Evening star., 1909-02-06

sheets, it's every crook and bend, clear
down to the creek into which, at the
boundary of the farm, it empted. At
this point there formed a deep, slow
basin. where leaves long and pointed
drpped. touching their very tips in the
water, and sometimes while he was watch
ing, a stealthy snake would slip it's thin
black length down from the overhanging
branches and glide away under the dark
surface. If one lay here and gazed long
into the depth, there were strange new
colors. shifting and varying with the
changing light; deep. deep blues and
browns and even reds, down where the
dim fishes moved.
He had a strange fancy about the brook,
too. 1t was an old, old friend, but as 1t
was always racing away to the rivers and
the ocean, he felt that 1t was always
stranger as well as friend. Every time
that he saw it he felt that he must ma Re
it's acquaintance all over again, for this
was water that he had never seen be-
fore: so, while he was quite little, he used
to say Good morning to it every day,
and, lying down upon the bank with his
face above it in his favorite spot. he
would tell it all about himself, and about
have seen.
So the boy grew until he was thirteen.
and his listless dreaming increased. or
course, he worked, as every creature upon
that farm. whether two-footed or four
footed, must work. but he labored with
a curious inefficiency that made Jim Glow
heartsick. He was good father in a
way, and a patient one, but sometimes. i'll
striving to bring the boy into proper
relation with his duty toward life, he be-
came brutal 1t was all wasted. Trouble
slipped from the boys back as soon as it
came A thrashing made him remember
to be steadily industrious for time, but
at the turn of furrow some harmony of
key-tone in earth and tree and hill and
sky would impress him. and he would
pause and marvel at this wonder of light
and color, while his plow choked within
the soil and the idle horses calmly thrashed
their tails.
Color. Always and everywhere there
was color, even in shadow and blacklist
night. and he grew to revel in it. seeing
it keenly where others blindly saw but
mist or sterile ground or grazing land, but
fruitful trees or barren, but promises of
fair weather or foul.
Thus Henry Glow might have lived and
died and have become clay again. but in
that blessed summer came stranger, one
who, travelling idly through the country.
saw this quaint little gray house with it's
many -times-broken roof and its queer
angles and it's multiplicity Of moss-grown
steps, and saw also hundred pictures
in the valley below and the hills beyond
and the winding creek Mrs Glow took
him in eagerly. 1t meant more work, but
it meant cash, and cash was the one
article that her husbands farm would
not produce.
Whatever fate it was that sent this
new note into the life Of the boy, that
fate had selected kindly, for the stranger
brought with him canvas and palette and
brush and paint, and because he bought
the services of young Henry to carry these
things, a new heaven opened to the dream
er The stranger was surprised to find
that the boy in setting up his easel and
stool for him would himself, judge the
view and shift these paraphernalia exactly
to the point that the man would have
chosen. Shy comment. too. the youngster
offered for instance. that a distant clump
of trees which in evening mist was en-
was SOtIlctIIlcS III tilc IluS d
tender blue like that" as he picked it
out upon the palette; that the trunks of
the trees which. at that particular hour,
ranged from velvet-black and brown to
silver-gray, in certain lights and against
certain colors appeared distinctly red of
tone.
One whole month of this ecstasy was
permitted the boy, month in which be-
fore his worshipng eyes was wrought
the magic of completed canvas and then
the magician went away. Before he
left he proffered a check in payment of
his bill, but Jim Glow would have none
of it. He had never handled a check in
all his life, and it did not appeal to him.
What he wanted to see was greenbacKs
and silver. The artist laughed.
Very WELL said he, 'I'll go to town
and get it for you.' and in his blackboard
the little pony that had brought him there
took him to the world again.
He did not come back because he could
not get his check cashed in the village, so
he waited until he got to the city, and
from there sent Jim a money order with
d careful explanation of how to get it
cashed. Unfortunately, that letter went
astray, and in the heart of Jim Glow there
grew up natural resentment against the
whole tribe of artists. When Henry, find