The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-05-27
TIE EVENING STORY


Chilvers looked disgustedly at the
canvas over which Betty had already
smeared more than a dollars worth
OF paint.
Il would suggest" he said quietly. /
that if you want to put any more
paint on that COW. you had best use
clay modelling tools
There you go again. she stormed. |
How do you expect me ever to be-
come great artist if you nag that /
way?'
I don't expect you to become
great" he reminded her gently. Il
don't want you to become great. |
want you some day to realize that it /
is better to be good wife than a poor |
bohemian artist"
I'm which sense do you use that
poor?' she asked him.
In every sense of the term. You
are poor in purse, for all you can
spare goes for paint for those bas-
reliefs you call pictures. You are
poor in heart, for you have no time
for anything else save your art. You
are to be pitied, because you elect to
live in a rattlety-bang place over {.
stable just because art students are
supposed to undergo certain hard
ships and"
''Poor, L suppose" she finished of
for him, because am so dense as not
to be able to perceive the immense
advantages of being permitted to sac
/
of Winthrop Chilvers.'
mot necessarily that" he corrected,
but to be pitied because you are
sacrificing the best years of your life
chance that you might do great things,
I would be the last to say you nay"
'Now you wish to say me nay that
I may say you yes?" she tainted.
Not that he said sadly. But you
viii never become great. You paint by
fits and starts Time was when you
were an impressionist and had but
four or five tubes of paint in your
stock. Now you want the heavy eff
fects. Next week you may turn ont
pictures like the surface of an en-
ameled photograph
II sell them" she retorted defiant
y. Il have made my own living ever
since 1 started
yes" he admitted, "but even had
| you not, you would have starved rath-
er than give up this foolish idea
"Others have starved before me in
! the same cause, she said proudly.
who am that I should not be will
! ing to sacrifice myself to art?"
You are a dear little woman who
has no business worrying about art,
! he answered.
She stepped before him, her eyes
blazing. Il never want to see you
again" she cried. please be kind
enough to let me fight my own battle"
| Chilvers took her at her word.
When she telephoned to the hotel in
the afternoon they told her that he
had gone away. He had left no note,
not even a card for her.
One Of the girls in the art class had
told her of the splendid place where she
had spent the previous summer, and
| here Betty decided to go. It was a lit
| tie town off the beaten line, and there
! were said to be some most picturesque
/ bits. A bent old man on a green farm
wagon hailed her as she descended from
4 the car.
Coin to Treston's, beant ye?" he
shouted.
She nodded.
Jump aboard" he said, giving her
the lines to hold while he got her trunk.
"One of them artists" he commented
as he threw her trunk and field easel
into the wagon box and climbed up be
side her. We had one down here last
year"
Miss Tuttle2" asked Betty. naming
her friend.
@she was over ter Bagots," he said,
negatively. This was real artist fell
ler Got paid big prices"
i've been paid $50 for one Of my
| canvases, - she said proudly.
| "Shoi" he calculated wheeling in his
seat and regarding her with interest.
laugh yerself sick at my gallery. I sup
pose. 1 don't see they are so darned
funny, but this artist Teller ulster laf
hisself sick over EN-
ing. She could imagine the sort of
pictures on a farm house wall
NO" said TrestOn, They're real
ones. Some city chap the nissus
ulster be nurse to sends EN-. He says
he has to buy 'em, cause no one else
will He hates to destroy 'em, an he
don't want to keep 'em. He sends
en- to US"
"some beginner said Betty, with
a tip-tilted nose, whose friends wish
to help her along. Now, I've been
disappearing for three years"
Betty asked to see the pictures be-
fore she unpacked. She was feeling
particularly self-satisf1ed.
But at sight of them she turned
faint, and after a crying spell, which
lasted several hours she sent tele-
gram. It read:
please come. Am stopping at Tres
TONS
between the lines. knew that Betty
had given up art after having seen her
entire output on Treston's wall, and
he blessed the fate that had uncon-
sciously guided her there.-Airiam
Smith in St. Louis Star.