull open their packages hastily, with 
less regard for string and paper, to find that they also 
had the coveted tools. 
“Now,” said Gray Lady, “you boys will be indepen- 
dent of your fathers’ tools when you take a bird-house 
home to finish, or wish to do a little bit of work for your- 
selves, as the girls will also be independent of their 
mothers’ work-boxes and thimbles; because, if the grown- 
up people are always having their tools borrowed or 
mislaid, they are apt to have a sort of grudge against 
both the work and the workers.” 
Some of the boys looked at each other rather sheepishly, 
and wondered how Gray Lady knew that their fathers 
had said that “since the boys took to carpentering there 
hadn’t been a hammer or nail to be found nor a saw with 
the sign of an edge left on it.” 
“By and by,” continued Gray Lady, “if you have 
the desire, you will all have a chance to earn other tools, 
and also make boxes in which to keep them. 
“You may wonder why the Christmas tree bore no 
candy by way of fruit; that was because part of the fun for 
this afternoon will be making candy,—caramels, chocolate 
creams, nut taffy, and old-fashioned pulled molasses rope- 
candy,—so that, besides the making and tasting, you 
will all have something that you have made yourselves 
to give the people at home to-morrow, or put in their 
stockings if they are hung up. See! here are the boxes 
