CHAPTER XVI
CHEMUNG
Next morning I was aroused at dawn, it seemed to me, by a pounding on a nearby door.
“Get up, you drunken hound!” called a voice which was unmistakably that of the young man who had rented us the room. “That’s right, snore, after you stay up all night,” he added; and he beat the door vehemently again.
I wanted to get up and protest against his inconsiderateness of the slumber of others and would have, I think, only I was interested to discover who the “drunken hound” might be and why this youth should be so abrupt with him. After all, I reflected, we were in a very poor hotel, the boy doing the knocking was a mere farm hand translated to the country hotel business, and anyhow we should soon be out of here. It was all life and color and if I didn’t like it I needn’t have stayed here the night before. Franklin would have gone on. But who was the “drunken hound”? The sound had ceased almost as abruptly as it had begun. The boy had gone downstairs. After awhile the light grew stronger and Franklin seemed to stir. I rose and pulled the shutters to, but could not sleep any more. The world outside looked so inviting. There were trees and great fields of grass and a few white houses scattered here and there and a heavy dew. I at once thought how delightful it would be to get up and ride on again.
“This is a typical middle west country hotel, even if it is in New York,” said Franklin, sitting up and running his hand through his tousled hair. “That fellow he’s calling a ‘drunken hound’ must be his father. I heard him tell Speed last night that his father slept in there.”
Presently we threw open the shutters and made what use we could of the bowl and pitcher and the two small towels provided.
“How did you ever come to be an artist, Franklin?” I inquired idly, as I watched him stare out at the surrounding fields, while he sat putting on his shoes. “You told me once that you were a farm hand until you were nearly twentyfive.”
“Nearly twentysix,” he corrected. “Oh, I always wanted to draw and did, a little, only I didn’t know anything about it. Finally I took a course in a correspondence school.”
“Get out,” I replied incredulously.
“Yes, I did,” he went on. “They sent me instructions how to lay in with pen and ink various sorts of line technique on sheets of paper that were ruled off in squares—long lines, short lines, stipple, ‘crosspatch’ and that sort of thing. They made some other suggestions that had some value: what kind of ink and pens and paper to buy. I used to try to draw with ordinary writing ink and pens.”