"Now," I sez, "about the paintin' of her. What color
do you want 'er, Elmer?" He said red. "Elmer," I sez, "I
can paint her red, and red makes a beautiful job; or I can paint her
a bright green, or any one of a half dozen other colors, and they're
all mighty pretty ; but it ain't practical to use a single solid color,
and I'll tell you why. She's too durn hard to see at night. You need
contrast—just like they use on them railroad crossin' bars—so
you can see 'em in the dark.
"If I was you, I'd paint her a bright red, with white trimmin's—just
like your barn. Then she'll match up nice in the daytime, and you can spot
'er easy at night, when you ain't got much time to go scoutin' around.
"There's a lot of fine points to puttin' up a first-class privy that the
average man don't think about. It's no job for an amachoor, take my word on
it. There's a whole lot more to it than you can see by just takin' a few squints
at your nabor's. Why, one of the worst tragedies around here in years was because
old man Clark's boys thought they knowed somethin' about this kind of work,
and they didn't.
"Old man Clark—if he's a day he's ninety-seven—lives over there
across the holler with his boys. Asked me to come over and estimate on their
job. My price was too high ; so they decided to do it themselves. And that's
where the trouble begun.
"I was doin' a little paper hangin' at the time for that widder that lives down past the old creamery. As I'd drive by I could see the boys a-workin'. Of course, I didn't want to butt in, so used to just holler at 'em on the way by and say, naborly like : 'Hey, boys, see you're doin' a little buildin'.' You see, I didn't want to act like I was buttin' in on their work ; but I knowed all the time they was goin' to have trouble with that privy. And they did. From all outside appearance it was a regulation job, but not being experienced along this line, they didn't anchor her.
"You see, I put a 4 by 4 that runs from the top right straight on down five
foot into the ground. That's why you never see any of my jobs upset Hallowe'en
night. They might pull 'em out, but they'll never upset 'em.
"Here's what happened : They didn't anchor theirs, and they painted it solid
red—two bad mistakes.
"Hallowe'en night come along, darker than pitch. Old man Clark was out in
there. Some of them devilish nabor boys was out for no good, and they upset
'er with the old man in it.
"Of course, the old man got to callin' and his boys heard the noise. One of 'em sez : 'What's that racket? Some body must be at the chickens.' So they took the lantern, started out to the chicken shed. They didn't find anything wrong there, and they started back to the house. Then they heerd the dog bark, and one of his boys sez, 'Sounds like that barkin' is over towards the privy.' It bein' painted red, they couldn't see she was upset, so they started over there.
"In the meantime the old man had gotten so confused that he started to crawl
out through the hole, Yellin' for help all the time. The boys reckonized his
voice and come runnin', but just as they got there he lost his holt and fell.
After that they just called—didn't go near him.
So you see what a tragedy that was ; and they tell me he has been practically ostercized from society ever since."