CHAPTER XII

THE ARTIST

It was one afternoon early in March that Elizabeth started out to look for pussywillows. She went alone, for she wanted to be the one to make this first spring offering to her teacher. She could not, like Betsy, supply her with flowers from a conservatory, nor had she such a weekly allowance as Bess, who could, once in awhile, commission Hal to send violets from town, but these firstlings of the year were hers for the gathering, if only she could find them. She thought she knew a place where some of the brave little furry buds might have put out sooner than their neighbors and to this spot she took her way.

It was the first day which had suggested a promise of spring. There was a pleasant warmth in the air, a smell of fresh earth. Under the brown leaves were tiny green growths beginning to push up.

Some patches of snow still lingered in northbound corners, but the little streams had broken from their bonds and were murmuring along singing of all sorts of pleasant things to Elizabeth, who had a knowledge of their speech and could interpret what they were saying. It was all about spring and green grasses, birds’ nests and flowers. The ground was soft in places, but, for a wonder, Elizabeth had put on rubbers and sprang over the marshy spots without getting over the tops of her shoes. She loved to scour the woods and fields with Betsy, but once in awhile she revelled in being alone, and today she especially enjoyed it. She stood still once or twice to listen to a bluebird and by keeping very quiet at last caught sight of the flash of blue which told of his presence.

“I see you,” she called as he flew away, “and I know what you are singing about. I know what the brook says, too. It is a spring song, and I am so glad, so glad. I am happy, you bluebird! I am happy, you brook,” she sang. “It’s a gladsome day in this quiet nook! That is my song. I made it up. I am an improvisatrice. Oh!”

After the exclamation she stopped her song and dashed through the bushes, regardless of how briars snatched at her and muddy pools splashed her frock. “There you are! you dear things,” she cried. “I thought I would find you out. I will not take all of you, but I will take enough to make a company so you will not be lonely. I hope you like to go, and maybe you will like it better when you get there, for the schoolroom is really very pleasant, and you will have the honor of standing on Miss Jewett’s desk; that should compensiation for all else. You are not so very far out yet, but if you are put in water in the warm room you will soon show more fur. I know just the vase Miss Jewett will put you in, and you will look lovely. You are the very first, the very first, and I found you.”

She chattered away as she broke off the twigs, finally saying, “There, I think that is enough. I am much obliged to you, Mrs. Pussywillow, for letting me take some of your pretty buds. I will come to see you again some day.” Then she climbed up the slope stretching down to the brook, looking from time to time with much satisfaction at the little gray fuzzy buds.

When she reached the top of the hill she paused for a moment that she might determine upon the best way, and then started to cross the field diagonally. Just before she reached the corner of the fence she stopped short, surprised to see before her a young man sitting on a camp-stool with a black box in his lap. Elizabeth was curious to know what he could be doing, and began to move slowly nearer to him until she came within his line of vision.

The young man looked over the top of his box at her. “Good-evening, Aurora,” he said.

Supposing that he mistook her for someone else, Elizabeth made reply: “My name isn’t Aurora.”

“It isn’t? I should have thought it was. Then you are a woodland elf and live down in those woods that you have just come from. It was just a case of mistaken identity; that was all. Good-evening, Elfie.”

Elizabeth smiled. This was certainly a very unusual young man. Some persons might have said he was crazy, but Elizabeth recognized a kindred spirit. “Good-evening,” she said, encouraged to draw a little nearer that she might see what he was really doing.

But before she reached him the young man arose, set his box on the stool and stood off at a few paces, squinting at it with half-closed eyes. Then he made a sudden dash forward, made a dab at the lid of the box and returned to the place he had been standing. “Come here,” he said, “and tell me what you think of it.”

Elizabeth obeyed the invitation with alacrity and saw that the young man held a palette and brushes and that in the top of his box was fastened a small canvas upon which he had been working. All these things were quite new to Elizabeth. She was familiar with her sister’s box of water-colors, but this paraphernalia was strange. She reached the young man’s side and looked at the canvas with pleased eyes. “Why, it is a picture,” she said.

“You don’t say so,” returned the young man. “Is it really?”

“What else could it be?” said Elizabeth, a little puzzled.

“Oh, it might be a chart of the county or a section of a map, or almost anything. It might be something like this.” He picked up a clean canvas from the pile on the ground and began to draw swiftly with a stump of charcoal. “This might be the main road,” he said, “and these the branch roads and these the houses.” He rubbed his drawing in two or three places and then turned the canvas so Elizabeth could see.

“Why, it looks just like a bunch of pussywillows,” she exclaimed in surprise.

“Does it? How funny. Can’t you see the main road, and the little roads? Those round spots are the houses.” He looked down with a smile, and Elizabeth understood that he had really meant it to be a branch of pussywillows, the buds being the houses.

