THERE is such a thing as hunger for more than food, and that was the hunger I fed on. I was poor, my work unknown; often without meals; cold, too, in winter in my little studio on the West ide. But that was the least of it.
 
When I talk about trouble, I am not talking about cold and hunger. There is another kind of suffering for the artist which is worse than anything a winter, or poverty, can do; it is more like a winter of the mind, in which the life of his genius, the living sap of his work, seems frozen and motionless, caught—perhaps forever—in a season of death; and who knows if spring will ever come again to set it free?
 
It was not only that I could not sell my work—that has happened to good men, even to great men, before—but that I couldn't seem to get through, myself, to the things that were bottled up inside me. No matter what I did, figure, landscape, still-life, it all seemed different from what I meant—from what I knew, as surely as my name was Eben Adams, was the thing I really wanted to say in the world; to tell people about, somehow, through my painting.
 
I cannot tell you what that period was like; because the worst part of it was an anxiety it is very hard to describe. I suppose most artists go through something of the sort; sooner or later it is no longer enough for them just to live—to paint, and have enough, or nearly enough, to eat. Sooner or later God asks His question: are you for me, or against me? And the artist must have some answer, or feel his heart break for what he cannot say.
 
One evening in the winter of 1938 I was walking home through the Park. I was a good deal younger then; I carried a portfolio of drawings under my arm, and I walked slowly because I was tired. The damp mist of the winter evening drifted around me; it drifted down across the sheep meadow, and through the Mall which was empty and quiet at that hour. The children who usually played there had gone home, leaving the bare, dark trees and the long rows of benches wet and spidery with mist. I kept shifting the portfolio from one arm to the other; it was heavy and clumsy, but I had no money to ride.
 
I had been trying all day to sell some of my pictures. There is a sort of desperation which takes hold of a man after a while, a dreadful feeling of the world's indifference, not only to his hunger or his pain, but to the very life which is in him. Each day the courage with which I started out was a little less; by now it had all run out, like sand from a glass.
 
That night I was at the bottom, without money or friends, cold, hungry, and tired, without hope, not knowing where to turn. I think I was a little lightheaded, from not having had enough to eat. I crossed the Drive, and started down the long, deserted corridor of the Mall.
 
In front of me, the spaced, even rows of lights shone yellow in the shadowy air; I heard the crisp sound of my own footsteps on the pavement; and behind me the hiss and whisper of traffic turned homeward at the end of day. The city sounds were muted and far away, they seemed to come from another time, from somewhere in the past, like the sound of summer, like bees in a meadow long ago. I walked on, as though through the quiet arches of a dream. My body seemed light, without weight, made up of evening air.
 
The little girl playing by herself in the middle of the Mall made no sound either. She was playing hopscotch; she went up in the air with her legs apart, and came down again as silent as dandelion seed.
 
I stopped and watched her, for I was surprised to see her there, all alone. No other little children were in sight, only the mist and the long, even rows of lights stretching away to the terrace and the lake. I looked around for her nurse, but the benches were empty. "It's getting pretty dark," I said. "Oughtn't you to go home?"
 
I don't believe it sounded unfriendly. The child marked her next jump, and got ready; but first she looked at me sideways over her shoulder. "Is it late?" she asked. "I don't know time very well."
 
"Yes," I said; "it's late."
 
"Well," she said, "I don't have to go home yet." And she added in a matter of fact tone,
 
"Nobody's ready for me."
 
I turned away; after all, I thought, what business is it of mine? She straightened up, and pushed the dark hair back from her face, under the brim of her bonnet. Her arms were thin, they made the sharp, bird-like motions of a child. "I'll walk a ways with you, if you don't mind," she said. "I guess it's a little lonesome here all by myself."
 
I said I didn't mind, and we went up the Mall together, between the empty benches. I kept looking around for someone she might belong to, but there was nobody. "Are you all alone?" I asked after a while. "Isn't anybody with you?"
 
She came to some chalk marks left there by another child, and stopped to jump over them. "No," she said. "Who would there be?
 
"Anyway," she added a moment later, "you're with me.
 
And for some reason that seemed to her quite enough. She wanted to know what I had in the portfolio. When I told her, she nodded her head in a satisfied way. "I knew they were pictures," she said. I asked her how she knew.
 
"Oh, I just knew," she said.
 
The damp mist drifted along beside us, cold, with the smell of winter in it. It was my not having eaten all day that made everything seem so queer, I thought, walking up the Mall with a little girl no higher than my elbow. I wondered if I could be arrested for what I was doing; I don't even know her name, I thought, in case they ask me.
 
