The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1903-07-03


. ged his words together to make plain
to her comprehension all that had been
hidden to himself of the why's and
wherefores of work. There is not the
least difficulty in doing thing if you
only know how to do it; the trouble is
to explain your method.
81 could put this right IL had a
brush in my hand" said Dick despair
ingly over the modelling of chin that
Maisie complained would not 'look
fesh." 1t was the same chin that she
had scraped out with the palette knife.
"But | find it almost impossible to
teach you. There's a queer, grim,
Dutch touch about your painting that
l like, but I've a notion that you're
weak in drawing. You foreshorten as
though you never used the model, and
you've caught Kami's pasty way of
, dealing with flesh in shadow. Then,
again. though you don't know it your
self. you shirk hard work. Suppose
you spend some of your time on line
| alone. Line doesn't allow of Sinking.
Oils do, and three square inches Of
| 1ashy, tricky stuff in the corner of a
pic sometimes carry a bad thing off.
| work for little while, and then l can
tell more about your powers, as old
. Kami used to say"
Maisie protested. She did not care
for the pure line.
81 know" said Dick ''You want to
do your own fancy heads with bunch
, of flowers at the base of the neck to
hide bad modelling" The red haired
girl laughed a little You want to do
landscapes with cattle knee deep in
grass to hide bad drawing. You want
to do great deal more than you can
do. You have sense of color, but you
! want form. Colors a gift-put it
aside and think no more about it-but
form you can be drilled into. Now, all
your fancy heads-and some of them
are very goodwill keep you exactly
where you are. With line you must
go forward or backward, and it will
show up all your weaknesses"
"But other people began Masie.
"You mustn't mind what other peO-
(. pie do. If their souls were your soul, it
would be different. You stand and fall
by your own work, remember, and it's
waste of time to think of any one else
in this battle"
Dick paused, and the longing that
had been so resolutely put away came
back into his eyes. He looked at Mai
sic, and the look asked as plainly as
words. Was it not time to leave all
this barren wilderness of canvas and
counsel and join hands with life and
love?
Maisie assented to the new pro-
gramme of schooling SO adorably that
Dick could hardly restrain himself
from picking her up then and there
and carrying her off to the nearest
registrars Office. 1t was the implicit
obedience to the spoken word and the
/ blank Indifference to the unspoken de-
sire that baffled and buffeted his soul.
He held authority in that house-au-
thority limited, indeed-for one half of
one afternoon in seven, but very real
while it lasted. Maisie had learned to
appea. to him on many subjects, from
the proper packing of pictures to the
condition of a smoky chimney.
The red haired girl never consulted
him about anything. On the other
hand, she accepted his appearance
without protest and watched him al
ways. He discovered that the meals
Of the establishment were irregular
and fragmentary. They depended
chiefly on tea, pickles and biscuit, as
he had suspected from the beginning.
The girls were supposed to market
week and week about, but they lived,
with the help Of charwoman, as casu-.
ally as the young ravens.
Maisie spent most Of her income on
models, and the other girl reveled in
apparatus as refined as her work was
rough. Armed with knowledge dear
bought from the docks, Dick warned
Maisie that the end of semistarvation
meant the Gripping of power to work,
which was considerably worse than
death. Maisie took the warning and
gave more thought to what they ate and
drank. When his trouble returned upon
him, as it generally did In the long win
ter twilights, the remembrance of that
little act Of domestic authority and his
coercion with a hearth brush of the
smoky drawing room chimney stung
Dick like whiplash.
He conceived that his memory would
be the extreme of his sufferings till
one Sunday the red haired girl an
nounced that she would make a study
Of Dicks head, and that he would
be good enough to sit still and-quite
as an afterthought = look at Maisie.
He sat because he could not well re-
fuse, and for the space of half an
hour he reflected on all the people in
the past whom he had laid open for the