Jasper Weekly Courier, Volume 14, Number 7, Jasper, Dubois County, 22 March 1872 — Page 2

She Jasper (Courier.

C. I0 AN K, Tl BLlSUEK. IBI 111 (OKU OF A SILENT MAN. UV MARIA K. lAIIT, I MM into the world two months bOoiH'i thiin my friends expected me, and I tlwaia thought that tins account ed for my never being quite oM enough tor the world. I was alwaysat a disadvantage, though I urn not h stupid man. My who says 1 nni not, and the surely should know, who sees so much of me. My very talents seemed always in the way. My perception of things made me always t,ecm stupider than I wo; lor 1 was overpowered and made silent by all I felt. I was forever misunderstood in those desolate days when 1 was a bachelor and alone. Now Molly explains me, and everybody understands her. But how I anticipate! I urn confusing you by speaking of things that came alter, betört telling you what came first Molly wouldn't do so. Well. I will tell vou what came first First came a narrow, dirty street, and a door-way with little black signs at the side of it, setting forth in gold letters the various names of the occupants of the various floors of the house and their various occupations. my name was there. Then came four long flights of dirtv stairs and then came a door with a little black sign on it, and on the sign some gold lettets that spelled "Joseph .Burrows. Artist." Joseph Burrows is my name. The little sign proclaimed uie an artist. I never could get quite used to it, and wanted to scratch over the wort! artist, art student. But that wouldn't have looked as well, you know. And people used to call me what the sign unblush ingly proclaimed. Next came the studio ins:de the door, where all sorts of odds and ends, drapery, and other bric-a-brac hung about the room in the midst of easels and ketches. A huge, full-length portrait stood halt-finished on oae easel, and a little painting of wild roses on another by its side. One morning a gentleman came into my studio, and gave me the order to Faint the great big portrait of himself, had often painted a full-length figure for a fancy picture, but never a portrait. You see, a portrait was different, because the origin fc had to be pleased. I was staggered at the thought. I had found it quite hard enough to please a man with a portrait of his own face, but to attempt to please him with a portrait of his own legs ! Really, it was too much. I couldn't, I wouldn't paint it ! Why didn't I say so then ? There I stood quite silent, with the gentleman confronting me. He was very tall. What a long canvas he would take ! My heart sank into my boots. " Not very busy now ?" said the gentleman. I shook my head. Begin next week then ?" My breath left me. 44 Very well, then, next week. Monday suit you ? Monday, at ten ?'' 44 Monday," 1 said as one in a dream. He took a check out of his pocket-book, sat down at my secretary (an old carved one, I had bought at a curiosity-shop), and tilled up the check, saying, "I suppose you'd rather I'd begin so," and left me standing with his check in my hand, as he slammed my studio door and ran down stairs. I had a wild idea of rushing after him and stopping him, giving him back his check, and telling him that I couldn't Saint his picture. It was of no use : he ad gone. 1 didn't even know his address. He had come in unasked, unexpected, talked fast, and slammed my door; spoilt my day's work, disturbed my mood, and bound me over to his will by this check I held in my hand; and, worst of all, he probably imagined he iiad done me a favor. Why! 1 ought to ba glad. Here was five hundred dollars, to be had by walking into a bank and showing this scrap of paper. But I wasn't glad. I wanted to paint my wild roses lor a present, if I could make up my mind to give it to my distant cousin Molly, the delight of my heart, my constant dream; ouly I had never told her so. 1 put the check away in a drawer of the secretary, and went out to lunch. It waa not until 1 was going home at dusk that I made up my mind to go into the color-man's, to order my huge canvas. I was aware that I looked apologetic, and give the order in a very subdued tone : 44 Six feet six by three feet six." ''Are you going to paint a mantelpiece, Mr. Burrows?'' said the colorman ; and I knew he was laughing in his sleeve. The next morning 1 was at work on my wild-roses, forgetting my coming troubles, when there came a rap on the door a most impertinent, obvious, discomposing knock. I knew it was the canvas, and went to let it in, glancing furtively up and down the entry, to see if any other studio-door was open for the inmate to look out and say i "Why ! what's all that canvas going to do with Burrows?" Again my morning was spoilt, f couldn't work on my roses with that great thing in the room. I put it in my closet, but it proved to be only a skeleton there. I took it out and again and set it on an easel. It was a whole foot taller than myself. How ridiculous! Should I paint on a ctep-ladder ? What business had men to be six feet ; or, if they were, why did they come to me to have their portraits painted ? I sat down in despair, gazing helplessly at my canvas and so the day went. The next day was Sunday. Sun day truly! The sunlight lay bright and cloar upon the pavements, and the

