The Picture—Art in Morals.
“SHAN’T go a step further!” “Only just a little way—we shall soon be home now, and mother’s waiting.” “I don’t care. I’ve made up my mind that I’ve walked too far already, and I’m just going to sit down and rest; they must wait, and I shall do as I choose.” “Now don’t you talk to me about ‘buts,’ Charlie, because I won’t have it. I shall sit down here, and you can go and tell your mother not to wait—not to wait,” the man repeated, raising his voice with the stupid anger of intoxication. Still, in spite of threat and refusal, the child persisted in pleading that his father should go home; but his words only seemed to strengthen the man’s obstinacy, and all the boy could do was to get his father to turn aside from the high road into a field close by, where the man threw himself at full length on the grass, somewhat under the shade of the hedge, and in a few minutes he was sleeping heavily, whilst the child sat down at a little distance, with a strange kind of unchildish patience on his features to wait until his father should wake. Rather more than half an hour had passed in this dreary waiting, and Charlie was beginning to find all his small sources of amusement fail him. He had watched a large bee that kept hovering over the convolvulus blossoms in the hedge, and wondered if he had not nearly finished his day’s work; had placed a snail out of harm’s way, and had been tempted to chase a beautiful, painted butterfly that flitted past him; but he began at last to lose his interest in bees and butterflies, for it was now supper-time, and Charlie was growing terribly hungry. Still he did not think of deserting his post, for no one but the child himself knew how often he had kept his tipsy father off the country road when carts or carriages were coming along, nor how he had managed to guide him in safety over the narrow bridge that led across the river to their cottage. So Charlie sat there quietly, though he was growing more tired and hungry every moment, until the sound of a whistle at a little distance attracted his attention, the sound gradually coming nearer and sounding more distinct, until a young man jumped over the stile at the end of the field and approached the child, who then knew him to be a gentleman he had often met during the last few weeks, sometimes sketching, sometimes wandering about with his knapsack on his back and his portfolio under his arm. Indeed, a half acquaintance had sprung up between the young artist and Charlie—one attracted by the glimpse he had caught of the pictures contained in the wonderful portfolio, the other by the child’s wistful glances and his rustic beauty. Busy with his own thoughts, and judging from his happy face they were very pleasant ones—perhaps dreams of the time when some wonderful picture of his should hang on the walls of the academy, and by so doing help him on the road to fame and fortune—Eustace Carroll had half crossed the field before he noticed Charlie and his father. Then his quick eyes told him the meaning of the little scene; the quiet, weary-looking child and the sleeping father, with his untidy clothes and collar, and necktie unfastened, and his face turned up to the blue sky that looked down upon nothing so debased as this man, whom God had made “a little lower than the angels,” and who, by his own vice, had thus degraded himself. With the quick instinct of childhood, Charlie understood the look of disgust with which the young artist turned to him, saying kindly as he did so:— “You are waiting to take your father home, I suppose?” “Yes, sir,” replied the child, whilst a flush of shame spread over his face. “Well, I think he is likely to lie there for hours yet. Can’t you leave him?” “No, sir, he might be run over or fall into the river if I left him to come home by himself.” “Oh!” said Eustace, as he glanced toward the sleeping man, and wondered if it would be much loss to any one, if he did fall into the river. “Have you had your supper, boy?” he asked as he unstrapped his knapsack and took out a small parcel wrapped in paper. “Mother will be sure to keep it for me until I get home, sir,” replied Charlie, too brave to complain to a stranger. “That’s all right,” said Eustace, understanding and respecting the feeling that dictated the answer; “meanwhile, I shall give you this piece of cake, just to pass the time away. When I was a small boy, stray pieces of cake never prevented me eating my meals when they came, so your mother’s supper will not be wasted. Now you sit still, for I am going to make a picture, and when it is finished I will show it to you.” Very few dainties fell to Charlie’s share in those days, and Eustace was highly amused at the manner in which he ate his cake, nibbling it off around the edge, so as to make it last as long as possible; and he succeeded so well that the picture