Poor little Dick! when he set forth “to fresh fields and pastures new,” with an adventurous desire to try his fortunes in the world, he little anticipated the troubles and perplexities that would beset his way. The honest artist to whom he had attached himself was neither a Raphael nor a Vandyke, and the share of patronage he met with in the humble places where he set up his easel, was very limited in degree, and unprofitable to the pocket. In some villages which they visited in their rounds, they found that rival artists had reaped such scanty harvests as the poverty of the villages afforded; and in other places they found, to their sorrow, that the flinty inhabitants were no upholders of art, and felt no ambition to hand down the “counterfeit presentment” of their features to posterity. So, as there was only starvation to be had, there was nothing to be done but to pack up their slender wardrobe, with the paints and pencils, and migrate to a more enlightened region. The poor artist was, however, both kind and liberal, so far as his means went, to his little charge, and when he received his hard-earned dollar, as the recompense of many a patient hour of toil, he freely shared it with him; and so long as the treasure lasted, they did not lack for the best of good fare, at village tavern or rural farmhouse. Oftentimes it chanced that their treasury was entirely exhausted, and neither paper or specie payments were forthcoming to defray the needful expenses of the way. At such times, the cost of coach-ride, or even wagon conveyance, being beyond their reach, their only resource was, to convey their bodies from place to place upon those natural supports which Nature has kindly supplied us with, but which often complain of an undue proportion of fatigue after a long day’s progress in a hot summer’s day. But poor Dick ever made the best of it, and shouldering his little bundle, stumped on stoutly at the side of his master, often beguiling the toil and length of the travel with a merry heart, and a cheerful singing voice. The natural beauties of the scenes through which they passed were not lost upon them, nor did the wild rose at the road-side blush unseen of them, or the sweet lily of the valley waste its fragrant breath in vain. They each had the artist’s eye and soul to enjoy the loveliness of the bending and painted skies, the waving woods, the verdant grass, and the flowing stream.
“Even the air they breathed, the light they saw,
Became religion; for the ethereal spirit
That to soft music wakes the chords of feeling,
And mellows everything to beauty, moved
With cheering energy within their breasts,
And made all holy there—for all was love.
The morning stars, that sweetly sang together,
The moon, that hung at night in the mid-sky,
Day-spring and eventide, and all the fair