Art: Palimpsest

"Soon after we moved here, I took off the dirty old wall paper from the kitchen—several layers of it—and found, underneath, pictures of all sorts of birds. Some of the birds I recognized and some I had never seen. They were right pretty.

"About two years ago I got tired of them and so I got a can of good lead paint . . . and put a nice coat of paint all over the walls.

"A little later I got tired of the paint and put on green wall paper. Those birds have flown away for good, I guess."

Thus James McGrath, railroad...

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