“It looks gray to me, and I’m glad it is gray, so don’t you worry about it, Jonathan. Blue would be somethin’ awful on the front of a white house, you know.”
“Well,” continued the bewildered Junior Warden, “I’m blessed if this isn’t the queerest thing I ever see in all my born days. If I catch the fellow that sold me that paint, I’ll make it lively for him or my name isn’t Jackson.” 232
“Oh, I wouldn’t do anything like that! What difference does it make, so long as I like the color myself; it’s my house. I should have been very much put out if you’d painted it blue; yes, I should.”
“But I don’t like to be cheated down at the store; and I won’t, by gum! They said it was best quality paint! I’ll go down to Crosscut’s and see about this business, right now. I’ve traded with him nigh on twenty years, and he don’t bamboozle me that way.”
Hepsey turned away choking with laughter, and retreated to her kitchen.
Jonathan started back towards his house to get his hat and coat, and then for the first time he caught sight of his own porch, done in flaming scarlet, which fairly seemed to radiate heat in the brilliant sunlight. He stood motionless for nearly a minute, paralyzed. Then the color began to rise in his neck and face as he muttered under his breath:
“Hm! I’m on to the whole business now. I ought to have known that Hepsey would get the best of me. I guess I won’t go down to Crosscut’s after all.”
Then he walked up to the porch and touched the scarlet paint with his finger and remarked:
“Set harder than a rock, by gum! She must have used a whole lot of dryer. I’ll get even with her for this. See if I don’t.” 233
In the afternoon Jonathan brought over some fine apples and presented them to Hepsey, who was knitting on her side porch. She thanked him for the gift, and the conversation drifted from one thing to another while she waited for the expected outburst of reproach which she knew would come sooner or later. But curiously enough, Jonathan was more cheery and cordial than usual, and made no allusion whatever to the scarlet porch, which was conspicuously visible from where they sat. Again and again Hepsey led the conversation around to the point where it seemed as if he must break covert, but he remained oblivious, and changed the subject readily. Not a word on the subject passed his lips that afternoon.