Evening star., 1926-05-02
Sarah and the Bokhara
49,. BY HOLWOR7HY HALL
Dollars Still Wanted Career But There
Were Obstacles

THE top floor Of the Barker
Building was tenanted by peo-
pie who called Themselves
artists, because they some
times drew pictures; but even
in New York, where art is a synonym
for almost anything you please, there
were few top floors on which de-
tenseless nature was portrayed with
such vivid Imagination as in the Bar.
ker Building
- Bison City's delegate TO the con-
gresS OF geniuses-elect was Mary Ann
Atherton. predestined by her physique
ard her vocabulary to be pointed out
rs type.
From her earliest youth her ambi-
tion had been to be a painter. The
neishbors praised with exceeding rap
Eure her sketches Of them-and told
each other In strict confidence that
her work was all right, but that the
Jnedium Of expression was all wrong.
Her talent, they said, entitled her to
sweep triumphantly through life; but
her implement should have been a
broom instead Of a brush. When they
met Mary in front M the butchers,
they revamped some of the best
phrases from the recent art lecture at
the Woman's Club. and exalted to I'M
mortality her portrait of her uncle
S3laS-especia Ay the prismatic air and
the brown U1derbasing. The result
was natural end spontaneous. Mary
~Ss convinced that she ought to go
20 New YORK.. and the neighbors who
had convinced her said that Mary was
conceited.
Her departure caused much greater
excitement In Bison City than her ar.
rival bestirred in New York. 1t was
fastened by the third clause of Uncle
Silas' Will, which the weekly neWspa-
per heralded as "a muniflcent endoW-
rnent to one of the fairest bellies of
our thriving city and the neighbors
considered a sufficient reason for some
bf the distant relatives to claim hallu-
tination on the part of the testator.
They did not realize that many an ar
tistic career has had less foundation
than laurels in a. suburb and a thou
sand dollars from Uncle Silas.
On the top floor of the Barker Build
sing Mary hired q dusty studio Snd
a model named Sarah and set braTely
10 work. She was very much in ear
nest, and she did not expect TO achieve
tame and fortune IN less than a
jwelvemonth. The subject Of her first
picture was a society woman in court
costume. The subject was to sit III
genuine Sheraton chair, with one foot
idly straying over a genuine antique
rug. II was to be a realistic portrait,
with plenty Of atmosphere and no par
Simony In paint, and it was calculated
10 bring the elite of the island TO her
door with an overwhelming desire TO
be fattered on canvas.
The model was accommodating and
agreed to furnish the gown-a black
net over black satin, with a permanent
red rose in the corsage. The chair was
to be adapted from the pages of a
Grand Rapids furniture catalogue. For
he present, the model disposed herself
on q common divan in the attitude
she had acquired the week before
when sitting for an advertisement of
massage cream, and Mary Ann Ather-
Ton tied a gtngham apron around her
neck and began TO paint.
At the end of the twentieth day
she laid down her palette, and sighed
heavily. "Oh, dear she said. 'I
wish had a rug
The model was a philosopher. For
three decades she had advised strug-