He laughed: "Because there is so much of the vagabond in me, I suppose. Then I never had any education in art. Folks as poor as Job's turkey."
"But a man can do so much or so little."
"Well, when I'm going about with the car I see a great many odd people, and can pick up little striking things for studies. I get a living, too, such as it is, which I shouldn't do if I set up as an artist. Look here!" He turned over his book and showed an etching of Mallston stepping across the common carrying his youngest, with the four older children at his heels. One had sprawled, and was evidently lifting a howl to the paternal ear. They both laughed at it.
"He's a good fellow," remarked the photographer, "but there's no end to the ignorance and misery such creatures bring upon the world. He couldn't take decent care of himself, and he has a wife and five children hanging on him."
"It is just so with nearly all these people," exclaimed Miss Gill in high scorn. "They have no idea of what life should be—no ambition, and scarcely a soul to divide around among them all. It smothers me!" She threw her arms out impetuously. "I want such different things—the society of the cultivated, the stimulus of great natures. Maybe I could write something that would get before the public then."
"Have you ever sent anything East?" he inquired with a Hoosier's vast respect for older civilization.
"Yes," she answered with a falling inflection of voice and head. "But it's no use: I never shall amount to anything with my surroundings."
The water gurgled over its boulders and the green landscape sent up an exquisite loamy breath. The young people, both representing the afflatus of the State, met in one tragic look which ended in a smile.
Next morning Mallston took his usual post in the car, shifting from one bare foot to the other, while the photographer lounged on his locker waiting for custom. The native frequently parted his shaggy jaws, but considered how he should offer his information. He watched his employer with real attachment, and his dark red face deepened its hue around the eyes as he broke out, "We've got a little feller t' 'r house."
"What! not another one?"