he and
Nickey proceeded gleefully to fulfill their appointed task, while she
got supper.

When the work was quite finished. Hepsey went over to inspect it, and
remarked thoughtfully to herself: "I should think that a half pint of
dryer might be able to get in considerable work before to-morrow noon.
I hope Jonathan'll like scarlet. To be sure it does look rather
strikin' on a white house; but then variety helps to relieve the
monotony of a dead alive town like Durford; and if he don't like it
plain, he can trim it green. I'll teach him to come paintin' my house
without so much as a by-your-leave, or with-your-leave, lettin' the
whole place think things."

As it happened, Jonathan returned late that night to Durford--quite
too late to see the transformation of his own front porch, and since
he entered by the side door as usual, he did not even smell the new
paint. The next morning he sauntered over to Thunder Cliff, all agog
for his reward, and Mrs. Burke greeted him at her side door, smiling
sweetly.

"Good mornin', Jonathan. It was awful good of you to paint my front
porch. It _has_ needed paintin' for some time now, but I never seemed
to get around to it."

"Don't mention it, Hepsey," Jonathan replied affably. "Don't mention
it. You're always doin' somethin' for me, and it's a pity if I can't
do a little thing like that for you once in a while."

Hepsey had strolled round to the front, as if to admire his work,
Jonathan following. Suddenly he came to a halt; his jaw dropped, and
he stared as if he had gone out of his senses.

"Such a lovely color; gray just suits the house, you know," Mrs. Burke
observed. "You certainly ought to have been an artist, Jonathan. Any
man with such an eye for color ought not to be wastin' his time on a
farm."

Jonathan still gazed at the porch in amazement, blinked hard, wiped
his eyes and his glasses with his handkerchief, and looked again.

"What's the matter with you? Have you a headache?" Hepsey inquired
solicitously.

"No, I haven't got no headache; but when I left that porch yesterday
noon it was blue, and now I'm blamed if it don't seem gray. Does it
look gray-like to you, Hepsey?"

"Why certainly! What's that you say? Do you say you painted it blue?
That certainly's mighty queer. But then you know some kinds of paint
fade--some kinds do!" She nodded, looking suspiciously at the work.

"Fade!" Jonathan sneered. "Paints don't fade by moonlight in one
night. That isn'