=The story of the artist.= Jean Francois Millet was the son of French
peasants who must have been very much like the father and mother in
this picture. But a picture of Millet's boyhood would not be complete
unless it included his grandmother. You see, that dear old lady rocked
him to sleep, played with him, and kept him happy all day long while
his mother, like all French peasants, worked out in the fields with
his father.

It was she who was the first to discover that her little grandson
liked to draw. His first drawings were copies of pictures in his
grandmother's old illustrated Bible. He would listen to stories read
to him from the Bible and then he would take a piece of chalk and draw
a picture of what happened in the story.

Soon he began to draw large, bold pictures which covered the stone
wall of their house. The grandmother was much pleased! She found a new
story to read or tell him nearly every day.

Of course his father and mother saw the pictures as soon as they came
home, and encouraged the boy as much as they could. The father liked
to draw, too, but he could not see why Millet should be making up
pictures from imagination when there were so many real things to draw.
So he called his son's attention to the trees, the fields, and houses
in the distance, and soon the boy began to draw these, too.

One Sunday when Millet was coming home from church he met an old man,
his back bent over a cane as he walked slowly along. Something about the
bent figure made Millet feel he would like to draw a picture of the man
just as he looked then. Taking a piece of charcoal from his pocket, he
drew a picture of him from memory. He drew it on a stone wall, and as
people passed that way they recognized the man. All liked the picture
very much, and told Millet so. His father, too, was delighted, and
decided that his son should have a chance to become an artist.

One day the two went to an artist who lived in a neighboring town and
showed him some of Millet's sketches. The artist was amazed, and at
first would not believe the boy had drawn them. You may be sure he was
glad to have this bright boy for a pupil. But Millet studied with him
only two months, when he was called home by the death of his father.

At first it seemed as if they needed him so much at home he would
never be able to go on with his studies. But soon the good people in
the little village collected a sum of money and gave it to Millet,
telling him it w