I kept my word, and in a few days I had painted on a piece of blue satin that Lois found among her things a bunch of roses which poor Tim declared he could almost smell. That same evening he brought me two enormous whiskey bottles. They were about five feet high—sample bottles. They were, of course, empty. Tim made the astonishing request of me that I should paint on them, and he offered to pay me.
So I painted a little seascape on one and a wreath of lilies of the valley and forget-me-nots on the other. Of course, I would not take pay from Tim for them. The following day Tim came rushing in to tell me he had placed them on his bar, and all of his friends and customers had thought them great, and one man had offered him five dollars apiece for them. He said that nothing would induce him to part from them, but he was sending over to me all the big sample whiskey bottles he could get, and also beer and wine and champagne bottles, and he said if I would paint on these he would sell them for me. Well, the astonishing part is that he did sell them. I must have decorated at least twenty of those awful bottles, and Tim got me about forty dollars for my work. So I was able to pay Miss Darling, and I went over to the boarding-house where I still owed that bill and I paid it. To my surprise the landlady tried to force two dollars back upon me:
“We all know how sick you’ve been,” she said, “and I said to my man: ‘We’ll never see the color of that board money,’ and he ses: ‘You’ll get it yet,’ and you see he’s always right. So here, you can take two of it back, and may you have the good luck your pretty face should bring you.”
Lois sailed on one of the small merchant liners, and it left the pier at five in the morning, so we had to get up very early to see her off. We had sat up very late the night before, and Dr. Squires had spent the evening with us and promised to be at the pier to see her off. The morning was foggy and chilly. I clung tightly to Lois before I let her go, and the doctor said:
“Here, give another fellow a chance.”
He, too, kissed Lois, and there were tears in both their eyes.
XXXIX
IT is inconceivably hard for a girl without a definite trade or profession, and possessed of no particular talent, to earn her own living. With Tim O’Leary’s help I had made a little money that tided me over for a time, but I realized that it was merely a temporary relief. The artists would not be returning for a couple of months, and I was in a quandary what I should do. A letter from Lil Markey, the girl who had posed for Count von Hatzfeldt in Montreal, made me consider the advisability of joining her in New York.
This is Lil’s letter:
“Dear Marion: