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Show Toby the Painter '; r - OBT'S fathor wns a sign pnlnler, and In tho llttlo vlllnge In which they lived ho did other things bc- j I L. sides paint signs, or else 1 they wdUltl nol HaVo had much to cat, for there - were not a great number ; of 3tores and very few of them had signs. Toby, ? Sr. f-.r father and son had the slunc name whitewashed fence, painted tlie Whitlow sills ' j and caicnnincd the lytchen walls for the -V.amon cf the town. Altogether, he made a pretty good living, bill, ns he dJd not charge much for his work, It was necessary for him to have one job after another. One day he fell off a stepladdcr and broke his wrist, and so could not paint. He had never learned to uac his loft hand, nnd, although he tried, could make nothing of It. .Now, Utile j Toby thought ho'might learn to take his father's place, and so, although he was only 10 years old, he wanted to learn to paint. "Vou could not put It on straight." said his fathor, crossly, for It seemed absurd for tho little boy to want lo learn In such a short timo What he had spent so many years of his life In doing. At last there Was only H left Ih tho purso which Ihcy kept locked up In the kitchen tabic drawer for there was only Toby and his father, hi3 mother long tiihec lmvlng died. Thero was a can of red paint that his father had mixed to paint a strip of pavement, and Toby thought to hbnclf that his father would not care If he used it, so he got to tho top of tho shed that faced the railroad in tho back part of the yard. Toby sat down on the Very plnha-clo plnha-clo of the pointed roof of the Bhed and watched tho cars shoot onward, calling out cheerily to the engineer. Then, when the train was out of sight and no one near to see him woile, he bogan to paint tho roof with the brlGht red paint, He found that tit first ho did not lay tho paint on smoothly and It was In streaked bands, ho he went all over It again and then got down to look at it, when another train went Bwiftly by. In a few minutes ho heard tho train stop at tho crossing, which was not usual, but as ho knew that It was tho local passenger train, ho thought somo one might have been io tho city and returned. Ho looked critically at his red roof and was something of a study In red himself, him-self, as he had not yet learned how to paint without getting it on his clothes and hands. "Hi, there," said a man, appearing suddenly on tho railroad track, evidently having walked from tho crossing. "Who Is going to havo an P ad on that roof?" I At first Toby did not understand what ho t meant and so Bald nothing. Then he said, "Wo I have not yet docld6d," hardly knowing what ho did say. "You bet I'd like to havo that roof to edvcrtlso Connor's clothing store," said tho man. V "How much will they glvo you?" J "Not as much as wo want." Bald Tobv shrewdly. "Well, I'll give you $50. No ono could do better bet-ter than that," said tho man. "You sec, with Connor's clothing painted In whito on that red froof it would mako a njco ad." ' Well, you can como and seo fathor," said 4 Toby. "You walk right up to that door and I j will go Into tho back yard and find fathor." Ho ran quickly ahead of tho stranger and explained ex-plained it all to his father, so that when tho man arrived at the door old Toby was ready to i trade, but ho accepted tho man's offer and tho ' check he offered right away, and In a fow days the passengers on the train wcro surprised to bco on tho red roof: , : " t: CONNOR'S CLOTHING, ; :v : The Best Is Cheapest. : ' |