Uncle Ethan moved off up the lane. He hardly felt like whistling now. At the next house he set his pail down in the weeds beside the fence and went in without it. Doudney came to the door in his bare feet, buttoning his suspenders over a clean boiled shirt. He was dressing to go out.
"Hello, Ripley. I was just goin' down your way. Jest wait a minute, an' I'll be out."
When he came out, fully dressed, Uncle Ethan grappled him.
"Say, what d' you think o' paytent med-"
"Some of 'em are boss. But y' want 'o know what y're gittin'."
"What d' ye think o, Dodd's-"
"Best in the market."
Uncle Ethan straightened up and his face lighted. Doudney went on:
"Yes, sir; best bitter that ever went into a bottle. I know, I've tried it. I don't go much on patent medicines, but when I get a good-"
"Don't want 'o buy a bottle?"
Doudney turned and faced him.
"Buy! No. I've got nineteen bottles I want 'o sell" Ripley glanced up at Doudney's new granary and there read "Dodd's Family Bitters." He was stricken dumb. Doudney saw it all and roared.
"Wal, that's a good one! We two tryin' to sell each other bitters.
Ho-ho-ho-har, whoop! wal, this is rich! How many bottles did you git?"
"None o' your business," said Uncle Ethan as he turned and made off, while Doudney screamed with merriment.
On his way home Uncle Ethan grew ashamed of his burden.
Doudney had canvassed the whole neighborhood, and he practically gave up the struggle. Everybody he met seemed determined to find out what he had been doing, and at last he began lying about it.
"Hello, Uncle Ripley, what y' got there in that pail?"
"Goose eggs fr settin'."
He disposed of one bottle to old Gus Peterson. Gus never paid his debts, and he would oniy promise fifty cents "on tick" for the bottle, and yet so desperate was Ripley that this questionable sale cheered him up not a little.
As he came down the road, tired, dusty, and hungry, he climbed over the fence in order to avoid seeing that sign on the barn and slunk into the house without looking back.
He couldn't have felt meaner about it if he had allowed a Democratic poster to be pasted there.
The evening passed in grim silence, and in sleep he saw that sign wriggling across the side of the barn like boa constrictors hung on rails. He tried to paint them out, but every time he tried it the man seemed to come back with a sheriff and savagely warned him to let it stay till the year was up. In some mysterious way the agent seemed to know every time he brought out the paint pot, and he was no longer the pleasant-voiced individual who drove the calico ponies.
As he stepped out into the yard next morning that abominable, sickening, scrawling advertisement was the first thing that claimed his glance-it blotted out the beauty of the morning.
Mrs. Ripley came to the window, buttoning her dress at the throat, a wisp of her hair sticking assertively from the little knob at the back of her head.
"Lovely, ain't it! An' J've got to see it all day long. I can't look out the winder, but that thing's right in my face." It seemed to make her savage. She hadn't been in such a temper since her visit to New York. "I hope you feel satisfied with it."
Ripley walked off to the barn. His pride in its clean sweet newness was gone. He slyly tried the paint to see if it couldn't be scraped off, but it was dried in thoroughly. Whereas before he had taken delight in having his neighbors turn and look at the building, now he kept out of sight whenever he saw a team coming. He hoed corn away in the back of the field, when he should have been bugging potatoes by the roadside.
Mrs. Ripley was in a frightful mood about it, but she held herself in check for several days. At last she burst forth:
"Ethan Ripley, I can't stand that thing any longer, and I ain't goin' to, that's all! You've got to go and paint that thing out, or I will. I'm just about crazy with it."
"But, Mother, I promised-"
"I don't care what you promised, it's got to be painted out. I've got the nightmare now, seein' it. I'm goin' to send for a pail o' red paint, and I'm goin' to paint that out if it takes the last breath I've got to do it."
"I'll tend to it, Mother, if you won't hurry me-"
"I can't stand it another day. It makes me boil every time I look out the winder."
Uncle Ethan hitched up his team and drove gloomily off to town, where he tried to find the agent. He lived in some other part of the county, however, and so the old man gave up and bought a pot of red paint, not daring to go back to his desperate wife without it.
"Goin' to paint y'r new barn?" inquired the merchant with friendly interest.
Uncle Ethan turned with guilty sharpness; but the merchant's face was grave and kindly.
"Yes, I thought I'd tech it up a little-don't cost much."
"It pays-always," the merchant said emphatically.
"Will it-stick jest as well put on evenings?" inquired Uncle Ethan hesitatingly.
"Yes-won't make any difference. Why? Ain't goin' to have-"