was finished almost at the same time the last currant disappeared. “Well, was it good?” asked Eustace, as he tied his portfolio. “Yes, mother does not put currants in her cakes. Sometimes on our birthdays, when father has not been out, we have a cake; but then we have no seeds in it.” “And those are not so nice?” “Oh, no, sir, of course not!” answered Charlie, surprised that any one should ask such a question. “Well, I am glad you like it. I am going back to the city in a day or two, but I shall put another piece of cake in my knapsack in case I meet you again before I go. Look here; do you know this?” Charlie glanced at the little picture Eustace held out to him, and then he gave a scream of surprise. “Why, it’s me and father!” And so it was; and even though Eustace should live to be an old man, he will never succeed in making anything more true to nature than that hurried sketch. He had just caught the tired, wistful look on the child’s face, and it was all the more striking as it was brought into such contrast with the vacant countenance of the tipsy sleeper, who looked so thoroughly out of place beside the child, and the pleasant green background of the hedge, where the convolvulus blossoms mingled with the wild rose and blackberry bowers. “Wait a moment,” said Eustace, and then he wrote at the bottom of the sketch three lines from a poem by Burns:— “Oh, wad the power some giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us;
It wad frae mony a blunder free us.” “There,” he continued, putting the picture in the child’s hands. “You shall have that, and if you like to show it to your father one of these days, do so; it may teach him a lesson.” And, before the child could make any reply, Eustace was off and away, tramping along the high road.685Five years had passed before the young artist had the time and chance to visit the quiet village again. In those five years he had done good work—had thought, and worked, and painted, until people had begun to believe in him, and talked of him as one of the most promising painters of the day. Still, in the midst of all, he often remembered his little sketch, and wondered—without much hope in the wonder—whether his idea that it might do good had come to pass; and on the day he traveled down to Morston, the memory of the scene came clearly before him, with the thought of the grand old words, “Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days.” “Such a little crumb of good though it was,” said Eustace to himself, “still I wonder—I wonder—and I’ll try to find it out, too.” And, as it happened, Eustace did find it out more quickly than he expected, for that very evening, as he was returning from a walk, in the course of which he had visited some of his old haunts, there passed him on the road a man and a handsome boy of about thirteen. “My little friend and his father,” suddenly thought Eustace, whose quick, artist eye seldom forgot a face or figure; and he quickened his pace in order to keep within a short distance of the boy. So the three went on past the corner of the field where the sketch was taken, down the road, and across the bridge, till the man and boy reached a little cottage, the small front garden of which was gay with bright-colored flowers. “That looks promising,” thought Eustace, “no drunkard ever had a garden like that,” and, determined to ascertain the facts of the case, he went up to the door with the intention of asking the nearest way to the next village. Through the open door he caught a glimpse of the neatly-kept cottage kitchen, as Charlie came forward to answer the stranger’s question; but before half the right turns had been described, a bright smile broke over the boy’s face, and, half turning around, he exclaimed:— “Father, it’s my painter!” and, to his surprise, Eustace found that in that household, at least, he was a hero; and the young artist never felt more reverence for his art than he did as he listened to the account of the good that his picture had done. For some time Charlie had kept the sketch, and had been afraid to show it to his father, but the man found it by chance, one day, and “It was more than I could stand, sir,” he said, addressing Eustace. “I did not need any one to tell me what it meant, but although I wondered where it came from, I was ashamed to ask. Somehow I could not get the picture out of my head. I even used to dream of it at night until it fairly worried me so that I gave up the drink; and I had the picture hung up there, that I might not have the chance of forgetting what I dragged myself down to once.” So the story ended; and in his heart Eustace Carroll is prouder of that little sketch, hanging in a common black frame over the mantlepiece of the country cottage, than he would be if he should paint a picture that would make his name famous throughout his life.—Selected.