at place over there by the lake to git cured up o' the
consumption. He was a painter, painted pitchers an' all sech,
understand?--puts up a big stoodio with a winder in it six feet high to
paint by. But he was puny. He couldn't fat up none. You never seen a
critter so gaunted as he was. Some said he never got over losin' his
wife. Anyway, 't wa'n't no surprise when he was took off, seven, eight
year ago. An' since he died that there kid has sort o' half run the
place along with a feller named Ben Crider that the old man had got fur
help. O' course we all kind o' looked in on the boy at first to make
sure he wa'n't in need, an' done a day's work now an' then, an' they
raised a few horses an' a few cattle an' one thing an' another. Trouble
with that boy, though, he's always putterin' round with his dad's paint
brushes, an' talkin' about portrayin' art an' all like that, understand?
I've told that kid time an' time again, 'Kid,' I says, 'never _you_ mind
about portrayin' art an' depictin' the linnerments an' the varied
aspecks o' nature,' I says; 'you jes' burn up them foolish little
long-shanked paint brushes in your Charter Oak cookstove,' I says, 'an'
ten' to portrayin' a good little bunch of cattle an' depictin' Ben
Crider to work also, an' you'll _git_ somewhur's,' I says. But him--why,
he jes' moons along. An' Ben Crider ain't much better. Ben ain't no
_stimulant_ to him. Ben had ort to been the only son of a tenderhearted
widow lady of means. That's what he'd ort to been. You give him a new
coon song out of a Sunday supplement an' his guitar, an' Ben's fixed fur
half a day at least. _He_ ain't goin' to worry none about a strayed
yearlin' or two. Why, one time, I rec'lect----"

"Then young Mr. Ewing is a painter, too?" she interrupted.

"Wa'al"--Pierce became judicial--"yes an' _no_. He ain't a reg'ler one,
like you might say--not like his pa was. Still, he can do hand
paintin'--if you want to call it that. Made a pitcher o' me this summer,
bein' buckjumped by old Tobe. Tobe was cert'n'y actin' high, wide an'
handsome, comin' down with his four hoofs in a bunch, an' me lookin'
like my works was comin' all apart the next minute. A _lively_
pitcher--yes; but, my Lord! it wa'n't a thing you could show! It made me
out that reediculous. Course, I ain't Mrs. Langtry, but you got to draw
the line somewhurs, hain't you? Now there"--Beulah pushed an informing
thumb toward crayon portraits of himself and Mrs. Pierce that grace