It was she who was the first to discover that her little grandson liked to draw. His first drawings were copies of pictures in his grandmother's old illustrated Bible. He would listen to stories read to him from the Bible and then he would take a piece of chalk and draw a picture of what happened in the story.
Soon he began to draw large, bold pictures which covered the stone wall of their house. The grandmother was much pleased! She found a new story to read or tell him nearly every day.
Of course his father and mother saw the pictures as soon as they came home, and encouraged the boy as much as they could. The father liked to draw, too, but he could not see why Millet should be making up pictures from imagination when there were so many real things to draw. So he called his son's attention to the trees, the fields, and houses in the distance, and soon the boy began to draw these, too.
One Sunday when Millet was coming home from church he met an old man, his back bent over a cane as he walked slowly along. Something about the bent figure made Millet feel he would like to draw a picture of the man just as he looked then. Taking a piece of charcoal from his pocket, he drew a picture of him from memory. He drew it on a stone wall, and as people passed that way they recognized the man. All liked the picture very much, and told Millet so. His father, too, was delighted, and decided that his son should have a chance to become an artist.
One day the two went to an artist who lived in a neighboring town and showed him some of Millet's sketches. The artist was amazed, and at first would not believe the boy had drawn them. You may be sure he was glad to have this bright boy for a pupil. But Millet studied with him only two months, when he was called home by the death of his father.
At first it seemed as if they needed him so much at home he would never be able to go on with his studies. But soon the good people in the little village collected a sum of money and gave it to Millet, telling him it was for him to use to go to Paris and study. Millet was almost a grown man by this time, and you may be sure he was grateful and that he worked very hard while in Paris. But people did not like his pictures, and he was very poor. Other artists painted pictures of beautiful people dressed in fine clothes and living in rich homes, and so nobody cared for Millet's poor, humble peasants, dressed in their working clothes and doing the work they had to do.
It was not until Millet was an old man that people began to appreciate his work. Now most of those fashionable artists of his time have been forgotten, while the paintings of Jean François Millet have become more and more valuable.
Questions about the artist. Where did the artist live? Who took care of Millet when he was little? Why was his mother away from home so much? Who was the first one to see his drawings? What did he draw? What did he use to make the drawings? Who helped him? how? How did his father help him? Tell about the old man leaning on a cane. Where did Millet draw his picture? Who saw it? What did they say? Where did his father take him to study? What did the artist think when he saw Millet's sketches? Why did Millet go home? What did his neighbors do for him? Where did he go then? Why was he so poor there? Why did not people like his pictures? What do people think of his pictures now?