Finally one day the Goodman brought home a large saw from Boston, and he and Dan showed Zeb how to use it.  Then day after day Dan and Zeb sawed together, making boards for the new house, while Nancy brought her carding or knitting and sat on a stump near by with the puppy at her feet or nosing about in the bushes.  They had named the dog Nimrod, “because,” as Nancy said, “he is surely a mighty hunter before the Lord, just like Nimrod in the Bible.  He sniffs around after field mice all the time, and if he only sees a cat he barks his head off and tears after her like lightning!”

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The summer passed quickly away, with few events to take them outside the little kingdom of home in which they lived.  Twice the Captain stopped to see them when the Lucy Ann put in at Boston Harbor, and it was from him they got such news as they had of the world without.  By October, Nimrod had grown to be quite a large dog and was already useful with the sheep, and Zeb could understand a good deal of what was said to him, though it was noticeable that he was very dull when it concerned tasks he did not like.  With Dan to guide him he was able to help shock the corn and pile the pumpkins in golden heaps between the rows.  He could feed the cattle and milk the cow and draw water for them from the well.  While the Goodman and the two boys worked in the fields gathering the crops, Nancy and her mother dried everything that could be dried and preserved everything that could be preserved, until there was a wonderful store of good things for the winter.

One day when all the rafters were festooned with strings of crook-necked squashes, onions, and seed corn braided in long ropes by the husks, the Goodman appeared in the doorway with another load of seed corn and looked in vain for a place to put it.

“There is no place,” said the Goodwife.  “The Lord hath blessed us so abundantly there is not room to receive it.  As it is, I can hardly do my work without stepping on something.  If it is not anything else, it is sure to be either Zeb or Nimrod.  Truly I can no longer clean and sand my floor properly for the things that are standing about.”

The Goodman sat down on the settle and looked long and earnestly at the crowded room, whistling softly to himself.  Then he rose and went to the village, and as a result the neighbors gathered the very next week to help build the new house.  They came early in the morning, the men with axes and saws on their shoulders and the women carrying cooking-utensils.  Then while the men worked in the forest felling trees, cutting and hauling timbers, and putting them in place, the women helped the Goodwife make whole battalions of brown loaves and regiments of pies, beside any number of other good things to eat.  Nancy, Dan, and Zeb ran errands and caught fish and dug clams and gathered nuts to supply materials for them, and were promptly on hand when meal time came.