In the Border Country | Page 6

help me. If only I had the colours!"
"There are always colours," said the Bee-woman, "if not of one kind, then of another. But you cannot get them for nothing."
"I will pay any price," she said.
"Will you take the crimson from the blood of your cheeks?" said the Bee-woman. "Will you take the fresh blue from your eyes, the ivory white from your teeth, the ruddy gold from your hair, and the thick softness of it for brushes? Will you?"
She shuddered.
"I know what you mean," she said, "but oh, it is hard! I--I cannot."
"Then you are a fool," said the Bee-woman quietly. "There is no man living who would not give all that and give it with a smile, for his work. You are not a great artist."
She wrung her hands.
"You are right, you are right," she moaned, "and I am not worthy. If colours are my weapons to win fame, how should I grudge them? I will give them up."
"Then indeed you are a fool," said the Bee-woman sternly, "for you throw away your most powerful weapon before the fight begins. You are not a great woman."
She fell with her face to the earthen floor and lay quiet, while the bees hummed outside the hut like the turning of a great wheel or the rocking of an old cradle.
"Then all that I have learned," she muttered at last, "is useless? All that I have worked and anguished for? All that I have saved even my suffering for, prizing it and never grudging, because it would help my work? No man could do more."
"You think so?" said the Bee-woman. "Get up, my child, and look out of the latticed window at the back of my cottage. Do not think what you see there is close before you, for the glass of that window has strange properties and the part of the wood which it shows you is far, far from here."
She raised herself and walked to the casement, shading her eyes with her hand, for a red glow struck the single pane and blinded her.
"Before you look," said the Bee-woman, "tell me if you remember that picture of yours which you think the best?"
"Do I remember it?" she repeated, "can I ever forget it? A year of my life has gone into it. The year that I was married."
[Illustration: The glass of that window has strange properties.]
"Do you think it worth that year?" said the Bee-woman.
"It could not have been done with less," she said.
"Now look," said the Bee-woman, "and tell me what you see."
She went to the casement, and it seemed as if the aged trees formed a long, long aisle out from it, narrow and bright, and at the end was a sunny glade.
"I see a young man," she said, "laughing and singing to himself in the sun."
"Has he suffered?" asked the Bee-woman.
"No, he is hardly more than a boy. His hair curls like a boy's. His face has never known a care."
"What is he doing?" asked the Bee-woman.
"He is eating fruit and painting a picture on a white cottage wall. The children and the old men are watching him."
"Do you watch him, too," said the Bee-woman, folding her hands in her lap.
Soon she gave a little cry.
"What! what!" she murmured, "how can he do that--he is but a boy!"
"Is he weeping?" asked the Bee-woman. "Has he shut out the world?"
"He is smiling," she answered, "and as he works he talks. Oh! he is painting my picture, mine! Who is he? Mother, who is he?"
"Does he paint well?" asked the Bee-woman.
She did not answer.
"It is nearly done," she whispered, "and he smiles as he works. What blue, what glistening white! Mother, who is that boy?"
"Is it as well done as your picture?" asked the Bee-woman.
"It is better done," she whispered through her tears, "and he has gone and left it. He has given it to a village girl for a kiss! Oh, how could he leave it?"
"Because he can do many more, my child," said the Bee-woman, "and life has not yet touched him."
"Tell me his name," she said, and turned from the window, pale and sad.
"His name neither the world or this wood has yet troubled to learn," said the Bee-woman, "but he will be called a great painter before long."
"How long?" she asked.
"I forget if you call them days or years," said the Bee-woman, "but they will not be many."
"Who taught him?" she asked.
"Everyone," said the Bee-woman, "the village girl, for one. But many will learn from him."
She knelt again upon the earthen floor and looked the woman in the eyes....
"I do not know, my child," said the Bee-woman, "I can only tell you that you must paint what you have learned, with tears; he can paint he knows not what, and he smiles. I ask you,