The house has no business in the picture because I want it to represent
a scene of wild, open lonesomeness. I want to make the people who look
at it feel so lonesome that they want to cry!"

She was an odd girl!

"Oh, don't you understand. I want them only to feel like it. When you
saw that charcoal drawing I made the other day, you laughed."

"Well, it was funny."

"That's just it. An artist wants to be able to make people feel like
laughing or crying, for then he knows he has reached their soul."

"I've got to look after the water for a few minutes, then I'll come back
and help you carry your things," he said. "You're about through, aren't
you?"

"Thank you; I'll be ready now in a few minutes. Go see to your water.
I'll wait for you. How beautiful the west is now!"

They stood silently for a few moments side by side, looking at the glory
of the setting sun through banks of clouds and then down behind the
purple mountain. Then Dorian, with shovel on shoulder, hastened to his
irrigating. The blossoming field of lucerne was usually a common enough
sight, but now it was a stretch of sweet-scented waves of green and
purple.

Mildred looked at the farmer boy until he disappeared behind the willow
fence, then she began to pack up her things. Presently, she heard some
low bellowing, and, looking up, she saw a number of cows, with tails
erect, galloping across the fields. They had broken the fence, and were
now having a gay frolic on forbidden grounds. Mildred saw that they were
making directly for the corner of the pasture where she was. She was
afraid of cows, even when they were within the quiet enclosure of the
yard, and here was a wild lot apparently coming upon her to destroy her.
She crouched, terror stricken, as if to take shelter behind the frail
bulwark of her easel.

Then she saw a horse leap through the gap in the fence and come
galloping after the cows. On the horse was a girl, not a large girl, but
she was riding fearlessly, bare-back, and urging the horse to greater
strides. Her black hair was trailing in the wind as she waved a willow
switch and shouted lustily at the cows. She managed to head the cows off
before they had reached Mildred, rounding them up sharply and driving
them back through the breach into the road which they followed quietly
homeward. The rider then galloped back to the frightened girl.

"Did the cows scare you?" she asked.

"Yes," panted Mildred. "I'm so frightened of cows, a