Rainbow on the Road is a 1954 novel by Esther Forbes, in which a peddler-artist named Jude spends his winters painting the figures of men and women on canvases, while leaving the faces blank.
When spring comes, he travels by cart to various New England towns, charging people $3 to $5 to have the blank faces filled in with their likenesses.
Jude flirts with a sexy tavern mistress whose face just happens to fit the Rubens-style nude painting that he seldom shows to anyone.
Rainbow on the Road's chief rewards are in the portrayal of local types and their colorful phrases ("She was plump as a little pig.
The evocations of New England during the four seasons are memorable, as in the book's late-autumn ending: "Crows were out gleaning, looking like blown bits of charred paper.