This was a poser for a moment until Charlie exclaimed:

"If it is I'll get some boards and we can lay them down to walk on."

Sue had no further excuse for not going up the ladder, and she began to
climb. She reached the top, and it was found that the painter had spread
his red mixture on only part of the roof. There was room enough to walk
on the unpainted part to her room window.

She was just climbing in, with the help of the boys, when she suddenly
noticed something that made her exclaim:

"Oh, look! How did that happen?"

CHAPTER X

THE LEGACY

"What's the matter? What's happened?" asked Bunny Brown. "Are you going
to fall, Sue?"

He was helping his sister on one side to climb in the window, and
Charlie was on the other side of the little girl.

"No, I'm not going to fall," Sue answered. "But look at my dress! It's
all red paint!"

And so it was! In addition to being wet and muddy her skirt was now
covered with big blotches of red paint--the same kind of paint that was
being put on the roof.

"How did it happen?" went on Sue, almost ready to cry again. "I didn't
step in any paint, did I?"

"Even if you did I don't see how it got on your dress," said Charlie
Star.

"There's some on me, too!" cried Bunny Brown. "There's some on my
pants!"

"And I'm daubed just like you!" cried Charlie. "We're all three
painted!"

And they were, only Sue had more of it on her dress than the boys had on
their clothes.

"It must have been on the ladder," decided Charlie. "The painter man got
some of his red stuff on the ladder and we got it on us."

"Oh, dear!" sighed Sue. "Now after my dress is dry and I brush the mud
off mother will see the red paint. Course I'd tell her, anyhow, but I
wish she wouldn't see it first!"

However, there seemed no help for it. All three of the children had red
paint on their clothes, and paint, you know, can't be brushed off. When
it's on it stays, unless turpentine, or something like that, is used to
take it off.

Sue, and the boys, too, had hoped that Mrs. Brown would not know what
had happened. It wasn't that they wanted to deceive, or fool, her, but
Sue wanted to tell of the accident at the brook in her own way and time.
She really did not want to cause her mother worry when Mrs. Brown had
company. And Mrs. Brown would certainly begin to ask questions when she
saw those red spots on Sue's dress.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Sue again, and she seemed about to burst into tea