“I should say not,” Jean answered immediately, and then all at once, out popped her heart’s desire before she could check the words. Anybody’s heart’s desire would pop out with Beth’s eyes coaxing it. “I—I want to be an artist.”
“Keep on wishing and working then, dear, and as Becky says, if it is to be it will be.”
While the others talked of New England farms, these two sat together on the couch, Jean listening eagerly and wistfully while her cousin told of her own girlhood aims and how she carried them out.
“We didn’t have much money, so I knew I had to win out for myself. There were two boys to help bring up, and Mother was not well, but I used to sketch every spare moment I could, and I read everything on art I could find, even articles from old magazines in the attic. But most of all I sketched anything and everything, studying form and composition. When I was eighteen, I taught school for two terms in the country. Dad had said if I earned the money myself, I could go abroad, and how I worked to get that first nest egg.”
“How much did you get a week?”
“Twelve dollars, but my board was only three and a half in the country, and I saved all I could. Of course, at that time, it was cheaper to go abroad—and easier, too. I wouldn’t recommend your trying to go to Europe right now, but there are plenty of good schools and teachers in this country. If you really do want work and kind of hunt a groove you’re fitted for, you’ll always find something to do.”
Jean was leaning forward, her chin propped on her hands. “Yes, I know,” she said. “Do go on, please.”
“Ellen Brainerd, the teacher I studied under in Boston at one time, was one of New England’s marvelous spinsters with the far vision and cash enough to make a few of her dreams come true. Every year she used to take a group of art students to Europe, and with her encouragement I went the third year, helping her with a few of the younger ones, and paying part of my tuition that way. And oh,” Beth’s eyes were sparkling as she recalled her student days, “we set up our easels in the fountain square in Barcelona and hunted Dante types in Florence. We trailed through Flanders and Holland and lived for a time in Paris.”
“And you painted all those places?” exclaimed Jean. “I’ve wanted so much to go.”
“Well, I tried to,” Beth looked ruefully into the open fire. “Yes, I tried to paint like all the old masters and new masters, from Rembrandt to Degas. I did everything except try to develop a technique of my own.”