"Benjamin, how did thee learn to draw such a picture?" she asked.
"I didn't learn," he answered. "I just did it. I couldn't help but do it."
When Benjamin's father came home, his mother showed him the picture.
"It looks just like her, doesn't it?" she said. "But I am afraid. I
don't know what to think. Does thee suppose that it is very wrong for
Benjamin to do such a thing?"
The father did not answer. He turned the picture this way and that, and looked at it from every side. He compared it with the baby's pretty face. Then he handed it back to his wife and said:—
"Put it away. It may be that the hand of the Lord is in this."
Several weeks afterward, there came a visitor to the home of the Wests. It was a good old Friend, whom everybody loved—a-white-haired, pleasant-faced minister, whose words were always wise.
Benjamin's parents showed him the picture. They told him how the lad was always trying to draw something. And they asked what they should do about it.
The good minister looked at the picture for a long time. Then he called little Benjamin to him. He put his hands on the lad's head and said:—
"This child has a wonderful gift. We cannot understand it nor the reason of it. Let us trust that great good may come from it, and that Benjamin West may grow up to be an honor to our country and the world."
And the words of the old minister came true. The pictures of Benjamin
West made him famous. He was the first great American painter.