e board. Then, when it has gone as far as you can
reach, you bring it back on the other side."

David tried, but he didn't do it very well and the paint squeezed out
of the brush and ran down and dripped from the edge of the clapboard.

"Not that way," the painter said. "I'll show you."

Then he took hold of David's wrist, but he left the brush in David's
hand, and he moved it the way it ought to go, and he swept up all the
little rivers of paint and all the little drips, and spread it
smoothly over the clapboard.

"There!" said the painter. "Now, do you see?"

David nodded, and he tried again.

This time he did better, but the paint was all gone from the brush,
and he held it out to the painter for more.

So the painter dipped it again, and David took it, and painted some
more.

And each time he did better than he had done the last time, and he
hitched along on the staging, and that clapboard was all painted
before he knew it.

And David sighed and started to get up on his feet.

But the other painter called to him.

"Hey, David!" he called. "Aren't you going to do any painting for me?
That isn't fair. You come over and do a board for me."

David smiled with pleasure. "Yes, I will," he said.

So he crawled on his hands and knees along the staging, and the
foreman walked along on the ground beside him.

And he painted a clapboard for that other painter, but a great drop of
the paint got on the leg of his overalls.

"Oh," he said, "I got some paint on my overalls."

"Gracious!" said the painter. "That's nothing. Look at my overalls."

The painter's overalls were made of strong white cloth, and they were
all splashed up with paint, all colors. But he had painted a great
deal more than David had.

So David finished the clapboard, and then he got up on his feet, and
the foreman took him and lifted him down to the ground.

"Thank you," said the painter.

"Thank you," said the other painter.

"You're welcome," David said. "Good-bye."

"Good-bye," said both the painters.

And David began to run to his cart.

"Good-bye, Davie," the foreman said.

David stopped a moment and looked around.

"Good-bye," he said.

Then his cat came running to meet him, and he grabbed up the handle of
his cart, and he kept on running, dragging his cart, and his shovel
and his hoe rattled away like everything in the bottom of it.

And when he got to his house, he didn't stop running, but just dropped
the handle of