She gave him an answering smile. “But the other is a truly picture,” she said; “this is an enigmatrical one.”

“Lovely,” cried the young man, laughing. “I like that word ‘enigmatrical,’ and I shall take it into my vocabulary.” He looked down at Elizabeth again with a broad smile. “By the way,” he said, “did you ever hear of Titian?”

Elizabeth was doubtful. The name sounded familiar and yet she thought best not to display any knowledge lest she might make a mistake. “I think I have heard of him,” she said. “Who is he?”

“A painter.”

“Oh, are you he?” She thought he might very well be and that this was his way of informing her.

“Ye gods and little fishes!” cried the young man. “Listen to her. Do I look as if I were over three hundred years old?” he asked.

“Oh,”--Elizabeth was quite abashed. “I didn’t remember that he was so old.”

“He lived over three hundred years ago,” continued the young man, “but if he were here now he would probably say to you, ‘My dear demoselle, will you oblige me by taking off your cap and sitting over there where the sun can shine on your lovely head?’ Only he would say it in Italian, for he probably couldn’t speak English.”

Elizabeth pulled down the rim of her cap closer over her curling locks. She was afraid the young man was making fun of her.

“What are you doing that for?” asked the artist. “Don’t you like your hair?”

“I hate it,” said Elizabeth in low, tense tones. “I should like to dye it black or brown or even green.”

“Oh no, not green; you wouldn’t really rather have it green. It would make you so conspicuous.”

“Yes, even green. Nobody likes red hair. My family and my friends try to comfort me by saying it is auburn, but I know, myself, that it is red, for the people that don’t like me always say so.”

“Then it is because they are mean and jealous. The great Titian adored hair the color of yours and painted lovely females with just such many, many times.”

“Did he really?” Elizabeth said in delighted surprise. “I wish I could see some of them.”

“Perhaps you will some day. I have a copy of one. I wish I had it here to convince you. I did it when I was abroad and they say it is a pretty good copy, Elfie, if I do say it as shouldn’t.”

“I would give anything to see it,” declared Elizabeth, “and I wish Corinne Barker could see it, too.”

“Why, Corinne?” inquired the artist, beginning to pack up his paints and brushes.

“Oh, because she is so--so--snippy and hateful. She makes fun of my hair whenever she can, and tries to make everyone think I am a sight.” She did not know why she was disposed to be so confidential with this perfect stranger, but somehow he invited confidence.

“Then no doubt she is consumed with jealousy,” her new friend remarked. “I will venture to say that she has dull, mouse-colored hair herself, dry, wispy hair that hangs down in little strings around her face and never looks tidy. I will bet you that I can make a portrait of her without seeing her.” He picked up the canvas on which he had drawn the pussywillows, dusted off the charcoal and began sketching rapidly. “There,” he said, when he had worked for a very few minutes, “doesn’t that look just like her?” He showed Elizabeth the drawing he had made. It was a face with a most disagreeable and contemptuous expression. Little strings of hair fell over the forehead and the eyebrows were lifted in disdain.

Elizabeth did not like to say that it was not an exact likeness, but she laughed at the funny drawing and said, “She has just that supercillious expression.”

The young man put down the canvas and looked at Elizabeth gravely. “Those attacks are entirely too frequent for a young person of your size,” he said. “Where do you go to school?”

“I go to the village school, but next year I expect to go to the Academy.”

“Will you tell your teacher for me that you have the most remarkable vocabulary and that you are a credit to her system. I suppose you live near here, Elfie?”

“Yes, I live in the brown house just at the edge of the town.”

“I don’t know the place very well. I came over today from Ferny with one Hiram Sollers. He said it was ‘pretty sightly to Brookdale.’” The imitation of the old farmer’s dialect was perfect and Elizabeth laughed.

“I have come to the conclusion that Hiram was right,” continued the artist. “I believe I would like to knock about here for awhile. I should like mightily to paint you, Elfie.”

“Me? What for?” Elizabeth showed her surprise.

“Dear innocent, because I feel the mantle of Titian falling upon my shoulders, I suppose. I can’t imagine any other reason. I might stick a suggestion of you in this picture I am starting; you and your pussywillows would come in nicely. Suppose you go over there for a minute, just there where the sun is shining. I won’t keep you long. Oh dear, you must take off your cap. I don’t want the glory of that auroral halo to be lost. That’s it. Now look this way for a minute. Good! Hold the bunch of pussies in your arms this way. That’s it.” He worked away earnestly and rapidly for several minutes. The time seemed very long to Elizabeth, although she was buoyed up by the excitement of going through such an unusual experience. At last she shifted her position, becoming more and more restless, and wondering how much longer she would have to stand.

“There, time’s up,” said the young man at last. “You did pretty well. It’s no fun to be a model, I know. How would you like to be at it all day? Some persons earn their living that way you know.”

