I'd seen one of his pictures at an exhibition, and
I wanted to see more of them, so he showed them to me. He has almost
everthing he ever painted; I don't suppose he's sold more than four
or five pictures in his life. He gives drawing-lessons to keep
alive."
"How do you mean he paints the smoke?" Bibbs asked.
"Literally. He paints from his studio window and from the street--
anywhere. He just paints what's around him--and it's beautiful."
"The smoke?"
"Wonderful! He sees the sky through it, somehow. He does the ugly
roofs of cheap houses through a haze of smoke, and he does smoky
sunsets and smoky sunrises, and he has other things with the heavy,
solid, slow columns of smoke going far out and growing more ethereal
and mixing with the hazy light in the distance; and he has others
with the broken sky-line of down-town, all misted with the smoke and
puffs and jets of vapor that have colors like an orchard in mid-April.
I'm going to take you there some Sunday afternoon, Bibbs."
"You're showing me the town," he said. "I didn't know what was in it
at all."
"There are workers in beauty here," she told him, gently. "There are
other painters more prosperous than my friend.
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