BY MISCHA DAMJAN
Designed by: Camille Lewis

    The Magic Paintbrush is a story about a little boy named Phillip. In the story Phillip visits the old pony next door that belonged to a women named Rosalia. The pony was too old and sick to carry heavy loads so she no longer took care of him. Feeling bad for the pony, Phillip brought some oats and juicy beets to him one day while Rosalia was at the market. The pony decided to give Phillip something in return, so he asked him what he would like. Phillip said he wanted a magic paintbrush, so the pony told him to cut off a tuft from his mane. He told Phillip that anything he painted would look real. Phillip decided to use the paintbrush to punish Rosalia for mistreating the pony. Each day while Rosalia was at the market Phillip painted. The first day he made Rosalia think her house was on fire by painting red, orange and yellow on her window. Rosalia was so upset she called the fire department. The next day he painted black spots on all of her turkeys. Seeing this, Rosalia ran them off thinking they were strange hens only to find out later they were her in fact her own. Then Phillip bought a street sparrow and painted it to look like Rosalia’s lost canary. When she saw it she was so delighted, but quickly embarrassed when it would not sing for her friends, only chirp. The next day, Rosalia caught Phillip when he started to paint the eggs in the henhouse. When Rosalia found out Phillip was doing all of this because of her mistreatment of the pony, she agreed she had treated him badly and was sorry. Wanting to put his mischief right, Phillip polished Rosalia’s windows. He curried the pony twice a week too, which was not punishment to Phillip because he was able to see the pony everyday trotting happily to the market.
 
 

What would you paint if you had a magic paintbrush?
Was Rosalia wrong for mistreating the pony?
Do you think what Phillip did to Rosalia was wrong?