biddy when she's blue--but she wouldn't have it
and cried straight ahead for four hours until the sun came out; but I
was through by that time and waded ashore. You can see for yourselves
how unhappy she was." He spoke as if the sketch was alive--and it was.

"But I always work out of doors that way," he continued. "In winter up
in Holland I sit in furs and wooden shoes, and often have to put alcohol
in my water-cups to keep my colors from freezing. My big picture of 'The
Torrent'--the one in the Toledo Art Gallery--was painted in January, and
out of doors. As for the brushwork, I try to do the best I can. I used
to tickle up things I painted; some of the fellows at Julian's believed
in that, and so did Fleury and Lefebvre to some extent."

"And when did you get over it?" I asked.

"When my father persuaded me to send a bold sketch to the Volney Club,
which I had done to please myself, and which they hung and bought. So I
said to myself: 'Why trim, clean up, and make pretty a picture, when by
simply painting what I love in nature in a free, breezy manner while my
enthusiasm lasts--and it generally lasts until I get through;--sometimes
it spills over to the next day--I please myself and a lot of people
beside."

We were all on our feet now examining the sketches--all running-brook
studies--most of them made in that same pair of high-water boots. No one
but the late Fritz Thaulow approaches him in giving the reality of this
most difficult subject for an outdoor painter. The ocean surf repeats
itself in its recurl and swash and by close watching a painter has often
a chance to use his "second barrel," so to speak, but the upturned
face of an unruly brook-is not only million-tinted and endless in its
expression, but so sensitive in its reflections that every passing cloud
and patch of blue above it saddens or cheers it.

"Yes, painting water is enough to drive you mad," burst out Knight, "but
I don't intend to paint anything else--not for years, any way. Hired the
mill so I could paint the water running _away_ from you downhill. That's
going to take a good many years to get hold of, but I'm going to stick
it out. I can't always paint it from the banks, not if I want to study
the middle ripples at my feet, and these are the ones that run out of
your canvas just above your name-plate. _Got_ to stand in it, I tell
you. Then you get the drawing, and the drawing is what counts. Oh, I
love it!" Knight stretched his big arms a