“You work on that board, when on the desk?”
“Yes.”
“You are disappointed,” said his sister, with a smile. “It is not what
you expected.”
It wasn’t. I had expected to see a typical studio, with unfinished
cartoons, and the usual artistic surroundings.
Mr. Davenport laid an unfinished cartoon on the desk, representing a
chariot race, and laughed when he explained what it would be and mean;
and this told me that he enters heartily in whatever he draws, which
is requisite to success in art as well as in other things. Then we
adjourned to another room and sat about a wood fire.
“Tell me of your beginning,” I said.
“Well, I was born in Oregon, thirty-five years ago, on my father’s
farm. As a child, I was perpetually drawing, and to my father I owe
much, for it was he who encouraged me, my mother dying when I was very
young. I would lie flat on my stomach, and draw on the floor, if I had
no paper. As I spent hours this way, the habit became injurious to my
digestive organs, so a flat cushion was made for me. I was a hopelessly
poor student, doing more drawing on my slate and on the margins of my
books than studying. To sit in school for any length of time made me
sick and nervous, so my father called on the schoolmaster and gave
instructions that, whenever I got tired, I should be allowed to draw,
or to go home.”