The Fortunes of Oliver Horn [135]
any one of its various festivals and functions.
Oliver's election into the organization had, therefore, been to him one of the greatest honors he had received since his skill as a painter had been recognized by his fellows--an honor not conferred upon him because he had been one of the earlier members of the old Union Square organization, many of whom had been left out, but entirely because he was not only the best of fellows, but among the best of painters as well. An honor too, which brought with it the possibility of a certain satisfying of his tastes. Only once before had he found an atmosphere so congenial and that was when the big hemlocks that he loved stood firm and silent about him--companions in a wilderness that rested him.
The coming together of such a body of men representing, as they did, the choicest the city afforded in art, literature and music, had been as natural and unavoidable as the concentration of a mass of iron filings toward a magnet. That insatiable hunger of the Bohemian, that craving of the craftsman for men of his kind, had at last overpowered them, and the meetings in Fred's studio were the inevitable result.
Many of these devotees of the arts had landed on the barren shores of America--barren of even the slightest trace of that life they had learned to love so well in the Quartier Latin in Paris and in the Rathskellers of Munich and Dusseldorf--and had wandered about in the uncongenial atmosphere of the commonplace until this retreat had been opened to them. Some, like Fred Stone and Jack Bedford, who had struggled on through the war, too much occupied in the whirl of their life to miss at the time the associations of men of similar tastes, had eagerly grasped the opportunity when it came, and others, like Oliver, who had had all they could do to get their three meals during the day and a shelter for the night, had hardly been conscious of what they wanted until the club had extended to them its congenial surroundings.
On the trio of painters we knew best in the old days these privations and the uncertainties and disappointments of the war had left their indelible mark. You became aware of this when you saw them among their fellow-workers. About Fred's temples many tell-tale gray hairs were mingled with the brown, and about his mouth and eyes were deeper lines than those which hard work alone would have cut. He carried a hole, too, in his right arm--or did until the army surgeon sewed it up--you could see it as a blue scar every time he rolled up his sleeve--a slight souvenir of the Battle of Five Forks. It was bored out by a bullet from the hands of a man in gray when Fred, dropping his sketch-book, had bent to drag a wounded soldier from under an overturned caisson. He carried no scar, however, in his heart. That organ beat with as keen a sympathy and as warm a spirit of camaraderie as it did when it first opened itself to Oliver's miseries in Union Square.
Jack Bedford, gaunt and strong of limb, looking a foot taller, had more than once been compelled to lay down his painter's palette and take up the sign- painter's brush, and the tell-tale wrinkles about his eyes and the set look about his mouth testified but too plainly to the keenness of his sufferings.
And Oliver--
Ah! what of Oliver, and of the changes in him since that fatal night in Kennedy Square when he had been driven away from his home and made an outcast because he had been brave enough to defend a helpless man?
You can see at a glance, as you watch him standing by the big easel, his coat off, to give his arm freer play, squeezing the tubes of color on his palette, that he is not the boy you knew some years ago. He is, you will admit, as strong and alert-looking as he was that morning when he cleared the space in front of Margaret's brother with a cart-rung. You will concede, too, that the muscles about his chest and throat are as firmly packed, the eyes as keen, and the smile as winning, but you will acknowledge that the boy in him ends there. As you look the closer you will note that the
Oliver's election into the organization had, therefore, been to him one of the greatest honors he had received since his skill as a painter had been recognized by his fellows--an honor not conferred upon him because he had been one of the earlier members of the old Union Square organization, many of whom had been left out, but entirely because he was not only the best of fellows, but among the best of painters as well. An honor too, which brought with it the possibility of a certain satisfying of his tastes. Only once before had he found an atmosphere so congenial and that was when the big hemlocks that he loved stood firm and silent about him--companions in a wilderness that rested him.
The coming together of such a body of men representing, as they did, the choicest the city afforded in art, literature and music, had been as natural and unavoidable as the concentration of a mass of iron filings toward a magnet. That insatiable hunger of the Bohemian, that craving of the craftsman for men of his kind, had at last overpowered them, and the meetings in Fred's studio were the inevitable result.
Many of these devotees of the arts had landed on the barren shores of America--barren of even the slightest trace of that life they had learned to love so well in the Quartier Latin in Paris and in the Rathskellers of Munich and Dusseldorf--and had wandered about in the uncongenial atmosphere of the commonplace until this retreat had been opened to them. Some, like Fred Stone and Jack Bedford, who had struggled on through the war, too much occupied in the whirl of their life to miss at the time the associations of men of similar tastes, had eagerly grasped the opportunity when it came, and others, like Oliver, who had had all they could do to get their three meals during the day and a shelter for the night, had hardly been conscious of what they wanted until the club had extended to them its congenial surroundings.
On the trio of painters we knew best in the old days these privations and the uncertainties and disappointments of the war had left their indelible mark. You became aware of this when you saw them among their fellow-workers. About Fred's temples many tell-tale gray hairs were mingled with the brown, and about his mouth and eyes were deeper lines than those which hard work alone would have cut. He carried a hole, too, in his right arm--or did until the army surgeon sewed it up--you could see it as a blue scar every time he rolled up his sleeve--a slight souvenir of the Battle of Five Forks. It was bored out by a bullet from the hands of a man in gray when Fred, dropping his sketch-book, had bent to drag a wounded soldier from under an overturned caisson. He carried no scar, however, in his heart. That organ beat with as keen a sympathy and as warm a spirit of camaraderie as it did when it first opened itself to Oliver's miseries in Union Square.
Jack Bedford, gaunt and strong of limb, looking a foot taller, had more than once been compelled to lay down his painter's palette and take up the sign- painter's brush, and the tell-tale wrinkles about his eyes and the set look about his mouth testified but too plainly to the keenness of his sufferings.
And Oliver--
Ah! what of Oliver, and of the changes in him since that fatal night in Kennedy Square when he had been driven away from his home and made an outcast because he had been brave enough to defend a helpless man?
You can see at a glance, as you watch him standing by the big easel, his coat off, to give his arm freer play, squeezing the tubes of color on his palette, that he is not the boy you knew some years ago. He is, you will admit, as strong and alert-looking as he was that morning when he cleared the space in front of Margaret's brother with a cart-rung. You will concede, too, that the muscles about his chest and throat are as firmly packed, the eyes as keen, and the smile as winning, but you will acknowledge that the boy in him ends there. As you look the closer you will note that the