I was intently interested and I wished my father could see the place. Count von Hatzfeldt showed me the work he was doing for the directors of the Château de Ramezay Society, who were intending to make a museum of the place. He was restoring the old portraits of the different Canadian governors and men of historical fame in Canada.
“I will want you to work on this Heraldry,” he said, and indicated a long table scattered with water-color paper, water colors, and sketches of coats of arms. “I will sketch in the coat of arms, and you will do the painting, young lady. We use this gold and silver and bronze a great deal. This, I suppose, you know, is called ‘painting en gauche.’”
I assured him I could do it. Papa had often painted in that medium, and had taught me. I told the Count that once a well-known artist of Boston called on papa to help him paint some fine lines on a big illustration. He said his eyes were bothering him, so he could not finish the work. It just happened that at that time papa’s eyes were also troubling him, but as he did not want to lose the work, he had said:
“I’ll send my little girl to you. She can do it better than I.”
“And Count von Hatzfeldt,” I said proudly, “I did do it, and the artist praised me when I finished the work, and he told papa he ought to send me to Boston to study at the art schools there.”
At that time I was only thirteen. The Boston artist gave me ten dollars. I gave eight of it to mama. With the other two, I bought fifty cents’ worth of candy, which I divided among all of us, mama included. With the dollar-fifty left, I bought Ellen a birthday present of a brooch with a diamond as big as a pea in it that cost twenty-five cents. Then Ellen and I went to St. Helen’s Island, and there we ate peanuts, drank spruce beer (a French-Canadian drink), had two swings and three merry-go-rounds, and what with the ten cents each for the ferry there was nothing left to pay our carfare home. So we walked, and mama was angry with us for being so late. She slapped Ellen for “talking back,” and I always got mad if Ellen got hurt, so I “talked back” worse and then I got slapped, too, and we both had to go to bed without supper.
I didn’t tell all this to the Count; only the first part about doing the work, etc. He said—he talked with a queer sort of accent, like a German, though I believe he was Scandinavian:
“Ya, ya! Vell, I will try you then. Come you to vork to-morrow and if you do vell, you shall have five dollar a veek. For that you vill vork on the coat of arms two hours a day, and if I find you can help me mit the portraits—it maybe you can lay in the bag-grounds, also the clothes—if so, I vill pay you some little more. Ya, ya!”
He rubbed his hands and smiled at me. He looked so much like a funny little hobgoblin that I felt like laughing at him, but there was also something very serious and almost angry in his expression.