Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1902-08-07
At the Eleventh
Hour. "a
By Anne Shannon Monroe.
ffCOT a match?"


u I looked up from my painting.
Bruce Blanchard stood in my door
way as coolly impudent as when I
had parted with him in Yakima five
years before. I did not start nor ex-
claim. I pointed to my match case
and said quietly, "Tell me about it,"
He came in on this halfway invi-
tation and, seating himself on my
divan, lighted his cigarette. His to-
bacco-stained fingers trembled as of
old. I did not fatter myself it was
from emotion-rather too MANY
cigarettes.
AS I leaned back in my chair and
eyed him c%uriously a picture came
before me-a wide, western plain,
sage-covered and somber, the great
irrigation canal winding snake-like
down through the valley, and at it's
h~eadgates the small settlement that
had sprung up from the nucleus of
engineers and contractors camps.
On the ground in front of one of the
tents stretched the handsome form
of a man in canvas clothes. A girl
swung lazily in a hammock, reading.
The man was smoking a cigarette,
and as he smoked he turned the weed
with that peculiar little gesture of
his nervous fingers that Bruce
Blanchard now used as he sat smok-
ing in my studio.
The gesture aroused me to the
present. I blinked my eyes to dispel
the vision, but the central figure staid
OH and the smoke was real.
"Tell me about it, Bruce" I said
again.
"There is nothing to tell, Louise,
no color, nothing heroic. 'Twould
only bore you. Got a new story?"
In those olden days, when Bruce
and I had been all the world to each
other; when, in that faraway iso-
lated settlement on the plains, news
was rare, and we reveled in month
old papers and year-old magazines,
n of our means of adding comedy
to the prosy days was to hunt up
magazine jokes and see which could
find one entirely new to the other.
eyes, here's a good one," I said,
".just for you. It's this: The other
art students think 1 am on fire with
artistic zeal; that I have forsaken
home and loved ones to follow my
hearts desire; that l would give my
life and think it cheap could l once
be hung in the Partisan galleries.
I have one thing hung here in the
art institute. Go look at it some
day-in the east room, at the south
end-a wide stretch of western prai-
RE, with white tents in the distance
and a man in the foreground. They
say it's after Remington Perhaps.
But that's a good story, isn't it, about
my soul being welded to art? Sounds
WELL"
Bruce shipped the ashes from his
cigarette. He did not seem amused.
"Tell me, Louise, how are you get
ting on?" he asked in a serious tone.
"Tell me of yourself, dear boy" 1
replied.
"What's the use? Same old story.
I went to Africa for a time, then to
China; later to the Philippines. The
fever struck me and I came home
when 1 could. Haven't been doing
much of anything since. I came to
Chicago, drifted into the institute,
and got to painting again. Yester-
day l found rooms in this building
through Todhunter. Know him? He
lives on this floor. He said they
were mostly students here, a sort of
American Quarter Latin. | didn't
dream of finding you. Supposed you
had married a western cowboy or
rancher, or something of the kind.
You were quite in raptures owe those
products of the soil, as I remember"
"Only for sketching purposes,
Bruce"
"Been here long?"
"a year." I answered. a
"Like it," Bruce lighted q fresh
cigarette from the end of his old one.
Immensely" I told him.
"Going in for the real thing, Louise
art in earnest?"
"Of course" Then I laughed. "You
spoiled me in the camp, you boys"
1 added. "You made me think / was
the whole thing just because I was
the only girl in the valley. I wonder
ed why I couldn't be a hit out in the
world as well. 1t was fearfully lone
ly on the ranch after the engineers
camps broke up. I saw papa couldn't
make q success of ranching--he was
too old, you know, Bruce-and there
were my little sisters, Beth and Clara.
I felt a certain responsibility about
them. 1t seemed a shame that I
had gotten my education before we
lost so heavily, and that they could
have nothing in comparison. They
seemed to look to me, in a way, for
help. I thought of my painting, and
how enthusiastic you boys were over
my sketches. / was SUR | could sue
coed, and so I came to Chicago. Well,
I've done something. I've hung one
picture and I'm making expenses"
"Still it's a long road, Louise, and
all up the hill"
II know it, Bruce"