Elizabeth thought it must be a very tiresome way of making one’s living and was glad she did not have to do it. She came back to see what the artist had made of her, and was rather disappointed to see a few daubs which did not represent a true likeness of Elizabeth Hollins, she thought.

“If you stand off a little it will look more like,” suggested her friend.

Elizabeth went off a short distance and, to her surprise, found that there was a distinct image of a little girl with shining hair standing in the background of the picture. “Why, that does look like me,” she exclaimed.

“You didn’t think it possible, did you, Elfie? Well, we all have to learn. I will try to finish this up tomorrow. Shall we walk your way? You can show me where you live and then I will go on to the Mansion House. I cannot say that I would be overcome with joy if I had to think of staying there long, but it is the best there is, I am told.”

“It is rather smelly,” Elizabeth acknowledged. “I shouldn’t like to live there myself.”

“Smelly, my dear Elfie? I am surprised. Why not malodorous or mephitic, or some such adjective. One who follows the style of the respected Dr. Johnson should not use such a very ordinary word as smelly. Now, if I said smelly, it would be all right, for I do not aim at anything but extreme simplicity in speech as in other things.”

Elizabeth felt that he was making fun of her, but he did it so good-naturedly that she could not take offence, so she only laughed and they walked on, the artist carrying his box in one hand and a lot of wet brushes in the other. Elizabeth wondered why he did not put the brushes in the box.

As if reading her thoughts, the young man said: “If I don’t carry my brushes in this way I may forget to wash them; I sometimes do and then don’t I have a time to get them clean? By the way, Elfie, I have not properly introduced myself.” He picked up a shining brown leaf from the ground, selected a brush which still held some red paint, and with it wrote on the leaf which he handed gravely to Elizabeth.

She took it gingerly so as not to rub off the paint. What a delightful man he was, to be sure, and how unlike any other person she had met. She looked earnestly at what he had written. It was: “Oliver Kemp, a reincarnation of Titian.” Elizabeth had not the slightest idea what reincarnation meant, and she looked up questioningly to see laughter in the young man’s eyes, so she knew it was a sort of joke, but she determined to keep the leaf as a treasure. She held it very carefully by the stem, carrying her pussywillows in the other hand. “You don’t know my name,” she said presently.

“Oh, yes, I do: it is Elfie.”

“You have the first two letters right,” said Elizabeth gayly.

“That is quite enough; I needn’t try for any more. It is a great satisfaction to get things partly right: I don’t always do it, I know,” he added, partly to himself.

They had reached the long street by this time and Mr. Kemp stood still and looked up and down, toward the church spire, the white, brown or red houses, the rows of trees each side the street in one direction and, in the other, hills, forests and winding road. “Do you know, Elfie,” he said, “I like this village of yours and I should like to stay here for awhile. Do you know of any place like a chicken-coop or a wood-house or any little cubby where I could keep my stool and easel and where I could paint when it was too cold or too stormy to go out?”

“A chicken-coop wouldn’t be big enough,” returned Elizabeth in all gravity, “but maybe a hen-house would do. I don’t exactly think of any just now, but maybe I could hear of something.”

“That’s a good child; I wish you would. I will come up tomorrow and find out. You live,--let me see, where is it you live?”

“In that brown house off there at the end of the street,”--Elizabeth pointed it out to him.

“Of course; I might have known it would be brown, like a tree. I suppose you go in there only when it is very cold or stormy and stay in the woods the rest of the time; elves always do, you know.”

Elizabeth laughed. “I do like to stay out as much as I can,” she made answer, “but I love the woods and the fields better in warm weather than in cold.”

“And have you a hollow stump where you stay sometimes?”

“Yes, I really have one; it is in the little hollow behind the house; I call it the Fairy Dell.”

“Of course you do; I could have vouched for that.”

“There is another place,”--Elizabeth felt encouraged to go on,--“It is on top of the hill; there are great bowlders there and the witches come there at midnight.”

“How truly fascinating. You must show me the spot some day.”

“But,” Elizabeth went on, “I have a lovely place in the attic all my own; it is under the eaves and there is a nice window there that looks out over the country. Sometimes I make believe that it is a window high up in a moated castle tower and sometimes I pretend it is a really fairy lodge in the tree-tops.”

“Bless you, Elfie; you are a creature after my own heart. I will go to the gate with you and you can show me the window.”

Elizabeth readily agreed and when they had reached the brown house she pointed out the little window in the pointed gable, a wistaria vine clambered to it and would soon be ready to put out its first leaves.

“It looks exactly as I thought it must,” declared Mr. Kemp. “I am coming to see you tomorrow, Elfie. I suppose it must be after school is out.”

“Oh yes, for I shall not be at home till then,” returned Elizabeth soberly.

He put down his box to shake hands while she laid aside her pussywillows. Then they parted and Elizabeth, brimming over with excitement, hurried into the house.