"Which you are not," she interrupted as she changed brushes.
"I thought that if I ever could attain to the position of standing
behind a counter in a store where I could take a piece of candy whenever
I wanted it, I should have attained to the heights of happiness. But,
now, of course--"
"Well, and now?"
"I believe I'd like to be a school teacher."
"Why a teacher?"
"Because I'd then have the chance to read a lot of books."
"You like to read, don't you? and you like candy, and you like
pictures."
"Especially, when someone else paints them."
Mildred arose, stepped back to get the distance for examination. "I
don't think I had better use more color," she commented, "but those
cat-tails in the corner need touching up a bit."
"I suppose you have been to school a lot?" he asked.
"No; just completed the high school; then, not being very strong, mother
thought it best not to send me to the University; but she lets me dabble
a little in painting and in music."
Dorian could not keep his eyes off this girl who had already completed
the high school course which he had not yet begun; besides, she had
learned a lot of other things which would be beyond him to ever reach.
Even though he were an ignoramus, he could bask in the light of her
greater learning. She did not resent that.
"What do you study in High School!" he asked.
"Oh, a lot of things--don't you know?" She again looked up at him.
"Not exactly."
"We studied algebra and mathematics and English and English literature,
and French, and a lot of other things."
"What's algebra like?"
"Oh dear, do you want me to draw it?"
"Can you draw it?"
"About as well as I can tell it in words. Algebra is higher mathematics;
yes, that's it."
"And what's the difference between English and English literature?"
"English is grammar and how sentences are or should be made. English
literature is made up mostly of the reading of the great authors, such
as Milton and Shakespeare,"
"Gee!" exclaimed Dorian, "that would be great fun."
"Fun? just you try it. Nobody reads these writers now only in school,
where they have to. But say, Dorian"--she arose to inspect her work
again. "Have I too much purple in that bunch of salt-grass on the left?
What do you think?"
"I don't see any purple at all in the real grass," he said.
"There is purple there, however; but of course, you, not being an
artist, cannot see it." She laughed a little for fear he might think her
pronouncement harsh.
"What--what is an artist?"
"An artist is one who has learned to see more than other people can in
the common things about them."
The definition was not quite clear to him. He had proved that he
could see farther and clearer than she could when looking at trees or
chipmunks. He looked critically again at the picture.
"I mean, of course," she added, as she noted his puzzled look, "that an
artist is one who sees in nature the beauty in form, in light and shade,
and in color."
"You haven't put that tree in the right place," he objected! "and you
have left out that house altogether."
"This is not a photograph," she answered. "I put in my picture only that
which I want there. The tree isn't in the right place, so I moved it.
The house has no business in the picture because I want it to represent
a scene of wild, open lonesomeness. I want to make the people who look
at it feel so lonesome that they want to cry!"
She was an odd girl!
"Oh, don't you understand. I want them only to feel like it. When you
saw that charcoal drawing I made the other day, you laughed."
"Well, it was funny."
"That's just it. An artist wants to be able to make people feel like
laughing or crying, for then he knows he has reached their soul."
"I've got to look after the water for a few minutes, then I'll come back
and help you carry your things," he said. "You're about through, aren't
you?"
"Thank you; I'll be ready now in a few minutes. Go see to your water.
I'll wait for you. How beautiful the west is now!"
They stood silently for a few moments side by side, looking at the glory
of the setting sun through banks of clouds and then down behind the
purple mountain. Then Dorian, with shovel on shoulder, hastened to his
irrigating. The blossoming field of lucerne was usually a common enough
sight, but now it was a stretch of sweet-scented waves of green and
purple.
Mildred looked at the farmer boy until he disappeared behind the willow
fence, then she began to pack up her things. Presently, she heard some
low bellowing, and, looking up, she saw a number of cows, with tails
erect, galloping across the fields. They had broken the fence, and were
now having a gay frolic on forbidden grounds. Mildred saw that they were
making directly for the corner of the pasture where she was. She was
afraid of cows, even when they were within the quiet enclosure of the
yard, and here was a wild lot apparently coming upon her to destroy her.
She crouched, terror stricken, as if to take shelter behind the frail
bulwark of her easel.
Then she saw a horse leap through the gap in the fence and come
galloping after the cows. On the horse was a girl, not a large girl, but
she was riding fearlessly, bare-back, and urging the horse to greater
strides. Her black hair was trailing in the wind as she waved a willow
switch and shouted lustily at the cows. She managed to head the cows off
before they had reached Mildred, rounding them up sharply and driving
them back through the breach into the road which they followed quietly
homeward. The rider then galloped back to the frightened girl.
"Did the cows scare you?" she asked.
"Yes," panted Mildred. "I'm so frightened of cows, and these were so
wild."
"They were just playing. They wouldn't hurt you; but they did look
fierce."
"Whose cows were they?"
"They're ours. I have to get them up every day. Sometimes when the flies
are bad they get a little mad, but I'm not afraid of them. They know me,
you bet. I can milk the kickiest one of the lot."
"Do you milk the cows?"
"Sure--but what is that?" The rider had caught sight of the picture.
"Did you make that?"
"Yes; I painted it."
"My!" She dismounted, and with arm through bridle, she and the horse
came up for a closer view of the picture. The girl looked at it mutely
for a moment. "It's pretty" she said; "I wish I could make a picture
like that."
Mildred smiled at her. She was such a round, rosy girl, so full of
health and life and color. Not such a little girl either, now a nearer
view was obtained. She was only a year or two younger than Mildred
herself.
"I wish I could do what you can," said the painter of pictures.
"I--what? I can't do anything like that."
"No; but you can ride a horse, and stop runaway cows. You can do a lot
of things that I cannot do because you are stronger than I am. I wish I
had some of that rosy red in your cheeks."
"You can have some of mine," laughed the other, "for I have more than
enough; but you wouldn't like the freckles."
"I wouldn't mind them, I'm sure; but let me thank you for what you did,
and let's get acquainted." Mildred held out her hand, which the other
took somewhat shyly. "Don't you have to go home with your cows?"
"Yes, I guess so."
"Then we'll go back together." She gathered her material and they walked
on up the path, Mildred ahead, for she was timid of the horse which the
other led by the bridle rein. At the bars in the corner of the upper
pasture the horse was turned loose into his own feeding ground, and the
girls went on together.
"You live near here, don't you?" inquired Mildred.
"Yes, just over there."
"Oh, are you Carlia Duke?"
"Yes; how did you know?"
"Dorian has told me about you."
"Has he? We're neighbors; an' you're the girl that's visiting with the
Trent's?"
"Yes."
"Well, I'm glad to meet you. Dorian has told me about you, too."
Thus these two, meeting for the first time, went on chatting together;
and thus Dorian saw them. He had missed Mildred at the lower pasture,
and so, with shovel again on shoulder, he had followed up the homeward
path. The girls were some distance ahead, so he did not try to overtake
them. In fact, he slackened his pace a little, so as not to get too
close to them to disturb them; but he saw them plainly walk close
together up the road in the twilight of the summer evening, the tall,
light-haired Mildred, and the shorter, dark-haired Carlia; and the child
in Dorian seemed to vanish, and the man in him asserted himself in
thought and feelings which it would have been hard for him to describe
in words.