Purple Trees

by Jeremy Schwemin

Reynolds pounded on the door and without waiting for a response let himself in.

Lord Henry looked up.
"What is the meaning of this?" He demanded as he tried to hide the kiddie toys he had been playing with.

"The king is returning from his vacation in two days and some lunatic is out there painting the royal forest!" Reynolds yelled in a panic. All the while he tried to ignore the larghe toy dragon the lord was trying to shove hunder his desk.

"Well what's wrong with that?" The lord questioned irratably?

"Go see for yourself," snapped Reynolds idignantly and left the lord's office slamming the door.

Henry shook his head. He was lord he wasn't supposed to let the shoe shiners talk to him so disrespectfully.

He went down to the stables and timidly asked for a horse. The stablehand glowered at him, "Get it yerself you lazy bum!"

Henry nodded and keeping his eyes on the floor got his stallion and saddled him up. He road out to the forest where he saw a man standing amidst a dozen buckets. Purple paint was dripping from the trees and bushes in front of the odd fellow.

The man held one of them in his hand and splashed the bucket of paint at the trees. A large shower of purple paint was flung at the tree and splattered all over it.

The lord rushed up on his horse "What in blue blazes do you think that you are doing?"

"Not blue... purple!" The man said stuffily double checking his paint bucket to be sure himself.

"Huh? Just stop what gives you the right to paint these trees?"

"Well sir I am an arTIST! And the king has commissioned me to paint the royal forests."

The lord placed a hand to his forehead, "And why didn't you just paint them all their normal colors?"

The artist blushed, "Well y'see sir I was told to paint what I saw and they were having this delightful sale on purple paint so I went for it. And besides I ran out of green and brown."

The lord crossed his arms and glared down at the artist. He prepared himself for a long and arduous argument.

Hours passed and still the lord hadn't returned. Finally a lone figure road up to the keep and into the courtyard. The lord along with his horse was drenched in purple paint. The stablehands laughed along with all the passerbys.

In response to all of this the lord said quietly.
"The man is an artist and a very persuasive one at that."

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