In old times there lived in Penn-syl-va-ni-a a little fellow whose name
was Ben-ja-min West. He lived in a long stone house.
[Illustration: Painting Baby’s Portrait]
He had never seen a picture. The country was new, and there were not
many pictures in it. Benny’s father was a Friend or Quaker. The Friends
of that day did not think that pictures were useful things to make or
to have. Before he was seven years old, this little boy began to draw
pictures. One day he was watching the cradle of his sister’s child. The
baby smiled. Benny was so pleased with her beauty, that he made a
picture of her in red and black ink. The picture of the baby pleased
his mother when she saw it. That was very pleasant to the boy.
He made other pictures. At school he used to draw with a pen before he
could write. He made pictures of birds and of animals. Sometimes he
would draw flowers.
[Illustration: Flower and Fruit of the Poke-Berry.]
He liked to draw so well, that sometimes he forgot to do his work. His
father sent him to work in the field one day. The father went out to
see how well he was doing his work. Benny was no-where to be found. At
last his father saw him sitting under a large poke-weed. He was making
pictures. He had squeezed the juice out of some poke-berries. The juice
of poke-berries is deep red. With this the boy had made his pictures.
When the father looked at them, he was surprised. There were portraits
of every member of the family. His father knew every picture.
Up to this time Benny had no paints nor any brushes. The Indians had
not all gone away from that neigh-bor-hood. The Indians paint their
faces with red and yellow colors. These colors they make them-selves.
Sometimes they prepare them from the juice of some plant. Sometimes
they get them by finding red or yellow earth. Some of the Indians can
make rough pictures with these colors.
The Indians near the house of Benny’s father must have liked the boy.
They showed him how to make red and yellow colors for himself. He got
some of his mother’s indigo to make blue. He now had red, yellow, and
blue. By mixing these three, the other colors that he wanted could be
made.
But he had no brush to paint with. He took some long hairs from the
cat’s tail. Of these he made his brushes. He used so many of the cat’s
hairs, that her tail began to look bare. Everybody in the house began
to wonder what was the matter with pussy’s tail. At last Benny told
where he got his brushes.
[Illustration: Making a Paint Brush.]
A cousin of Benny’s came from the city on a visit. He saw some of the
boy’s drawings. When he went home, he sent Benny a box of paints. With
the paints were some brushes. And there was some canvas such as
pictures are painted on. And that was not all. There were in the box
six beautiful en-grav-ings.
The little painter now felt himself rich. He was so happy that he could
hardly sleep at all. At night he put the box that held his treasures on
a chair by his bed. As soon as daylight came, he carried the precious
box to the garret. The garret of the long stone house was his stu-di-o.
Here he worked away all day long. He did not go to school at all.
Perhaps he forgot that there was any school. Perhaps the little artist
could not tear himself away from his work.
But the schoolmaster missed him. He came to ask if Benny was ill. The
mother was vexed when she found that he had staid away from school. She
went to look for the naughty boy. After a while she found the little
truant. He was hard at work in his garret. She saw what he had been
doing. He had not copied any of his new en-grav-ings. He had made up a
new picture by taking one person out of one en-grav-ing, and another
out of another. He had copied these so that they made a picture that he
had thought of for himself.
His mother could not find it in her heart to punish him. She was too
much pleased with the picture he was making. This picture was not
finished. But his mother would not let him finish it. She was afraid he
would spoil it if he did anything more on it.
The good people called Friends did not like the making of pictures, as
I said. But they thought that Benny West had a talent that he ought to
use. So he went to Phil-a-del-phi-a to study his art. After a while he
sailed away to It-a-ly to see the pictures that great artists had
painted.
At last he settled in England. The King of England was at that time the
king of this country too. The king liked West’s pictures. West became
the king’s painter. He came to be the most famous painter in England.
He liked to remember his boyish work. He liked to remember the time
when he was a little Quaker boy making his paints of poke-juice and
Indian colors.