He put me in a chair by the fire, and they sent me some coffee there. I heard him explaining that I felt a little faint. I wanted to yell, "It's a lie." I knew, then, that I was a savage—all the pretty little smooth things they used to cover up with, I wanted to rip up and throw at all of them.
"I hate it here," I thought. "I hate the factory. I hate home. I hate Luke...."
That was nearly everything that I knew; and I hated them all. Was it me that everything was wrong with, I wondered? I was looking down at Mr. Gerald's hands that had moved so dainty and used-to-things all the while he was eating. That made me think of Mr. Ember's hands when he was eating that morning at Joe's. These folks all did things like Mr. Ember. And I'd got to stay there till I knew how to do them, too. But from that minute I began to wonder why folks that can do things so dainty don't always live up to it in other ways, like it seemed to me he did. And then I got to thinking about his patience with me, so by the time the rest came in from the dining-room I was all still again.
When the guests had gone I was standing by some long curtains when Miss Antoinette walked over to me. "You lovely thing," she said. "By that rose curtain you are stunning. Stand still, dear. Gerald, look."
But I didn't think much about him; and my eyes brimmed up.
"You called me 'dear,'" I says. "You're about the first one."
She put her arm around me, and then it come out. Her brother had one wing of the ground floor all to himself. It was a studio. He painted. And he wanted to paint me. There was only one thing I thought about.
"I'll be glad to do that," I says, "if you'll both teach me some of the things you see I don't know—talking, eating, everything."
The way they hesitated was so nice for my feelings it was like having my first lesson then.
I went down there the whole spring. And there, and to the school, little by little I learned things. I knew it—I could almost feel it. I didn't always know what I'd learned, but I knew that it was changing me. I don't know any better feeling. It's more fun than making a garden. It's more fun than watching puppies grow. It was almost as much fun as writing my book. And back of it all was the great big sense, shining and shining, that I was getting more the way I wanted to be, that I had to be, if ever I was to see him again. John Ember was in my life all the time, like somebody saying something.