Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-10-09
HOW | PAINTED A WICKER CHAIR
Three Hours Experience in the Cellar With Can of Ivory
White" in an Effort to Deal Extravaganza a Knockout
Blow Ended in Victory
BY B. X. LITTLE

Our cellar is a cool place, yet when Ethel
came down to tell me that dinner was getting
cold, the first thing she felt called upon to
do to wipe profuse perspiration from
my brow. She also dabbed a cloth in the tur-
pentine and removed what she said was the
major portion Of the paint l had got on my
face quite without my knowledge 1 noticed
that while she did this Ethel kept her hand
over her L'outh and nostrils. Ethel dislikes
the odor Of turpentine. So do l. Later
suspected it was not alone the turpentine
that Obliged her to guard her face. For
something happened.
In fact many things happened. This was
but the first of them. BY then my back
was broken squarely I'm two what with
tinued bending over the furtherrnost reaches,
rungs, legs and lattices of the chair So I
had learned that by fitting the thing up
onto a single hind leg few of the more
remote extremities were brought within hui
man reach. But, unfortunately, wet paint
is slippery, and somehow the chair passed
from my control. 1t swung around and, for
all my energetic efforts to escape the angry
thing, 1t dealt me a cowardly blow from the
rear with all the force of it's disturbed equi-
librium. Then it settled down again on it's
four legs with a rattling like hollow laugh
ter
OF course, the wet side of the chair had
come into contact with my person. l could
see that by looking over my shoulder, down
ward, at a very sharp angle. There could
be seen, imprinted on the rearward spaces
of my trousers, a design that looked like a
blueprint plan of a wire ENHANCEMENT.
At that point Ethel removed her hand from
her face and laughed outright She was
chn had Nad
stairs out of reach
Wanted: A Second Coat
Well, to cut it all short, at the end Of the
third pint OF paint l finally got every quar-
ter inch Of the wicker chair firmly painted.
No, that is a rash statement. 1t is not so
rash to say that I got paint over nearly
every quarter inch of my own being. No
beauty of Broadway was ever painted as I
was then-a rich ivory white As for the
chair, 1 brushed over the unbelievably in
tricate convolutions and sinuosities of the
wicker II I were covering up every mi
croscopic evidence of hdeous crime. And,
at length, the chair was painted. SO was I
painted So was the cellar painted At
least l am sure of the cellar and of myself
The chair, / know, when it is placed in the
broad daylight of our guest chamber. on a
sunny afternoon, will expose to public view
on its surface-most likely the seat the
most salient spot of ALA large area naked
of paint. after all my three hours of ter
rble toll.
Nevertheless can say 1t, in the main
that wicker chair is painted. I may smell
of turpentine for a month 10 come. l have
sacrificed my new trousers. Stll, when 1
sat down to a cold supper at O'Clock that
evening. had won my battle. For all its
desperate struggles I painted the chair.
stll, it's not an ivory white, but rather the
shade OF curdled cream I finished painting
with fervent prayer that merciful Prov
idence would never send me another wicker
chair to paint. Mine needs a second coati