ENI. ROSPIGLIOSI PALACE, ROME]

THE SINGING BOYS

FRANS HALS (1584?-1666)

These jolly singers are Dutch boys. They are singing on the street or
in some back yard just as singers do to-day, though they lived nearly
three hundred years ago.

Hals was such a rapid painter that he could make a picture while you
wait. The story is told that one time young Van Dyck, the Flemish
painter who painted "Baby Stuart," went to see Hals in Amsterdam when
Hals was an old man. Van Dyck did not tell the old artist that he was
Van Dyck but simply asked him to paint his portrait, knowing what a
rapid painter Hals was. In an hour the picture was done. Van Dyck
remarked, as he looked at the portrait:

"That seems easy; I believe I could do it."

Hals thought he would have some fun, so he told the young stranger
that he would sit for him just one hour.

Van Dyck set his easel where Hals could not see him work and began to
paint. At the end of an hour he said:

"Your picture is finished, sir."

Hals, ready to laugh at the daub, looked at the portrait and the laugh
went out of his face. He then looked at Van Dyck, and cried out:

"You must be either Van Dyck or a wizard!"

You see, Hals had heard of Van Dyck and his rapid work, and knew that
only a master painter could make the splendid portrait in an hour.

[Illustration: Permission of Franz Hanfstaengl, New York City

FIG. 6. SINGING BOYS. FRANS HALS. CASSEL GALLERY, GERMANY]

ST. BARBARA

JACOPO PALMA IL VECCHIO (1480?-1528)

St. Barbara, born A. D. 303, was a very beautiful girl. Her father, an
eastern nobleman, loved her so much and was so afraid something might
happen to her that he built a very wonderful tower for her home and
shut her up in it. And in that tower she studied the stars. Night
after night she looked at the heavenly bodies until she knew more
about the sun and the moon and the stars than any of the learned men.
But as she studied the shining bodies she decided that worshiping
idols, made of wood and stone, as her father did, was wrong. Finally
she learned about the Savior, and to show her faith in Christianity
she had some workmen who were making repairs on her tower put in three
windows. When her father came as usual to visit her, he asked in
surprise what the three windows were for. She replied:

"Know, my father, that through three windows doth the soul receive
light, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: and the three are
one."