“The little girl is sick,” he said finally. “That is the doctor looking at her. They have been up all night—see, the oil is low in the lamp, the first morning light is coming in at the window. It is a great sickness; maybe she will die, that is why the doctor looks so hard. That is the mother. It is a great sickness, because the mother’s head is on the table and she is crying.”
“How do you know she is crying?” I interrupted. “You cannot see her face. Perhaps she is asleep.”
Sitka Charley looked at me in swift surprise, then back at the picture. It was evident that he had not reasoned the impression.
“Perhaps she is asleep,” he repeated. He studied it closely. “No, she is not asleep. The shoulders show that she is not asleep. I have seen the shoulders of a woman who cried. The mother is crying. It is a very great sickness.”
“And now you understand the picture,” I cried.
He shook his head, and asked, “The little girl—does it die?”
It was my turn for silence.
“Does it die?” he reiterated. “You are a painter-man. Maybe you know.”
“No, I do not know,” I confessed.
“It is not life,” he delivered himself dogmatically. “In life little girl die or get well. Something happen in life. In picture nothing happen. No, I do not understand pictures.”