Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1908-07-15

mo, dear, indeed you have not;
you are pure Holland Dutch on both
sides, and way back as far as you
want to CO."
The little schoolgirl would go back
satisfied, and the first thing she knew
she would again be doing japanese
drawing in study time as well as
drawing time.
Then along came new supervisor
with a new system to introduce in
the Kansas City schools in which the
Japanese principles were more or less
prominent, as they now are in the
work of many drawing supervisors.
The new supervisor came upon the
work of little Miss Pretz.
"Why, where did this little girl
learn to draw this way-she is doing
what we are trying to teach-it is
the same idea which we want to ex-
press-she must have been taught
somewhere else."
mo. l never learned anywhere"
said the little maid, with her little
dark Japanese head on one side. "She
L
to make her living some day out OF
her sketches" said the supervisor,
''but where she learned how to draw
in that particular fashion puzzles
me-"
There is one way to explain 1t;
she was a Jap in some other hfe,"
said the teacher of the reincarnation
theories, nodding her head wisely.
But Florence Pretz, whom her
friends called Tinker Bell,"< only
gave the gay little smile she was
noted for and kept on with her draw
ings. She had the strangest little
collection of mud animals of any OF
class, among them queer little beasts
which were never heard of in natural
history books, but which were strange
ly like hieroglyphic animals. And
while she was working she dreamed
Of how she would work and save
enough money to come to Chicago to
work and study.
Chicago seems the great centre of
design and wonderful art schools and
busy artists in the world, when you
are as far west as Kansas City. Oc-
casionally the new drawing teacher
would help her sell some of the
sketches of funny Jap babies, so that
the dream did not seem so far away.
Then one day Tinker Bell thought
OF BiIlikin. "There never seem to
be any really good natured looking
idols" she said. "There ought to be
one to express an the new doctrine
about smiling"
"Wear a SMILE" Keep smiling"
Come and take a smile with me-"
she repeated to herself while she was
modelling, and pretty soon Billikin
was evolved "out of the ideas she
had learned in some other existence"
the teacher who had the reincarnation
theories insisted.
"How in the world little American
girl ever came to think of such a
funny looking devil is past under
standing" everybody else said.
But, however, she came to think
| Of him, he began at once to bring
her good luck. She was offered a
place in an artistic furniture shop,
where she was kept at work as a
draughtsman making designs for fur
niture with her drawing board-her
daily bread board" as she called
it. 1t was not big salary, but it
was better than none, and Chicago
looked nearer. Then the friend in
Chicago began to sell her little Japa-
nese sketches. "It all came about
on account of Billikin," both friends
declared. And then he began to be
iron grated desk in Chicago. Hard
headed business men saw him there
in the publishing house and stopped
to pat him, startled out of their grim
practically by his friendly, impish
grin.
Then the arts and crafts adopted
him and displayed him in their win
dows, at the candy shop and at the
art shop. Casts we're made in whole
sale numbers, and even business men
began to come in and set him up on
their roll tops.
HE is a funny little chap" said
Burton Holmes, looking at him, but
nevertheless he bought fourteen. And
it was this way with other orders.
The cast makers are making fifty,
one hundred, two hundred at a time
and still cannot get enough for those
who want good luck omens. And all
this brought Tinker Bel enough
money to come to Chicago to begin
work with her friend in little studio
in Highland Park.
The two friends burned incense be-
fore Billikin at night, never emitting
the process, with the result that or
ders began to come in for the draw
ings. "He was the original official
luck bringer of us ALL" said "the
friend who first started the god 60
= go