“And I’m daubed just like you!” cried Charlie.  “We’re all three painted!”

And they were, only Sue had more of it on her dress than the boys had on their clothes.

“It must have been on the ladder,” decided Charlie.  “The painter man got some of his red stuff on the ladder and we got it on us.”

“Oh, dear!” sighed Sue.  “Now after my dress is dry and I brush the mud off mother will see the red paint.  Course I’d tell her, anyhow, but I wish she wouldn’t see it first!”

However, there seemed no help for it.  All three of the children had red paint on their clothes, and paint, you know, can’t be brushed off.  When it’s on it stays, unless turpentine, or something like that, is used to take it off.

Sue, and the boys, too, had hoped that Mrs. Brown would not know what had happened.  It wasn’t that they wanted to deceive, or fool, her, but Sue wanted to tell of the accident at the brook in her own way and time.  She really did not want to cause her mother worry when Mrs. Brown had company.  And Mrs. Brown would certainly begin to ask questions when she saw those red spots on Sue’s dress.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Sue again, and she seemed about to burst into tears.  Neither Bunny nor Charlie knew what to do.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Sue for the third time.

Suddenly the three children saw the upper end of the ladder—­the part that was raised up over the roof of the sun parlor.  They saw this part of the ladder moving.

“Oh, somebody’s coming up!” exclaimed Charlie.

“Maybe it’s mother!” wailed Sue.  “Oh, help me get in the window!  I don’t want her to see me this way!”

“Mother wouldn’t be coming up the ladder!” declared Bunny.  “What would she be coming up the ladder for?”

“That’s so!” agreed Charlie.  “I guess she wouldn’t.”

“But somebody’s coming up!” declared Sue, and this was very plain to be seen.  The ladder shook more and more.

Wonderingly the children watched it, and then there came into sight, above the roof of the sun parlor, the head and shoulders of the painter.  He looked surprised as he saw the children, and then a cheerful smile spread over his face as he said: 

“Well, you’ve been getting daubed up, I see!”

“Ye-yes,” faltered Bunny.  “We got some of your paint on us!”

“’Tisn’t my paint!” laughed the painter.  “It’s your father’s, Bunny.  I got this paint down at his boat dock to paint the roof of this sun parlor.  I don’t mind how much of it you daub on yourselves.  ’Tisn’t my paint, you know!”

“But we don’t want it on us!” exclaimed Sue.  “Oh, I fell in the brook and I got all muddy and now I’m all covered with paint!  Oh, dear!”

Sue was almost crying again, and the painter who at first had thought the children were merely playing, now began to understand that something was wrong.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.