I looked up to see Danny cmoing over the hill and down the road.   He was flying on his bike as fast as he could, down the hill.  

"Whatcha doing?" he asked as he hit the brakes and skidded to a stop.  

"Playing the piano," I said in a snooty way.   "What does it look like I'm doing?"  

"Painting the fence," he said.  

Sometimes Danny was so stupid and said the dumbest things!  

"Yeah, I'm painting the fence.   Gotta get it done for Papa."  

"I thought maybe you'd wanna go in the woods and down to the pond," he said.   "We could see if we could get some minnows or tad poles and put them in a jar."  

Something made me think of a story Mrs. Brown, our fifth grade teacher, had read to us last spring.  

"Naw.   I gotta paint this fence, but it's really fun.   Funner than going to the pond."  

"Funner than that!" exclaimed Danny.  

"Yeah.   Funner than most anything I can think of."  

"Could I try?" asked Danny.  

"Nope," I said.  

"Why not?" asked Danny in a whiny voice.  

"'Cause you've never done anything like it before.   You'd just mess it up or something.   Besides that, you are too little."  

"No I ain't," said Danny.   "I'm almost as tall as you and...and...and, I'm just as strong.   I could hold that big paint brush and do it."

I waved him away with my free hand, as if he were a bug.  

"Nope.   I gotta do it, I know how to do it, and it's gotta be done really good so my Papa will be proud of me."  

I looked out of the corner of my eye at Danny.   He looked like he had tears in his eyes.  

Danny whipped his bike around, jumped on and pumped his legs to get away fast.  

Maybe I had been too hard on him.   In the story Mrs. Brown had read, something about a boy named Tom, he had to paint the fence and he got his friends to help by telling them how much fun it was.   I thought maybe I could do that with Danny.  

Make him think how much fun it was, but that he might be too small, so that he would beg me to do it and then I could watch him and I could rest in the shade.  

I guess it hadn't worked like in the story about Tom.  

Oh well, that was just a story.   This was real life and things probably didn't work out like some story someone made up.