Saturday, October 15, 2005

Always Happy To Support The Arts


I spent the morning applying paint striper to the bathroom door, window and trim. While I waited for the stripper to do its stuff I took a walk around town. (OK, I really walked up to the highway to get a Coke and a snack.) On the way back home I ran across a little girl of about seven years old standing on the sidewalk in front of her house waving a piece of paper in the air. She seemed to be waving it at me so I walked over to see what was going on. As I got closer she hurried over to me and held the paper up to my face. It was a crayon-colored drawing of a girl torn out of a coloring book. Lying on the sidewalk behind her were three more torn colored pages held down by small plastic chair. Handing the drawing to me the little girl asked if I wanted to buy it for a dollar. I told her I was sorry but I didn't have a dollar then reached in my jeans pocket and found two quarters and one dime. I asked if sixty cents was enough and the little girl nodded.

While we were negotiating her little sister (about four-years-old) ran over to see what was going on, heard my offer of sixty cents, and asked if she could have some (money) too. I turned to her big sister and asked if it was OK to pay only fifty cents for the drawing and give the dime to her sister. She quickly nodded her head again and I gave her the money and she passed the dime on to her sister. As I walked away with my new piece of art both little girls raced around the side of their house to where their mother and older sister were sitting. When I got a couple of houses away I looked back and saw three girls standing on the front porch. The artist was pointing me out to her older sister while their baby sister excitedly danced around them. I have a feeling that the older sister had scoffed at her younger sister's enterprise and wanted a look at the person (fool) who actually paid real money for her little sister's artwork.

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