t places.
It is the idle man that quickens hatred and contention, as it is the
setting hen and not the scratching one that hatches out the eggs.

XLVI.

PAINTING THE OLD HOMESTEAD.

It had been a battle renewed for more years than there are dandelions
just now in the front yard. Various members of the family had declared
from time to time that if the old house was not painted it would fall
to pieces from sheer mortification at its own disreputable appearance.

"Why, you can put your toothpick right through the rotten shingles,"
cried the doctor. "The only way to save it is to paint it."

Now, I have always been the odd sheep of a highly decorous fold. I
have more love for nature than hard good sense, I am told. So I loathe
paint just as I hate surface manners. I want the true grain all the
way through, be it in boards or people. I love the weather stain on an
old house. I love the mossy touches, the lichen grays and the russet
browns that age imparts to the shingles, and I almost feel like
murdering the paint fiend when he comes around every spring, and
transforms some dear old landmark into a gorgeous "Mrs. Skewton," with
hideous coats and splashy trimmings. But alas for sentiment when the
money bags are against it! Profit before poetry any day in this
nineteenth century, my dear, and so when an interested capitalist came
up from town and gave it as his opinion that the old house would be
worth a third more if put on the market in a terra cotta coat with
sage-green trimmings the day was lost for me. I had to strike my
colors like many another idealist in this practical world. In the
first place, there has been for the last fifteen years or so, a vine
growing all over the old home, catching its lithe tendrils into the
roof and making cathedral lights in all the windows. It has been the
home of generations of robins. It has hung full of purple, bell-shaped
blossoms on coral stems that have attracted a thousand humming birds
and honey bees by their fragrance. It has changed into a veritable
cloth of gold in early September, and in late October has flamed into
scarlet against the gray roof, like a blaze that quivers athwart a
stormy sky. It has been the joy of my life and the inspiration of my
dreams, but it had to come down before the paint-pot! So one night
when I reached home, tired to death with a hand-to-hand encounter with
the demon who gives poor mortals their bread and butter for an
equi