“N-no, I guess not. Mustn’t forget the hood, though. We’ve got the second coat to put on that yet.” Tom glanced over his shoulder to where the object mentioned stood on end like a letter W. Willard painted in silence after a discouraged glance at the hood. The noon whistle at the paper mill suddenly burst into a hoarse bellow and Willard sighed again and scowled at the paint pot. Finally:
“Tom, I’ll keep on until the body’s done, but I’m not going to do any more painting after that,” he stated decidedly. [“This is Saturday and we ought to have a half-holiday.”]
“All right,” said Tom. “You stop whenever you want to. I’ll do the hood after dinner. It won’t take long.”
“No, you’ve got to stop, too. If I go off and leave you up here in the heat and the flies I’ll feel like I ought to come back and help you. So you’ve got to take a holiday, too. I’ll stop around for you at two and we’ll go and see the game.”
“What game?” asked Tom disinterestedly.
Willard observed him pityingly. “The game of baseball, Tom. Between Audelsville High School and Providence Preparatory Academy. Played on the Meadow Street Field at three o’clock. Baseball, Tom, is a game played with bat and ball. And the Audelsville High School is—er—an institution of learning in the town of Audelsville, Rhode Island. Ever hear of it?”
“You’re an idiot,” laughed Tom. “I’d forgotten we played Providence Prep to-day.”
“Of course you had. You’ve forgotten everything except this—this tiresome old automobile!” And Willard slapped at the body viciously with his brush. “Do you know, Tom, you don’t talk anything but motors nowadays? Sometimes I think that if you say just one more word about differentials or—or gears or any of those things I’ll put my head back and howl!”
“Bad as that, is it?” asked Tom with a smile.