But the echo of his own words was all he heard in response. He lay
quite motionless and still for some time after that, thinking about all
the voice had said to him, and when finally he pushed his hat back from
before his eyes, he saw the starlit sky smiling down upon him
benignantly. And then, from behind a dark cloud he saw the radiant
moon appear, and it seemed to him like the most beautiful woman's face
he could imagine, peering out from the shadow of her own dusky hair to
welcome the night.
He got upon his feet as well as he could, for he was very stiff with
lying so long, and stumbled on toward some dark nook or cranny where he
could huddle unseen until the morning; his head full of plans for the
morrow, and his heart beating high with courage and hope.
He would dream no more, but labor. He would work at the first thing
that came to hand, and then, perhaps, that wonderful thing which the
voice had called inspiration would come to him, and he would be able to
mount to heaven on it and bring down to earth some of the glorious
things he saw. He thought inspiration must be some sort of a magical
ladder, that was invisible to all but those given special sight to see
and power to use it. If he ever caught a glimpse of it he intended to
take hold at once and climb straight up to the blessed regions above;
and dreaming of all he would see there, he fell asleep.
In the morning he was awake bright and early, and stretching himself
with a long-drawn yawn, set out to find some way of procuring for
himself a breakfast. First at one shop-door and then at another he
stopped, popping in his shaggy head and asking the man inside, "Give me
a job, Mister?" and being in reply promptly invited to "clear out!"
But it took more than this to discourage Larry, heartened as he was by
the remembrance of his visions of the day before; and on and on he
went, until, at last, in answer to his question--and just as he was
about to withdraw his head from the door of the express-office into
which he had popped it a moment before--he was bidden to say what it
was he could do. Almost too surprised at the change in greeting to be
able to reply, he stumbled back into the place and stood a moment in
rather stupid silence before his questioner.
"Well, ain't yer got no tongue in yer head, young feller? Seemed ter
have a minute ago. Ef yer can't speak up no better 'n this, yer ain't
the boy fer us."
But by this time Larry had recovered himself sufficiently to blurt out:
"I kin lift an' haul an' run errants an' do all sorts o' work about the
place. Won't ye try me, Mister? Lemme carry out that box ter show ye
how strong I am;" and suiting the action to the words, he shouldered a
heavy packing-case and was out upon the sidewalk and depositing it upon
a wagon, already piled with trunks and luggage, before the man had time
to reply.
When he returned to the door-step he was greeted with the grateful
intelligence that he might stay a bit and see how he got along as an
errand-boy if he liked; and, of course, _liking_, he started in at once
upon his new office.
That was the beginning. It gave him occupation and, food, but scarcely
more than that at first. He had no time for dreaming now, but often
when he had a brief moment to himself would take out of his pocket the
piece of chalk with which he marked the trunks he carried, and sketch
with it upon some rough box-lid or other the picture of a face or form
which he saw in his fancy; so that after a time he was known among the
men as "the artist feller," and grew to have quite a little reputation
among them.
How the rest came about even Larry himself found it hard to tell. But
by and by he was drawing with pencil and pen, and selling his sketches
for what he could get, buying now a brush and then some paints with the
scanty proceeds, and working upon his bits of canvas with all the ardor
of a Raphael himself.
A man sat before an easel in a crowded studio one day, give the last
touch to a painting that stood before him. It pictured the figure of a
lad, ragged and forlorn, lying asleep beneath some sheltering trees.
At first that seems all there was to be seen upon the canvas; but if
one looked closer one was able to discover another figure amid the
vaporous, soft glooms of the place. It grew ever more distinct, until
one had no difficulty in distinguishing the form of a maiden, fair and
frail as a dream. She was bending over the slumbering body of the boy,
as if to arouse him to life by the whispered words she was breathing
against his cheek.
The artist scrawled his signature in the corner of his completed work
and set the canvas in its frame, and then stood before it, scrutinizing
it closely.
"'The Waking Soul!'--I wonder if that is a good name for it?" murmured
he to himself. And then, after a moment, he said to the pictured lad,--
"Well, Larry, little fellow, the dream's come true; and here we are,
you and I,--you, Larry, and I, Lawrence,--with the 'wish grown strong
to an endeavor, and the endeavor to an achievement.' Are you glad,
Boy?"