houses and people oast sharp, clean-cut shadows on them, like n French pic ture. The air wa delicious, the vine-, on the houses wot e all in bloom, and a

swept blue skv glowed like a great sap phire over all, while down at tiie horizon (so much of horizon M one can fee in the city) lav couched little grayish white clouds, like a oiiiet flo"k of sheep Yet I hadn't a word to say about it all when Greenwood, the landscape painter, joined nie and said : Wbnt a glorious dav. Burrows! Like L ion, bat it? "Ah!" said I. " Well, well ! I suppose you figure painters don t care so much tor nature see more benutv in men's and women's phizzes," ami he walked on. 1 saw a dog lying basking in the sun on some steps. " I'm like that," 1 said to myself, "like that poor, dumb creature there. The sunlight and beauty flood me and make me druuk with tlu-m, and I have no words to be grateful with. How this day would be in the country, in a certain country I know, where Molly makes the bright center of the sunliirht! Yet I should be dumb there too." The next morning I woke tothedread reality. As 1 put my key to my studio door I turned awav mv head that I might not see how the little sign "Joseph Burrows, Artist," sneered at me. My sitter came most carefully upon his hour. He found me mounted upon a stool, measuring off the main proportions on my canvas. He came in a great light overcoat, and stood with one side of it grandly thrown back, while he rested upon a stout stick he carried. I was despairing and overwhelmed. I was never meant to do the colossal. There was no tiring the man. He stood without coring until two o'clock, and then proposed that we should lunch together and return to the work afterward. He carried me off like a lamb to the slaughter. He made me eat raw oysters and drink ale. I suggested that I never drank ale. " Do you good ! do you good!'' said my sitter. "Just try it; best thing for you. Oh ! you must !" and I dr ink the nasty stun, and back we went to the studio, where mv invincible sitter stood until it was dusk and I could see no more. Bo here again to-morrow at ten." said he, buttoning up his coat, put tint! on his hat. wrenching my hand until it ached, and slamming my studio-door until he made me jump. 1 was exhausted. I iust dropped mi unwashed brushes and mv half-full palette on the floor and mvself on the sofa, and there I stayed until the next morning, when 1 went home to my astonished landlady's to dress anil breakfast, and came back to the studio to find my sitter standing at the door, his hands behind his back with his cane in them, while he was reading the obnoxious sign on the door. " Holloa 1 holloa ! Before you this morning,'' he said, wrenching my hand again. We went in together. I picked up my palette and brushes and rut them one side, and got a fresh palette and brushes, and my sitter having already posed himself I set to work again. No ret until two o'clock, when he took out his watch and said, " Oh ! time for lunch. Come along!" and I went unresistingly. " Beginning to like ale, are'nt you ?" "iot muon. " "Oh! but you will soon. Do you good ! Take another gla-s ! Oh ! you must!" Back again to the studio, and my sitter posed before I had regained the breath I had lost on the stairs. No rest until it was dusk again. I actually fell from my high stool and staggered up against the wall. " Not tired !'' says my sitter, as if he was the pattern of all the world. " Oh! you'll be all rested to-morrow. Good night. I'll be here to-morrow at the same time." He buttoned up his great coat, stuck on his hat, tried to wrench my hand but I jumped nervously out of his way slammed my door and wa- gone. I was trembling in eveiy limb, my head splitting. I droppedmy palette and brushes on the floor, threw open both windows and the skvliuht. and dropped upon the sofa. I dreamt that I went out into the country, through a certain wicket-gate, into a garden, where I heard Molly's voice among the roses, but when I got to where the voice came from she wasn't there. I dreamed that I saw her in a sunny green field herding butterflies as if they were sheep. I ran to meet her, and it suddenly grew dark and I could not find her, and while I sought for her there came up a great thunder-torm. I woke, and the thunder was at my own door, and the sunlight was pouring in through my open windows. The thunder at the door grew louder. I jumped up and let in my invincible sitter. He stared at seeing me so tumbled and disheveled, but made no remark but to wish me a loud " Good morning !" and posed at once. 1 found my third and last clean palette and my remaining brushes, and set to work feeling very empty and a little faint, but I kept up bravely until two o'clock, when plump upon the hour my Bittter looked at his watch and said : ''Holloa! Lunch-time! Come along !" Faint, weary, disheveled, I went with him. I managed to find voice to say i "No ale, than you. I've not breakfasted today." " Not breakfated !" roared my sitter. "I tell you, young man, if you expect to succeed in life, you must keep regular, steady hours. Go to bed arly and get up early." 1 don't know what he thought I had been doing. I could say no thing, but met hin steady, reproving look with a guilty blush of course, and knew that he aid to himself : "(h ! these artists are a loose tort of folks.'" Aloud he said

"Walter, bring hero u glass of sodauater with a little extra soda, hfow, Mr. But lows, drink that and you'll feel belter. -ir."

