The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1915-02-13
cHAPTER XII.

The second year Of a new order
brings fewer radical changes than the
first. Samson's work began to forge
out of the ranks of the ordinary and
to show symptoms of a quality which
would some day give it distinction
Heretofore his instructors had held
him rigidly to the limitations Of black
and white, but now they took on the
bonds and permitted him the colorful
delight of attempting to express him
self from the palette. 1t was like per
hitting a natural poet to leave prose
and play with prosody.
One day Adrienne looked up from a
sheaf of his very creditable landscape
studies to inquire suddenly:
Samson, are you a rich man or
poor one?"
He laughed. $50 rich" he told her,
that unless can turn some Of this
stuff into money within a year or two
I shall have to go back to hoeing
corn"
She nodded gravely.
Hasn't it occurred to you" she
demanded, that in way you are
wasting your gifts? They were talk
ing about you the other evening
eral painters. They all said that you
should be doing portraits"
The Kentuckian smiled. His mas
tiers had been telling him the same
thing. He had fallen in love with art
through the appeal of the skies and
hills. He had followed its call at the
PROSECUTING of George Lescott, who
painted only landscape. Portraiture
seemed a less artistic form of express
sion. He said So.
"That may all be very true" she
conceded, 'but you can go on with
your landscapes and let your por-
traits pay the way. And" she added,
since am very vain and moderately
rich, 1 hereby commission you to
paint me, just as soon as you learn
how"
Farbish had simply dropped out. Bit
by bit the truth of the conspiracy had
leaked, and he knew that his useful
ness was ended and that weIl-lined
pocketbooks would no longer open to
his profigate demands.
Sally had started to school. She
had not announced that she meant to
do so, but each day the people of Misery
saw her old sorrel mare making it's
way to and from the general direction
Of Stagbone college, and they smiled.
No one knew how Sally's cheeks
famed as she sat alone on Saturdays
and Sundays on the rock at the back
bones rift. She was taking her place,
morbidly sensitive and a woman of
eighteen, among little spindle-shanked
girls in short skirts, and the little
girls were more advanced than she.
But she, too, meant to have '1'arnin' -
| as much of it as was necessary to sat
isfy the lover who might never come.
And yet, the "fotched-on" teachers at
the college" thought her the most
voraciously ambitious pupil they had
ever had, so unfaggingly did she toll,
and the most remarkably acQuisitive,
so fast did she learn. But her studies
had again been interrupted, and Miss
Grover, her teacher, riding over one
| day to find out why her prize scholar
had deserted, met in the road an
empty Jolt wagon" followed by a
ragged cortege of mounted men and
women, whose faces were still Iugu-
brious with the effort Of recent
mourning. Her question elected the
| information that they were returning
| from the "buryin'" of the Widow Mil
Ter.
Towards the end Of that year Sam.
son undertook his portrait of Adri-
enne Lescott. The work was nearing
completion, but it had been agreed
that the girl herself was not to have
a peep at the canvas until the painter
was ready to unVeiI it in a finished
condition. Often, as she posed, VIII
fred Horton idled in the studio with
them, and often George Lescott came
to criticize, and left without criticiz
ing. The girl was impatient for the
day when she, too, was to see the pic
ture, concerning which the three men
maintained so profound a secrecy. She
knew that Samson was a painter who
analysed with his brush, and that his
picture would show her not only fea
lures and expression, but the mans
estimate of herself.
do you know" he said one day
coming out from behind his easel and
studying her, through haIf-closed eyes
81 never really began to know you un
til now? Analysing you-studying you
in this fashion, not by your words, but
by your expression, your pose, the
very unconscious essence of your per
sonality-these things are illuminat
ing"
Although 1 am not painting you,
she said with smile, 81 have beer
studying you, too. As you stand there
before your canvas your own person
atty is revealed-and have not beer
entirely unobservant myself"
"And under the X-ray scrutiny o