, and
not spotty and streaky, as was so liable to be the case when one had
not learned how. Mr. Rabbit said he had borrowed some quick-lime early
one morning from Mr. Man's lime-kiln, over in the edge of the Big West
Hills, and that Mr. Crow could get some at the same place if he went
early enough and took a basket to bring it home in. Jack Rabbit said
that you must put the lime into a barrel, or a tub, or something, and
then pour water on it, which would make it hot and smoky, quite
suddenly, which he supposed was the reason it was called quick-lime, but
that by and by it would grow cool and turn white, when it was called
"slack" lime, and then it only needed some more water to make the
beautiful, clean whitewash which Mr. Crow admired so much. As for
practice, he said, he would let Mr. Crow try a little on his back fence.

[Illustration: MR. CROW AND MR. RABBIT WENT BACK TO THE FENCE JOB]

So then Mr. Crow and Jack Rabbit went back to the fence job, and Mr.
Rabbit stirred the whitewash and dipped in the brush, and made a few
strokes, right and left, and then crossed them up and down, and then
right and left again, to get the material on nice and smooth, and stood
off to look at it until it began to look white and clean, because the
sun was hot and dried it very fast; and pretty soon he let Mr. Crow have
the brush. Mr. Crow did very well for the first time, and kept improving
right along, and Jack Rabbit sat in the shade, where it was cool, and
let Mr. Crow go on practising and improving, until he had whitewashed
almost all the fence, and felt so hot and warm he was about ready to
drop, beside being dazzled from looking at the boards that got as white
as snow, with the hot sun shining on them.

Then all at once Mr. Crow noticed something else. He had not been very
careful about splashing the whitewash and had got some of it on
different parts of himself, and especially on the wing that he worked
with, and when he stopped and looked at it, he said, "Good gracious!"
for wherever the whitewash had got on him he was not black any more, but
snow white.

And right then Mr. Crow had an idea. He put the brush in the pail, and
came over and stood in front of Jack Rabbit, and said:

"Why can't you whitewash me?" he said. "I've always thought it would be
pleasant to be white, for a change. I heard of a white crow, once, in
our family, and I always wondered how he got that way. Of course he must
have been whitewashed--I can s