We all went out to the barn, uncle bringing a ladder with him. He set it up against a beam, and in no time the canoe was down on the ground.
“Kind of a slimpsy-lookin’ thing,” he says, disgusted-like.
“Where’s the p-p-p-paddles?” Mark wanted to know.
“Under the bed,” says uncle, and I ran to get them.
We hauled the canoe down and put it in the water, but right away it began to leak, so we dragged it out again and asked uncle for some paint. He said green paint was all he had. Mark allowed that green paint wasn’t exactly suitable for a canoe, but any paint was better than no paint, so uncle got a can and a brush off a shelf in the kitchen and brought them out to us.
We put the canoe up on a couple of logs and started in to paint, but after we had been at it a couple of minutes Uncle Hieronymous shook his head and grunted. Then he recited another poem:
“Don’t think that that’s the way to paint,
Because, my friends, it surely hain’t.”
Then he took the brush away from Tallow, who had it at that particular minute, and told us to clear out while he did a job of painting that would be a credit to the state of Michigan, even if the Governor were to come along to see it, with all the legislature marching in circles around his hat-brim.
We decided to explore down-stream this time. Just as we were starting out from the house Billy came driving along with a fat man on the seat beside him. Not just a big man, but a man that was as fat as Mark Tidd. Billy called to us and waved his hand, and we waved back. Then we started out.