Relentlessly hock again to tf o studio for the long afternoon. The sun set so latent this season! Work, woik.workl No rest until the durkno-s crept in upon us. " Remember you go to bod early to night !'' said mv sitter as ho slummed the door just in time to miss seeing in drop mv palette, face downward, on the Moor, and myaell utter it. I recovered from mv faint to find the studio quite dark, except for h tiny ray oi mooniignt mat lay on my little pic ture ot the wild-roses. I had just strength to drag myself to the open window, where, hanging half out ot it, halt in, the soft, cool evening air revived nie ;i:i,t tilled me with a de licious dreamy mkp. I forgot the dreadful OMTM behind me, andremombered Mom , and the garden so full of roses. Wliydidn l 1 go to her before this sitter of mice had Quit? killed me? Why? I would. I'd go Friday and stay over .Sunday. I be uvam I had dreamed in the street on Sunday morn ing should be true. I ironed about the studio and found a e oidle, found a match and llifhted it, opened the secre tary, and sat down to ii and wrote two notes. " Dear Molly i May 1 come Friday and stay over Sunday ? Yours, Joe." " Mr. : Dear Sir I am not well, and am going out of town until Monday. Shall therefore be obliged to defer your sittings until Friday of next week. Yours respectfully, "Josxru Burrows." To these I added their respective addresses ; then found a nine, tilled and lighted it, and began to smoke and feel . M k 7 comforted. It was wonderful how much better I felt already as I locked the studio door and groped my way down the rtairs and out into the "lieh ted street. I went into a restaurant and ate some dinner my first dinner in three days. I ate it with a relish, and went home afterward to make a refreshing toilet and go to bed. How I slept and dreamed of Molly and the garden of roses ! How I waked with a light heart, and ran up the Main when I went to my studio! How I turned the big canvas to the wall with a victorious laugh ! 1 smoked a pipe and sang alternately as I sat on the window-sill, and scraped my three palettes clean, and put my brushes to soak in turpentine, and lazed and lounged and dreamed, and listenei for the postman who couldn't bring me the letter I wanted until the latest delivery. I cashed my big check when I went to lunch, and bought some paintbrushes and a little gift for Molly, and hen I went back and minted on mv wild roses. Molly was like a wild-rose. She was like the dawn, the rosy, fresh, overwhelming dawn. No wonder I couldn't tell her the love that was in my heart for her. I had been trying to tell her for five years. Does the skv tell the dawn anything when she comes resistlessly and floods it with uer beams? Rat-tat-tat ! Rat-tat-tat I I sprang to the door to see the postman's retreating figure, and on the floor at my feet the letter I wanted. I tore it open and kissed the name on the la-t page of the sheet. I kissed it all over. I rushed to the window to read it by the sunset light. "I was thinking this morning that I'd ä lief be a meadow with the sun on it, one of my own dear meadows, that have taught me so many things, and helped to educate my ancestors before me, when your note coming made me remember that human relations were impossible then, except in such dumb fasion as I have described, so I must be content to be myself, who is happily looking forward to a visit from her dear old cousin. I was wondering yesterday if June hadn't reminded you of the visit you promised us. It s?ems to bo a particularly propitious time, though all times are propitious for having our friends with us ; but now the roses are at their prime, and the foxgloves and the rest wait your approval of their beauty. Come by all means on Friday. These days have been all out-of-door days with me. I am very faithful to my drawing, hoping to get a great deal of sketching done before the summer fettles down upon us with her stitlinc heat. Tom tells me that I shall be too late for the mail, but I hope not, for then it would be like you not to come. Do come, whether you hear or not. It will be so stupid of me if you don't. M." (which may stand for mortificaotin on my part). The time that elapsed between the reading of that letter, and the moment when I sat by Molly's side in a little open wagon, driving from the steamboat that had brought mo there to the house where Molly lived, is a complete blank in my mind. I don't know what I did, or how the hours went. I knew that I was sitting quite silent beside Molly, just feeling the delight of her presence, and never remembering that I was a little, unattractive man of five feet six, with hazel eyes and a sallow skin, a very Bhort purse, and rather weak nerves, never remembering how the little sign sneered at me on my studio door, nor the dreadful canvas inside that stood with its face to the wall. Again I was in the porch, where I had stood so often, and where the honeysuckle surrounded me with fragrance. Again the kind cousins were welcoming me. Again I stood alone in my little accustomed room, three-windowed, whitewhashed, and fragrant with groat bunches of roses. Again I sat in the dining room, whitewashed, low eeilinged, with little windows set high up above cupboards in the wall, and Molly at the head of the

