The San Francisco call., 1898-02-14

l
 mans love of prominence and ais am- l bltion to be remembered by posterity.
 And yet this is the stand that Stanford
 took when he realized the light in
 which his fellow projectors of the rail-
 road viewed the Last Spike" picture.
 He declared that Hill had painted the picture without any authority from him
 and that he was not responsible for the
 Idea Of the grouping or anything con- | nected with it.
 But mine wasn't the only case in which he treated a poor devil in this
 way said MT. Hill philosophically.
 He had ordered Stone-do you know
 who Stone was? An artist, too, poor fellow! We'll Stone had been ordered
 to make drawings for statuary, repre-
 senting Stanford. The Governor showed
 them to me. They were really beau-
 tlfully done-but, imagine! Here was
 Stanford high up on a locomotive, and
 on the cow-catcher in front Stanford s
 son. But wait-the locomotive was
 represented as coming out of the | clouds. Fancy heavenly locomotive
 and Stanford on it! The Governor saw
 that he would make himself ridiculous, after the thing was explained to him, l so he did with Stone what he did with
 me; said that he had not ordered the
 pictures and refused to pay for them.
 Stone sued him and recovered about
 one-fifth of what he should have been paid for his time and his work 1 Did 1t never occur to you, MT. Hill, that you might take the thing into the | courts, too?'
 | No. For one thing, had no legal | proof of all 1 would swear is true. My wife had destroyed-as women will, you know-all the notes and directions we had had from MT. and Mrs. Stanford
 It would be only my word against his. ] And he rich-ho ha6 kind to me, too-and I was poor. | didn't realize for some time that he | meant to repudiate it all. l went down | to the office on Townsend street, where the little clerks had been so smooth and so suavely polite before, and, now that Stanford's humor had changed l their affability had gone also. I waited five hours in that horrible office, only to be told that Mr. Stanford had gone | home without seeing me. Four--no, | five-days I spent like that. And, at last, when I was sick and weary with waiting, clerk told me in an off-hand manner that MT. Stanford had gone to l Europe.
 And so he had He had gone away to avoid me and the ridicule and anil l mostly the picture, as he wished it painted, had stirred up against him. Why, you can't imagine the indig- nation these men felt at Stanford. One of them said to me, That is ad-pretty picture, when men of my standing nave to be placed in the background Don't talk to me of the vanity of women. I learned more, painting that picture, of the littleness of men than most people have any realization of. Why, here's case. You know Tritle. eX-Governor of Arizona, was one of the commissioners sent by. the Govern ment when the last spike was ham, wi TritJ tJa have his portrait painted he had no whiskers. You know Tritle's whisk- kers?''
 l dol did, at least, and know them to be worthy of you and to receive the greatest admiration upon the Com stock years ago.
 Well. here was Tritle's face going Tn to the picture that should hand him down to posterity, and no whiskersi unfortunately he had just shaved. Poor Tritle with no whiskers! So he decided that l should paint the whisk- CTS on after l had finished his DOT trait. And I did. It makes him look like Steve Gage, but you must remem- Der those whiskers didn't pose.'
 Heres to the man that can still find fun in the world after the world has treated him so shabbily!
 Hill mortgaged his place at Seminary Park so that his family might have means on which to live while he was working at the big picture, payment Tor which should recompense him for the time it couldn't for the disgust that must have filled his artistic sonI at such commissionahe had given when the great millionaire went to Europe for pleasure trip the artist was left to face his creditors.
 I gave up our place. he said. sim ply T was heart-broken and nv neaith was failing. I couldn't face such debt, and my country home was sacrificed for not half its cost. I crawl ed away from San Francisco I was desperately i'll. The worry had pros trated me. In my despair I went to George Crocker, told him my story and asked for help.
 We'll he declared, artists are fools Show me the man under the sun. not an artist, who would have done thing like that without insuring himself hy some sort of contract
 He was right" Thomas Hill looked across at me frankly. And he prob ably knew Stanford better than I did. We are fools. Artists are incompetent. They need guardian"
 So they do, in their dealing with mill iona1res, if Stanford was a type of rich men.
 "Crocker was very kind to me-" con- tinued MT. Hill. 'He loaned me the money. And I afterward repaid him every cent, with interest, too. although he didn't want to accept that It must have surprised him to find an artist not only able to earn 5000, but anxious to repay it, MT. Hill smiled knowingly.
 And did you never see MT. Stanford again?" I asked.
 Once, yes" Thomas Hill sat m straight in the low rocker When he got back from Europe, at last he saw me by appointment. I went into the office. There was one of the young Crockers sitting there. I told MT. Stan ford about the picture, how I had had | to hire studio and pay $25 a month. merely to have a place to put the | wretched thing, and all the rest of it." he said, with a sigh.
 I'm sorry said Stanford I've oft | en thought of some disposition that | should be made of your picture: that it | should be placed somewhere, as it's his | torical. But I really don't know what | could do about it. I never ordered | it.
 But his eyes had dropped to the ground" MT. Hill said, his own eyes flashing with anger. "He didn't dare to look me in the face and say that.
 Oh, you don't mean thatl I said | to him. MT. Stanford, you don't mean that