It was plain to be seen he took a childish pride in the fact of its newness.
The stranger mused.

"A lovely place for a sign," he said, as his eyes wandered across its shining yellow broadside.
Uncle Ethan stared, unmindful of the bugs crawling over the edge of his pan.

His interest in the pots of paint deepened.
"Couldn't think o' lettin' me paint a sign on that barn ?" the stranger continued, putting his locked hands around one knee, and gazing away across the pig-pen at the building.
"What kind of a sign?
Gol darn your skins!" Uncle Ethan pounded the pan with his paddle and scraped two or three crawling abominations off his leathery wrist.
It was a beautiful day, and the man in the wagon seemed unusually loath to attend to business.

The tired ponies slept in the shade of the lombardies.

The plain was draped in a warm mist, and shadowed by vast, vaguely defined masses of clouds--a lazy June day.
"Dodd's Family Bitters," said the man, waking out of his abstraction with a start, and resuming his working manner.