In the studio Susan flourished accusing arms.
"Look at that, an' that, an' that!" she cried. "Why, it's like jest any extraordinary common-sense room now, that anybody might have, with them pictures all put away, an' his easel hid behind the door, an' not a brush or a cube of paint in sight—an' him dolin' out vinegar an' molasses down to that old store. I tell you it made me sick, Mr. Jenkins, sick!"
"Yes, yes, that's so," murmured Mr. Jenkins, vaguely.
"Well, it did. Why, it worked me up so I jest sat right down an' made up a poem on it. I couldn't help it. An' it came easy, too—'most like the spontaneous combustion kind that I used to write, only I made it free verse. You know that's all the rage now. Like this," she finished, producing from somewhere about her person a half-sheet of note-paper.
"Alone an' dark
The studio
Waited:
Waited for the sun of day.
But when it rose,
Alas!
No lovely pictures greeted
The fiery gob.
Only their backs showed
White an' sorry an' some dusty.
No easel sprawled long legs
To trip
An' make you slip.
No cubes of pig-lent gray
Or black,
Nor any other color lent brightness
To this dank world.
An' he—the artist? The bright soul who
Bossed this ranch?
Alas!
Doomed to hide his bright talons
In smelly kegs of kerosene
An' molasses brown an' sticky.
Alas, that I should see an'
Know this
Day.
There, now, ain't that about the way 'tis?" she demanded feelingly.
"Er—yes, yes, it is. That's so." Mr. Jenkins was backing out of the room and looking toward the stairway. Mr. Jenkins had been a member of the Burton household long enough to have learned to take Susan at her own valuation, with no questions asked. "Yes, that's so," he repeated, as he plunged down the stairs.
To Daniel Burton himself Susan made no further protests or even comments—except the silent comment of eager service with some favorite dish for every meal. As Christmas drew near, and Daniel Burton's hours grew longer, Susan still made no audible comment; but she redoubled her efforts to make him comfortable the few hours left to him at home.