The Bozeman courier. (Bozeman, Mont.) 1919-1954, 1926-02-12

a bang, and gave her pie plate hats with
StreamerS. She was photographed thus, at
five, against a background painted to rep
resent Niagara Fails. She leaned upon a
papier mache stump, and one foot was
crossed over the other in the immemOrial
manner of Dion BOucicault.
She never played with other little girls,
and gained the impression that she was
either peculiar or superior. From Maisie
she learned that she could expect nothing
from her fatner, who was too much in
love with ner mother to make a success of
p~arenthOOd. Maisie implanted in the
solemn, yellow child an inOrdinate love
of fnery, a longing for something indef.
mite called life" and a conviction that
she was destined, some day, to be great
When Geraldine was seven, she painted
her first picture-a Venetian lagoon, a
gondOla, and a crescent moon.
Maisie bent over the table, cupping her
chin in her hands, and said, "WOnderfuli
Perfectly beautiful! I always knew you'd
be an artist. My father and mother wanted
me to be an artist, but I married instead.
l might have gone to Paris"
Not this Paris! Across the ocean. Paris,
France. If I'd gone I'd have been great.
Like Rosa BOnheur. Or Angelica Kauff-
man. Women who became great. I had it
in me. But 1 married your father"
"Why 2"
Maisie shut her eyes and was shaken by
a little estacy, a ripple of remembrance,
Il loved him."
Geraldine went back to her painting, I'M
able to comprehend. She had recently come
into the possession Of a drawing book
thick pages bound in anvas A shiny
box of water cOlOrS, prismatic cubes i'm
bedded in porcelain, contained the myster-
iOus ingredients with which, were she able,
she might transfer her dreams to paper.
She struggled with the medium. Her Wis
ions were all Of palaces, stars, roses, fOun-
tains and grOttOs, marble balustrades and
princesSeS. The sketch book was full OF
quaint n terrible translatiOns Of these
dreams, and Geraldine knew the agony
OF one whose dreams are stillbOrn.
She is going to be an artist" Maisie
told Will, Well send her to Paris when
she's sixteen
paris! :" The doctor laughed and pinched
her cheeks. Geraldine realized that Paris
was, some sort of a joke. Perhaps hel
mother imagined this other Paris, France
The Paris Geraldine knew was growing
IKE a SabDage, sprawling over the no.
prairie. In INNER, the sky was a no
blue, and yellow clouds hung low on tn
horizon, pulsing with fire, the fitful flick
eTing Of heat lightning. No rain fell. Thu
streets were a swirl of dust. In winter, tn,
sky was fleckleSs, white, or lead gray, ant
snow fell like goose feathers, thick AM
warm. In spring, the roads were deep witt
mud, but the prairie showed green an
frogs sang in the bitches and birds flew
up from the fields.
Main street, not the boulevard, haI
decked itself with those houses antedatini
the Chicago fair, elaborate, fretted, ant
%turreted CONNECTIONS made with a jigsaw
Lawns, restrained by granite posts an.
cast iron chains, surrounded the court
mousse, and a bed Of saliva blazed befOr
Judge Kennedy's place. In the park, tn
pride Of Paris, a cannon, mounted upOI
a pedestal, squatted upon pyramids o
cannon balls like a hen upOn a nest.
Maisie, wearing a plaid dress buttOne
from throat to hem with jet buttons
minced the length Of Main street, Gerald
ines moist hand in hers. GeraIdfne's fin
gers clung to the glOved fingers desperate
lIy. People stared at her mother. He
mother was too pretty. And something ia