The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1886-11-20

i
cess probable"
'No, no; 1 don't mean anything ike
that. Jus make it the way I'll tell ye.
Kinder pan around, an I'll help vt strike
it. Try it, stranger I'll stand the dam
ages. IN if We make 'tlook like the place,
I'll pay ye well f'r it.
The inducements are irresistible to the
hungry Bohemian, so he puts fresh can
vas on the easel and seats himself, palette
in hand, to make the attempt.
The other shuts his eyes a moment in
retrospection, and then says: "Well, there's
q river runnin' right through the middle of
this pictur' that l want t see. Not big
river, j'st kind of an overgrown creek.
Big enough f'r trout an sunfish that'd do
a boys eyes good to look at. But that
amt much of description, is it?" And
he scratches his head in puzzled way, and
tries again. "Wel, this river is about forty
foot wide on the average. J'st paint it
about that wide right across the middle
there, will ye? Kinder windin around,
like this.
But the other doesn't paint it. Instead,
he says; There's nothing tangible in
that. The water itself is no more visible
than the air we breathe We only seem
to see it as it reflects other things, as the
objects upon its banks or the sky overhead,
or shows US color from the salts or soils
held in suspension, as, if it be muddy, or
stained with"
'No, faint muddy, it's clear as crystal
an deep an blue. Y c'n paint it blue,
can't y, stranger? ?"
"Tell me what its surroundings are, and
1 will try"
"Well, ACROSS, on the other side, is a
row O hills that stand right up against the
sky. J'st make a row q hills there, will
ye."
The artist can do that He was born
among the hills, and now he recalls cer-
tain group of them in every detail, First,
laying in summer sky for background,
he sketches in their forms in fat colors,
"No," says the other, mot like that, real
hills, genuine New England hills, with
hemlock n scrub oak n hazel up n down
their sides, n rock cropping out next the
river
"Wait," says the artist, and he dashes
and dabs, and slaps and spatters the ming
ling tints and shades of color all about with
speed and abandon that is bewildering.
The gold-digger, in his anxiety, bends
over him closer and closer, as though he
would look through the canvas for the
scene he longs for.
"No," he says, "no, faint it. Try the
turn O. the river an some land on this
side"
Even as he speaks, the form and colors
of the sky and hills are shimmering and
ripping there and at a sweep the painter
describes the line of the nearer shore, and
then the foreground seems to unroll across
the canvass.
'That is like the turn O the riverl Try
a stonewall down here t'wards the left. l.
that stone wall ?"
at will be. !"
at looks to me like a streak o brown
paint
at is like stone wall l have in mind,
the artist says. "But just here it was
tumbling down, and the loose stones were
scattered about, half-hidden in the grass,
like this; and here the cattle and the sheep
came through and had worn little, crook.
ed path down to the water. :"
eyes, that's it, that's j'st what l want,
but don't git it yet. l don't seem to see
it for the paint"
"You look too closely. Stand back a
little"
"Well, by George 1t is like it, stran-
ger It's like it to dot. How could Ye
hit it so close?" he asks in amazement
"But y'pf out house over here on this
side" he continues. "a little log house
with cla'board roof n tall-a big oak
tree bending over it.
The painter starts at this. 1t is his turn
for amazement now What wild hope
thrills him for the moment? What is this
-pshawl What a foolish fancy A
thousand homes would answer that descrip-
ton; and he goes on with his work.
He paints the little house, as he has
painted the river and the hills and the old
wall, not from imagination, nor description
but from memory.
his brother Tom were born-where they
spent their childhood together-the little
house from which Tom, his brave, big
brother, his hero, grown desperate over the
hard lot of their widowed mother, had gone
away with a bold front to seek his fortune
their fortune.
He paints the little house from which
their little mother, broken-hearted for want
of tidings of her absent boy, had been borne
to her graye-the little house, no longer
home, from which he had wandered, weak
forlorn, helpless little lad, out into the big
world alone-all alone, yainly wishing that
he might find Tom.
"Now you strike it, stranger That's
it! It's the very place How much dc
you want for it? Name your price"
II can't part with it y,
"But y must. | tell ye, y must DOM
triAe with me, stranger | ordered that
pictur' an it's mine, Y wont go back OIL
that. But go on There's a wiuder or
this side an door here-thats it
en- fairly see two mischievous youngsters
a-hidin' behind that wall, an mother stan in
/ in tn door a-callin' Say, stranger courd q
v is put a woman in the door there shadin
her eyes with her hand, like this-a little
tired, anxious-lookin' woman with the kind
est face, the dearest face ! Gould y
stranger ?"
"No. The space is too small. Icouldn'i
do it, so that you could see the face"
'sPaint me her face will ye, stranger
will ye? See here" And he goes dowr
into his capacious pockets and heaps great
pile of yellow coin and little heaps of "dust'
upon the table. 'Don't tell me y cam
do it, stranger. Y thought y couldn't Dc
this, but y hev. I'll try n tell y how she
looked. I en- see her face yet, but it''
kind o misty. If I cd see one suthin
like it. cd tell y how it was different.
And he takes an eager, impatient turn about
the room.
"No, faint like these, none of 'em," he
says. aThcse gay ones is all well enough
but hain't y got no plain-lookin' little
women with home-faees- mother
faces-hain't y, stranger"
The painter dare not speak. He dart
not look into the questioner's face, lest he