Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/102

 "James?" he asked.

"Don't you recognize him?"

"Looks like a lady-killer," said John. "I don't hear of James doing anything very enterprising. Now Mark's different. There's a fine boy. I've gotten in touch with him and we correspond as regularly as the kind of life I lead lets us. Seems funny to think of Mark making two ears of corn grow where only one grew before. What do you want to be?"

"I'd like to explore places. At least, that's what I think I'd like to do. But one rainy day mother let me have the paints she used to paint on china with, and I mixed up a color that looked just like the sky, and I drew the big oak tree and colored it and it looked like it. And I painted every day till the paint was all gone."

"Show 'em to me—the pictures you painted," said John.

Edward ran away to the secret hiding place and returned with his little works of art.

Like all trained seamen, John was an accurate observer. He perceived at once that Edward had the same faculty. The subjects which the little boy had painted were astonishingly well drawn, and here and there the coloring was warm and true.

John made an instant and characteristic decision.

"I can't help you to explore places, Eddie," he