table in a simple- white gown, looking like the incarnation of summer against a background of roses, helping strawI ! I itl and ere Uli. O Molly, Molly ! how could I find any words? It was enough to s t there and know it all. Knough to see you afterward in the bright, cheerful little parlor flitting abiitit, threading your mother's needles, playing backgammon with father until lie f,ll asleep, talk in:- with

your sister and brother, making a beaut i fill picture wherever you stood or sat, und just letting me look on knew 1 liked West. It was enough to go to sleep afterwara, and see it all over again in my dreams; to waken at your tap on the door, and hear your May-morning voice bidding DM got up ; to listen to your retreating footsteps, while my heart kept time to them. I went down stairs, and found her not in the parlor, not on the jioreh where the birds were singing among the honeysuckles, not on the gardenpath that led down to the front-gate with the peonies on either side and the hr-trees at the end. In the garden perhaps. I went through the side gate, the picket-gdte, with a most delightful arrangement of grape-vines over it, to the garden beyond, brilliant with ratet, and there was a long, straight path edged with box. and such foxgloves and pansies, and all sorts of old-fash ioned flowers. I hero I found Mollv. She picked a creat red rose lor me. very full blown, and it fell to nieces in my hand a great handful of soft fresh velvet and then we ran into breakfast, to fresh eggs and cream, and homomade bread, and home-made butter. and home-grown strawberries and DOi A ft . ja . 1 taioes. Atter hreaktust we went out into the garden again. To stand at the end of n lone walk and see Molly picking roses, was a pretty picture to see. To hear her talk about the flowers was picture and music and poetry altogether. rhe gave me some pansies. savim? that they were always like me to her. I wondered whv, but didn't ask her. I pointed to some white foxgloves standing in the sun. " Yes, they're alys saying something to themselves. I never know what they say," she said. bending down as if she would listen, and springing up again like a young sapling and pointing to the peonies, said: "How they hang down, drunk with sunshine and dew! What unreserved creatures they are ! So unlike the pansies !" She laughed a little slyly, and turning up the wet face of a great peony, buried her owu in it. My heart tea It a jealous pang. She couldn't bury her face in a pansy, it was not big enough. We went in laden, Molly with roses, I with foxgloves. Molly, who is never in a hurry (such a comfort to a nervous man. Heaven bles Uer!) leisurely arranged her flowers in water, and 1 6at by watching her. and looking at a portfolio of her out-door sketches. Thee ardous tasks accomplished, we took our painting traps and set forth on a walk over the fields of strawberries and fields of grass, among fruit trees and shade trees. Then we walked over grazing meadows (where the creatures came at Molly's call, and had no fear of her), and into orchards, past the fruit i:OUse, where the fruit was kept and packed for the market. Over stone walls, from one orchard to another, wo went, Molly keeping sometimes at my side, sometimes behind, sometimes in front of me, but always warbling on with her sweet talk in her wonderful voice, playing u soft accompaniment to the peaceful scene. 44 Here we'll stop." said Molly in a kind of accidental way she has, that is quite fascinating. We stopped, and Molly dropped on the grass as if she meant to stay there forever. Forever be it, I thought. Oh ! her blessed, restful ways 1 We were in an orchard where the sunlight sifted through the low branches on to the green, soft ground beneath. We were on the edge of a natural terrace, where we looked down on the ton of another orchard. 14 When the blossoms are out," said Molly, " I sit here in a shower of petals and look down on a great pinkandwhite bed, and over there the mountains are very dark see ! and a gleam of the liver cornea winding among the trees." A bird hopped close to us. and then flew away to join his companions, who were practicing their scale among tho apple-tree. Molly sketched the scene, and I how could I sketch anything but Molly, when Molly was there? Molly with n little pink handkerchief tied around her lovely throat, and her sweet face in shadow beneath her straw hat, into which she had stuck some daisies as we walked. " A farmer's daughter shouldn't like white-weed,'' she had said, "but I loe them, with their pure gold hearts and their innocent, open faces." So the happy morning sped awav, and on my canvas was I little daub of sweet, soft tones, with a shadowy something of Molly in it, and Molly had an exquisite pencil-sketch. She came and looked over my shoulder, and said something about my sketch, I don't know what. I was listening to her voice, and I remember the tone it had now. 44 Shall we go on ?" said Molly accidentally, and led me through more orchards, and over a high atone wall to where it was boggy and the reeds grew high, and then through another field of ftrawberriea on a sunny slope, and we picked and ate as we went. Here a big gnarled apple tree stood all alone at the foot of tho dope, and there was a fence that led out into a shady road, and there were lady slippers and wild-roses, and by and by a gate, that was the frontgate, leading up the path to Molly's house, with the dark fir-trees at

