“So she is,” answered Jack.  “But—­well, she doesn’t quite come up to our expectations; so Rob and I have given her to the little boys.  We are building a larger boat for ourselves.”

Upon the principle “Never look a gift-horse in the mouth,” Jim and Leo were not disposed to find anything amiss with the present.  In the first flush of their pride of possession they were quite jubilant.

It was shortly after this that Jim came in to dinner one day, tattooed in a manner which would remind one of a sachem in full Indian war-paint.  There was a patch of blue low down on one cheek, a daub of red high up on the other, a tip of chrome-yellow on the end of his nose, and a fair share of all three upon his hands, and the sleeve of his jacket as well.

“Why, my son!” exclaimed Mrs. Gordon, as this vision met her eyes.

“Can’t help it, mother,—­it won’t come off.  I’ve scrubbed and scrubbed!” the little fellow protested, apologetically.

“Plenty of hot water and soap will prove effectual.  But you must persevere,” she went on, good-naturedly.  “But what is the reason of this extraordinary decoration?  Do you want to be taken for the ’missing link’?”

Mrs. Gordon was always good friends with her boys.  She had a bright, cheery way of talking to them, of entering into their plans.  She thoroughly appreciated a joke, even a practical one, when it was not perpetrated at the expense of anybody’s feelings.  And the lads could always count upon her interest and sympathy.  It was not easy to impose upon her, though.  “I tell you, if a fellow tries, he is always sure to get the worst of it!” Jim used to say.

“Ah, that is better!” said she, when Jim returned to the dining-room, his face at last restored to its usual sunburnt hue, and shining from the effect of a liberal lather of soap-suds, and his hands also of a comparatively respectable color.  “Now, do tell us what you have been attempting.”

“Haven’t been attempting anything,” he mumbled.  “Leo and I were painting our boat, that is all.  We hurried so as to finish it before dinner.  I suppose that is the reason the paint got splashed around a little.”

Jim’s temper had manifestly been somewhat ruffled by the necessity of repeating the soap and water process.  He frowned like a thundercloud.

Mrs. Gordon, however, always had great consideration for a hungry boy.  Without appearing to notice that Jim was out of sorts, she merely remarked, while helping him bountifully to beefsteak:  “You have painted the Jolly Pioneer?  How well she must look!  I believe I’ll walk over to the barn after dinner and see her.”

“Will you really, mother?” he exclaimed, brightening at once.

“Yes, certainly.  What color did you choose?”

“Blue, with red and yellow trimmings,” answered the boy, exultingly.

His mother smiled.  She had inferred so.  But Jim’s ill-humor had vanished like mists before the sun.  The next moment he was explaining to her the merits of various kinds of paint, and discussing the question with Jack, in the best possible spirits.