It was an affair of time, as it involved the delicate cutting
out of daisy garlands from a wider bordering filled with flowers of
other colors, and proved a fascinating occupation.
Gilbert hovered on the outskirts of the hall, doing odd jobs of one sort
and another and learning bits of every trade at which Mr. Popham
was expert.
"If we hadn't been in such a sweat to git settled," remarked Osh with a
clip of his big shears, "I really'd ought to have plastered this front
entry all over! 'T wa'n't callin' for paper half's loud as 't was for
plaster. Old Parson Bradley hed been a farmer afore he turned minister,
and one Sunday mornin' his parish was thornin' him to pray for rain, so
he says: 'Thou knowest, O Lord! it's manure this land wants, 'n' not
water, but in Thy mercy send rain plenteously upon us.'"
"Mr. Popham," said Gilbert, who had been patiently awaiting his
opportunity, "the pieces of paper are cut for those narrow places each
side of the front door. Can't I paste those on while you talk to us?"
"'Course you can, handy as you be with tools! There ain't no trick to
it. Most anybody can be a paperer. As Parson Bradley said when he was
talkin' to a Sunday-school during a presidential campaign: 'One of you
boys perhaps can be a George Washington and another may rise to be a
Thomas Jefferson; any of you, the Lord knows, can be a James K. Polk!'"
"I don't know much about Polk," said Gilbert.
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