"
"Poor Davy! you couldn't hate housework any worse if you were a
woman; but it is all done for to-day. Now paint me one of your
pictures, laddie; make me see with your eyes."
The boy put down the book and leaped out of the open door, barely
touching the old millstone that served for a step. Taking a stand in
the well-worn path, he rested his hands on his hips, swept the
landscape with the glance of an eagle, and began like a young
improvisator:
"The sun is just dropping behind Brigadier Hill."
"What colour is it?"
"Red as fire, and there isn't anything near it--it's almost alone in
the sky; there's only teeny little white feather clouds here and
there. The bridge looks as if it was a silver string tying the two
sides of the river together. The water is pink where the sun shines
into it. All the leaves of the trees are kind of swimming in the red
light--I tell you, nunky, just as if I was looking through red glass.
The weather vane on Squire Bean's barn dazzles so the rooster seems
to be shooting gold arrows into the river. I can see the tip top of
Mount Washington where the peak of its snow-cap touches the pink sky.
The hen-house door is open. The chickens are all on their roost,
with their heads cuddled under their wings."
"Did you feed them?"
The boy clapped his hand over his mouth with a comical gesture of
penitence, and dashed into the shed for a panful of corn, which he
scattered over the ground, enticing the sleepy fowls by insinuating
calls of "Chick, chick, chick, chick! COME, biddy, biddy, biddy,
biddy! COME, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick!"
The man in the doorway smiled as over the misdemeanour of somebody
very dear and lovable, and rising from his chair felt his way to a
corner shelf, took down a box, and drew from it a violin swathed in a
silk bag.
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