“Say, papa, what do I use for these pink roses?”
“Try rose madder, white and emerald green—a little naples yellow,” answered papa patiently.
“Papa, what shall I use for the leaves?”
“Oh, try making your greens with blues and yellows.”
From time to time I bothered him. By and by, I tired of the work, and getting up with a clatter, I went over and watched him. He was painting cool green waves dashing over jagged rocks, from a little sketch he had taken down at Lachine last summer.
“Tell me, papa,” I said after a moment, “if I keep on learning, do you think I will ever be able to earn my living as an artist?”
“Who? What—you? Oh!” Absently papa blew the smoke about his head, gazed at me, but did not seem to see me. He seemed to be talking rather to himself, not bitterly, but just sadly:
“Better be a dressmaker or a plumber or a butcher or a policeman. There is no money in art!”
II
NEXT to our garden, separated only by a wooden fence, through which we children used to peep, was the opulent and well-kept garden of Monsieur Prefontaine, who was a very important man, once Mayor of Hochelaga, the French quarter of Montreal, in which we lived. Madame Prefontaine, moreover, was an object of unfailing interest and absorbing wonder to us children. She was an enormously fat woman, and had once taken a trip to New York City, to look for a wayward sister. There she had been offered a job as a fat woman for a big circus. Madame Prefontaine used to say to the neighbors, who always listened to her with great respect: