The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-11

He is a good lad and loyal" said she, looking at the piece of pine wood where 1t was throned above the chimney with her prized treasures. a cuckoo clock and a Calvary in. wax. "Alois will have enough for both, and one cannot be bet ter than happy.p
 You are a woman, and therefore a fool,'' said the miller, striking his pipe on the table, "The lad is naught but beg gar, and with these painters fancies, worse than a beggar. Have a care they are not together in the future, or I will send the child to the surer keeping of the nuns"
 So the old red mill ceased to be a land mark to Nello, and he did not see the f1axen head waiting for him, nor did Pa trasche find a crust or a bone held out by little kind hands. The dog looked humbly and longingly at the closed door. The boy went by without pausing, with a hot pain in his heart The girl sat within and tears dropped on her knit ting.
 Baas Co1gez hardened his heart and said to himself: 'It is best so. Who knows what mischief might not come of it in the future" So he would not have the old, hospitable door unbarred for Hello except on formal occasions, which had neither warmth nor mirth in them to the two young creatures who had been accustomed so long to daily, gleeful. happy interchange of thoughts and speech.
 But the little panel of wood remained in the place of honor above the chin- ney piece; and sometimes it seemed lit tie hard to Nello that while his gift was accepted. he was denied He did not complain. It was his habit to be quiet. Old Jehan Daas said ever to him: ''We are poor. We must take what God sends-the i'll with the good. The poor cannot choose" But in his heart Nello dreamed of be- coming great And one day there was announced in Antwerp the offer of a prize of 200 francs year to any lad of talent, scholar or peasant, under IS, who could produce the best unaided drawing in chalk or pencil. Three of the fore most artists of the town of Rubens were to be the judges.
 Nelo fashioned an easel of rough lum- Der and mounted on it great, rough sheet of gray paper. He had gone with out bread more than once to buy the poor material; and he hungered many times more before he possessed the chalk and crayon, and even then he could buy only ] the rudest implements. In a dreary little outhouse he set up the easel and there, day after day, all
 
 worked. slowly, minutely, pondering long before he dared lay line on paper, la- boring with all his soul. The picture was only that of an old man sitting on a fallen tree. He had seen old Michael, the woodcutter, sit ting so many a time. Nello had never a soul to tell him of perspective, of anatomy, of light and shade. Yet there grew, under his untrained, inspired hands, all the weary, wornout old age, all the sad patience, all the poetry of the lonely old figure, sitting there and meditating on the dead tree with the darkness of a descending night closing in. It was rude. It was full of faults. Bpt it was true and it was in manner beau tiful.
 Patrasche lay by his side hour after hour while he worked. His eyes looked at the picture and at it's creator with such intelligence that Nello came to be- lieve that the dog knew what he was doing He spoke to Patrasche as if he were a human being, told him all his hopes and dreams, and said: 'Rubens would give me the prize, think, If he knew"
 The drawings were to go in on the