CHAPTER XIV
The Model
THE studio soon became a most fascinating spot to many others besides Elizabeth. Mr. Kemp was very ingenious and had a knack of turning commonplace things into artistic ones which were the wonder and admiration of all his friends. A pair of croquet mallets was transformed into high candlesticks, a row of cracked plates made decorations for the shelf above the door, a wash bench covered by a rug and set off with a row of pillows looked well on one side the room, pussywillows and strange weeds in old stone jars were most effective against a background of plain building paper, and so it went. All this appealed so strongly to the little girls that they were in danger of neglecting their studies in order to rush out to the studio, and at last a rule was made that they could go only once a day and then when their lessons for the next day were learned.
One Saturday, however, Elizabeth overstepped the bounds. She really didn’t mean to, in the first place, but circumstances so overcame her scruples that she forgot.
After having made sketches of the three girls separately and collectively, Mr. Kemp decided that he must have Elizabeth to sit for the figure in a picture he was painting. She did not particularly enjoy being a model, for it was very wearisome work to an active little body who found it very difficult to keep perfectly still for even two minutes; when it came to twenty or more on a stretch it was next to impossible. Yet for the sake of an excuse to go to the studio she was willing to undergo the martyrdom.
On this special Saturday she hurried off very soon after breakfast with the intention of studying her lessons in the afternoon. She had begged her mother to allow her to break the rule just this once, “Because,” she said, “Mr. Kemp says the light is much better in the morning, and besides he is in a hurry to get this particular picture done, for he may have a chance to sell it.”
“Very well,” replied her mother, “for this once you may set aside the rule, but come back at noon, Elizabeth.”
The child did not wait for the last words but was off like a shot. It was a cool, cloudy morning, robins and bluebirds carolling from the tree-tops, and in the fields green grass pushing through the moist earth. “Pretty soon there will be violets,” said Elizabeth to herself. She stopped to gather some yellow daffodils from the flower border and bore them with her, singing as she went along, “Daffy-down-dilly came up in the cold.” When she reached the door of the studio she paused to lift the knocker and to pound it hard against the piece of metal beneath it. The knocker was one of Mr. Kemp’s latest contrivances and was made of a large curtain ring fastened to an old piece of heavy tin. It took some pounding to bring forth much sound, but no one failed to use this means of letting the artist know of the arrival of a visitor.
At the summons Mr. Kemp came to the door with a dish towel and a tea cup in his hand. “Why, how nice and early you are,” he said. “I am just washing up my breakfast things.”
Elizabeth laughed. It seemed funny to hear a man say that, although she knew Mr. Kemp prepared his own breakfast and supper.
“Eggs, coffee and toast,” Mr. Kemp went on. “Good enough for a king. By the way, Elfie, we tried the new chimney last night and it works like a breeze. We can have a fire in the fireplace today if you are cold.” Having completed the rest, Mr. Kemp and the boys were ambitious to try their powers further and had built a stone chimney on the outside of the small building, thereby adding much to its appearance, both inside and out.