| 571 | 572 | 573 | 574 | 575 |
| 1 | 314 | 629 | 943 | 1257 |
|
tomorrow--don't fail." He was in love with the girl, and with her
husband too, and said he believed there was merit in the statue. Pretty
crude work, maybe, but merit in it.
Patrick and I hunted up the place, next day; the girl saw us driving up,
and flew down the stairs and received me. Her quarters were the second
story of a little wooden house--another family on the ground floor. The
husband was at the machine shop, the wife kept no servant, she was there
alone. She had a little parlor, with a chair or two and a sofa; and the
artist-husband's hand was visible in a couple of plaster busts, one of
the wife, and another of a neighbor's child; visible also in a couple of
water colors of flowers and birds; an ambitious unfinished portrait
of his wife in oils: some paint decorations on the pine mantel; and an
excellent human ear, done in some plastic material at 16.
Then we went into the kitchen, and the girl flew around, with
enthusiasm, and snatched rag after rag from a tall something in the
corner, and presently there stood the clay statue, life size--a graceful
girlish creature, nude to the waist, and holding up a single garment
with one hand the expression attempted being a modified scare--she was
interrupted when about to enter the bath.
Then this young wife posed herself alongside the image and so
remained--a thing I didn't understand. But presently I did--then I said:
"
O, it's you!"
573
Page
Quick Jump
|