up something else that's interesting."

And so David went with the foreman, and they went around by the cellar
door.

And there they saw a great pile of shutters or blinds which were to go
on the outside of all the windows of the house.

These blinds were leaning, one against another, and they had already
been painted a kind of bluish gray, and each one had whole rows of
little slats that you could turn back and forth.

And beyond the pile of bluish gray blinds was a smaller pile of dark
green blinds, and the dark green blinds glistened with fresh paint,
and they were leaning, one against another.

And between the pile of bluish gray blinds and the pile of dark green
blinds were two painters, painting for dear life, and they were
painting the bluish gray blinds dark green.

David watched them for a few minutes. It seemed to be a good deal of
trouble to get the slats well painted.

"These," said the foreman, putting his hand on the bluish gray blinds,
"are just as they come from the mill--the factory where they are made.
This first coat of paint is put on there. Then our painters paint them
whatever color is wanted."

David nodded, but he didn't say anything, for he didn't understand why
the carpenters didn't make the blinds.

Pretty soon he pulled at the foreman's hand.

"I want to go back," he said.

So they went back to the painters who were painting the side of the
house.

They had lowered the staging so low that the foreman could reach it.

"I'll tell you what, Davie," the foreman said. "Do you suppose you
could paint a clapboard?"

"Oh," cried David, "will they let me?"

"I guess so," the foreman answered. "You ask them."

David looked up at the painters, and the painters looked down at David,
and they were smiling.

David started to speak, but he couldn't ask what he wanted to. And the
painters saw what was the matter, and one of them spoke.

"Want to paint a board?" he asked. "Well, come on up here."

So the foreman put his hands under David's arms, and he lifted David
right up, over the staging, and set him down with his feet hanging
over. And the painter dipped his brush into the paint, and patted it
gently against the side of the paint-pot, _plop_, _plop_, _plop_, and
he handed the brush to David.

"Oh," David said, "it's heavy!"

"So it is," the painter said. "The paint is mostly lead, that's why.
Now, you move the brush away from you as if you were sweeping the
floor or dusting th