wr side ot the path. Dinner with Molly by my side t0 fill my idate with good things ad ult(.r ward my foxglove in a beautiful lidit in the parlor, where 1 sat down to work from them. Whoconld not work in this peaceful atmosphere with Molly coming in and eut through the open door like trau, of harmonious music? I elated my eyes, and Imagined that it wa my ni, studio, and lliul my wife came in and out. I thought this was going on forever when the light changed, and M,,y came and looked at my work, and laid it was " wonderful," and MM, " Don't touch it again ; another touch would hurt it. I think you almost know what they say when they whisper together." I shook my head, looking up happily iuto her face, and then I ventured to tell her of the wild roses I had for her. She went to the window and pulled aside the white curtain, showing me the road outside, and their old horse Steady, harnessed into buggy, standing patiently by the boftB block. "Does it tempt you'" said Molly. "I thought we'd g. to drive." "Thy thoughts are ever an inspiration, Molly," 1 thought, but I need not tell you that 1 didn't say it. Never had the peculiar beauty of the scenery so moved me before the wildness and the cultivation. Some fields of wheat, very light and wavy, standing up against the dark blue of tht mountains, were a color-study to be remem bered. When we got to the long hills we let the horse walk, and Molly sang me some quaint little songs with her soothing, beautiful voice. So we went through woods and through villages until the darkness came upon us. It was very happy, then, to sit there silently and hear her soft breathing at my side, while I held my own breath to listen. I remembered my dream of her, when I sought for her iii the darkness, und I knew that the darkneH would be light about mo if she were with uaoever. u It has been a pleasant day," said Molly, as we got out at the gate, and gave tne horse to the farm hand, who was waiting for us at the horse (lock. I ventured to take her hand and draw it through my arm. We did not go in at once, but walked down the road and watched a broojl in the dark sky growning wider and wider, and gold and more golden, until the half-moon came through, and we walked home in a path of light our two shadows running before us. Was the night or the day best, Mol ly ? The clay when I saw and heard you, the night when I dreamed of you, and there were no limits to possibilities? Molly's morning-glory voice at my door waked me to the sense of another day. Alas ! 1 thought it was to be the end. No matter! 1 would forget that and live in it. It was Sunday. It rained hard, but the rain would be sunshine for me if Molly ami I watched it together. There was something pleasant and quiet about it ull day. It seemed to shut us out from the outside world and make us a little solitude. We had a wood fire on old-fashioned andirons, and sometimes Molly knelt before the fire and blew up the flames with a big pair of bellows. The sound of the church-bells came to us through the rain, but I poured out the thank from my grateful heart, while I looked at Molly on her knees before the fire, with the firelight on her hair and face, and tried to make me a little sketch of her to carry away with me on the morrow. Later, we all stood about the doorway watching the clearing off of the rain, and after tea we sat on the porch, Molly and one of her sisters close together, making a picture Molly in a dark-green dress that was perfectly charming. Up in the honeysuckle a bird had built its nest, in which the mother-bird sat, and the little husband stood on the edge of it and sang to her. just as if there wasn't a party of people watching them. The peonies down the path looked more bacchanalian than ever. Outside a little hare ran across the road. I looked at Molly imploringly, and she understood me, and went with me down the path and down the road, and last of all through the wicket-gute, under the grape vines into the garden, where we walked and picked the wet roses. 44Uaa it been a dream?" I said. " And will it be all over to-morrow ?" She said very softly : " It's absurd, Joe, that you should be going away alone again. You need some one to take care of you." I looked at her with a questioning face right into the depths of her gentle eyes. A mist swam before my own, so that I saw her faintly as in a vision. A great tide of joy flooded my heart. I think 1 said : 44 Will you gowith me, Molly?" I knew that the pansies shut a sweet, sweet secret tight into their silent hearts. I knew that the foxglove hells were ringing our wedding chimes. A little while after, we stood in the twilight parlor, and received the blessing of Molly's people. We, who needed so little any other blessing than that we had just found ! In responding to a request from New York for h s autograph, Gen. Spinner wrote: 4 You ,nk for my autograph with a sentiment. My sentiment is this: When a gentleman writes another on his own business, he should inclose a postage stamp."

the gate and the peonies at eitl