“Ha-a!” Sesooā laughed shortly, but it wasn’t a mirthful chuckle; the firefly was snuffed out in her eyes, the golden sparkle that lent such life to them.
“And why can’t you become an artist—or a designer—look forward to earning your living in that way?” she gravely asked.
“Oh, because I’ve no money, not a dollar, not a cent!” shiveringly. “And I should have some in order to educate me properly; I’d have to take a long art course in some School of Design—or Institute——”
“But if you were to tell Olive—her father is so rich!”
“Sally! Do you think I want to ‘sponge’ on them? No, I’ll just have to work ever so hard when we go back to the city, finishing out my course in the Commercial High School, learning to be an expert typist, so that I can earn my living as a stenographer. Other girls like that—the noisy room with fifty typewriters going together—I don’t!”
“Every one to his taste! I’d prefer it to painting on glass. Were you trying to do that this morning?” glancing at the befloured pane.
“Yes, father used to prepare the glass first by rubbing it with lime (I hadn’t any lime) and then spreading the thinnest layer of common paste over it; when that dried he’d lay the sheet of glass over the paper design which he had already painted and outline the design in pencil—make a cartoon, as he said—on the glass. I was just trying my hand on common glass”—whimsically—“thinking how it would be if some day I could paint a design for a beautiful Camp Fire Girls’ colored window.”
Slowly Morning-Glory raised the dulled glass and gave a glimpse of a crudely painted design underneath, which yet showed original talent; the figure of a Camp Fire Girl in a ceremonial dress and pearly head-band, her feet poised upon cloud-billows that looked very like ethereal footballs at the present stage of the crude design; over her glowed what was meant to be a sunburst, in one hand was a variegated flower, a morning-glory, in the other an unrolling scroll intended to bear the magic watchword, “Wohelo!”
“Oh! I think it’s lovely. Oh! aren’t you clever? You ought to get a National Honor from Headquarters for even thinking out such a thing,” effervesced Sally. “Oh! I wish you could ‘cut’ the typewriters and do what you want to do. Haven’t you any relatives on your father’s side who’d help you out?”
“No; his only sister died when she was young; there are just some cousins who have large families of their own.” Jessica laid down the pasty pane of glass, too cloudily dulled to be ever painted on successfully.