"Why, I'm glad you like it," he said heartily. "I was just hoping some
one would come along here and admire it. Now--what colour would you paint
it?"

"Are you a painter, too?"

"After a fashion. I'm a sort of man of all work--I thought of painting it
white, with the pillars green."

"I think that would be pretty," she answered, judicially, after a
moment's thought. "What else can you do?"

He appeared to be pondering his accomplishments.

"Well, I can doctor trees," he said, pointing an efficient finger at the
magnificent maple sheltering, like a guardian deity, the old farmhouse.
"I put in those patches."

"They're cement," she exclaimed. "I never heard of putting cement in
trees."

"They don't seem to mind."

"Are the holes very deep?"

"Pretty deep."

"But I should think the tree would be dead."

"Well, you see the life of a tree is right under the bark. If you can