Golda showed Mr. Macalister the boy’s pictures, and he was genuinely impressed, especially by a picture of three oranges in a basket.
“It’s not,” he said, “that they make you want to eat them, as that they make you look at them as you look at oranges. I’ll look closer at every orange I see now. That’s talent. Yes. That’s talent. Aye.”
Mendel was so grateful to him that he forgot the others and began to point out to him how well the oranges were painted, with all their fleshiness and rotundity brought out. And very soon they were all laughing at him, and that made the meeting happier.
Mr. Macalister explained that in old days artists used to take boys into their studios, but that now there were Schools of Art where only very talented people could survive. He certainly thought that Mendel ought to be given a chance, and if it were a question of money, he, poor though he was, would be only too glad to help. Golda would not hear of that, and Abramovich protested that, in an unhappy time like this, he regarded himself as the representative of his unfortunate friend.
The corner was turned. Feeling was now all with Mendel, and he went to bed singing in head and heart: “I’m an artist! I’m an artist! I’m an artist!”
So the ball was set rolling. Jacob, seen behind the bars, raised no objection. He had had time to think, and, to the extent of his capacity, availed himself of it. When he was told that his youngest son wanted to be an artist and wept at the suggestion of anything else, he thought: “Who am I to say ‘Yea’ or ‘Nay’?” and he said “Yea.” “Let the boy have a little happiness while he may, for the Christians are very powerful and will take all that he cherishes from him.”
The question of ways and means was considered, and here Abe Moscowitsch took charge. His business had prospered during his enforced absence, and his bankruptcy had been very profitable. He was a decent man, and anxious to make amends to his young wife and her family for the trouble his adventurousness had brought on them. To please her he took a new house with bow-windows and a garage, and to please them he jumped at the opportunity of helping Mendel, and offered to pay his fees at a School of Art. When the boy heard this he ran to his brother-in-law’s office and, before all his workmen, flung his arms round his neck and embraced him.
“That’ll do. That’ll do,” said Moscowitsch. “Don’t forget us if you’re a rich man before I am.”
“I shall never leave home,” said Mendel. “I shall never marry. I shall live all my days with my mother, painting.”