The children tried other influences besides persuasion.
“Jan Lake, I’ve brought thee an apple. Draa out a pig for I on a’s slate.”
Jan had a spirit of the most upright and honorable kind. He never took an unfair advantage, and to the petty cunning which was “Willum’s” only idea of wisdom he seemed by nature incapable of stooping. But in addition to, and alongside of, his artistic temperament, there appeared to be in him no small share of the spirit of a trader. The capricious, artistic spirit made him fitful in his use even of the beloved slate; but, when he was least inclined to draw, the offer of something he very much wanted would spur him to work; and in the spirit of a true trader, he worked well.
He would himself have made a charming study for a painter, as he sat surrounded by his patrons, who watched him with gaping mouths of wonderment, as his black eyes moved rapidly to and fro between the river’s brink and his slate, and his tiny fingers steered the pencil into cunning lines which “made pigs.” “The very moral!” as William declared, smacking his corduroy breeches with delight.
Sometimes Jan hardly knew that they were there, he was so absorbed in his work. His eyes glowed with that strong pleasure which comes in the very learning of any art, perhaps of any craft. Now and then, indeed, his face would cloud with a different expression, and in fits of annoyance, like that in which his foster-mother found him outside the windmill, he would break his pencils, and ruthlessly destroy sketches with which his patrons would have been quite satisfied. But at other moments his face would twinkle with a very sunshine of smiles, as he was conscious of having caught exactly the curve which expressed obstinacy in this pig’s back, or the air of reckless defiance in that other’s tail.
And so he learned little or nothing, and improved in his drawing, and kept the school quiet, and had always a pocket well filled with sweet things, nails, string, tops, balls, and such treasures, earned by his art.
One day as he sat “making pigs” for one after another of the group of children round him, a pig of especial humor having drawn a murmur of delight from the circle, this murmur was dismally echoed by a sob from a little maid on the outside of the group. It was Master Chuter’s little daughter, a pretty child, with an oval, dainty-featured face, and a prim gentleness about her, like a good little girl in a good little story. The intervening young rustics began to nudge each other and look back at her.
“Kitty Chuter be crying!” they whispered.
“What be amiss with ’ee, then, Kitty Chuter?” said Jan, looking up from his work; and the question was passed on with some impatience, as her tears prevented her reply. “What be amiss with ’ee?”
“Janny Lake have never made a pig for I,” sobbed the little maid, with her head dolefully inclined to her left shoulder, and her oval face pulled to a doubly pensive length. “I axed my vather to let me get him a posy, and a said I might. And I got un some vine Bloody Warriors, and a heap of Boy’s Love off our big bush, that smelled beautiful. And vather says a can have some water-blobs off our pond when they blows. But Tommy Green met I as a was coming down to school, and a snatched my vlowers from me, and I begged un to let me keep some of un, and a only laughed at me. And I daren’t go back, for I was late; and now I’ve nothin’ to give Janny Lake to make a draft of a pig for I.” And, having held up for the telling of her tale, the little maid broke down in fresh tears.