“No, I am an only child, and very much spoilt.”
“Your parents, are they—living?”
“Oh yes, and still young. My mother is the most beautiful woman in New York.”
The artist caught the smile, then set him talking again, looking keenly into his face with its quick changes, its light and shade. He laughed often; he would throw back his head with a gush of merriment. That laugh thrilled the artist; it was like a far-away echo; it played on the chord of remembrance, bringing out a melody long unheard.
“You are not of pure American stock?”
“Oh yes, my mother and grandmother were born there. Mother is of Spanish-Hebrew blood. Father is of Dutch extraction; he is proud of being ‘pure American’—he forgets the Indian. All others are of emigrant origin; only some came over on earlier ships. A European called us a melting pot. I hate that expression; people don’t melt. We are not a smelting furnace. To me the United States is like a big Colonial mansion, with many windows made up of little panes of glass, which I call Race. Each one colors his glass with his own racial impulse.”
“Oh, my window looks toward the East where the sun rises; it is gorgeous, with many colors,” laughed the boy.
“I think I catch your meaning. It would make a good symbolical picture. A great prairie, and standing in it a White House built on Colonial lines. It is flooded with a glare of strong light, which in the individual separates into its prismatic colors—the different races.”
“Yes, that’s what I mean; only an artist could think it out like that. Will you paint it?”