She said nothing for a while; she seemed to be counting the benches. But she must have known what I was thinking, for as we passed the fifth bench, she told me her name without my asking. "It's Jennie," she said; "just so's you'll know."
 
"Jennie," I repeated, a little stupidly. "Jennie what?"
 
"Jennie Appleton," she said. She went on to say that she lived with her parents in a hotel, but that she didn't see them very often. "Father and mother are actors and actresses," she declared. "They're at the Hammerstein Music Hall. They do juggling on a rope."
 
She gave a sort of skip; and then she came over to me, and put her hand in mine. "They're not home very much," she said; "on account of being in the profession."
 
But something had begun to worry me. Wait a minute, I said to myself, there's something wrong here. Wait, I thought… wait a minute… and then I remembered. Of course—that was it: the Hammerstein Music Hall had been torn down years ago, when I was a boy.
 
"Well," I said; "well…"
 
Her hand in mine was real enough, firm and warm; she wasn't a ghost, and I wasn't dreaming. "I go to school," she said, "but only in the mornings. I'm too little to go all day yet."
 
I heard her give a child's sigh, full of a child's trouble, light as air. "I don't have very exciting lessons," she remarked. "They're mostly two and two is four, and things like that. When I'm bigger, I'm going to learn geography and history, and about the Kaiser. He's the King of Germany."
 
"He was," I said gravely. "But that was long ago."
 
"I think you're wrong," said Jennie. She walked a little away from me, smiling to herself about something. "Cecily Jones is in my class," she said. "I can fight her. I'm stronger than she is, and I can fight her good.
 
"She's just a little girl."
 
She gave a skip. "It's fun having somebody to play with," she said.
 
I looked down at her: a child dressed in old fashioned clothes, a coat and gaiters and a bonnet. Who was it painted children like that? Henri? Brush? One of the old fellows… There was a picture in the Museum, somebody's daughter, it hung over the stairs as you went up. But children always dressed the same. She didn't look to me as though she played with other children very often.
 
I said yes, I supposed it was fun.
 
"Don't you have anyone to play with?" she asked.
 
"No," I said.
 
I had an idea that she was sorry for me, and at the same time glad that I had nobody else but her to play with. It made me smile; a child's games are so real, I thought, for children believe everything. We came to an interesting crack, and she hopped along on one foot until she got to the end of it. "I know a song," she said. "Would you like to hear it?"
 
And without waiting for me to answer, looking up at me from under the brim of her bonnet, she sang in a clear, tuneless voice:

   
Where I come from
Nobody knows;
And where I'm going
Everything goes.
The wind blows,
The sea flows—
And nobody knows.

 The song caught me off my guard, it was so unlike what I had expected. I don't know what I had been waiting for—some nursery rhyme, perhaps, or a popular tune of the day; little girls whose parents were actors and actresses sometimes sang about love. "Who taught you that?" I asked in surprise.
 
But she only shook her head, and stood there looking at me. "Nobody taught me," she said. "It's just a song."
 
We had come to the great circle at the end of the Mall, and my path led away to the left, across the drive again, and out the west gate. The winter evening wrapped us round in mist, in solitude and silence, the wet trees stood up dark and bare around us, and the distant city sounded its notes, falling and fading in the air. "Well, goodbye," I said; "I have to go now."
 
I held out my hand to her, and she took it gravely. "Do you know the game I like to play best?" she asked. "No," I said.
 
"It's a wishing game."
 
I asked her what she wished for most.
 
"I wish you'd wait for me to grow up," she said. "But you won't, I guess."
 
A moment later she had turned and was walking quietly back down the Mall. I stood there looking after her; after a while I couldn't see her any more.
 
When I got home I heated a can of soup on the gas burner, and cut myself a slice of bread, and some cheese. It was heavy in my stomach, but it made me feel better. Then I took my paintings out of the portfolio, and set them up on the floor, against the wall, and looked at them. They were all New England scenes: Cape Cod, churches, boats, old houses… water colors, mostly, with a few drawings among them. But none of the city… funny that I had never thought of that before…
 
I went over to the window, and looked out. There wasn't much to see, a line of roofs and chimneys, dark and indistinct, a few lighted windows, and in the north some taller buildings dim against the sky. And over all, the damp, cold air of winter, the raw, heavy air of the coast. A tug boat hooted in the bay; the sad, mysterious sound passed over the roofs, and floated above the city's restless grumble like a sea bird over a river. I wondered why I had never wanted to do any pictures of the city… I could do some pastels of the river, I thought, if I could get the cold tone of the sky. And that line of buildings south of the park, in the evening—if I could get that dim blue mountain look they have. But all the time, in the back of my mind, I was thinking about the child I had met in the Mall. Where I am going, nobody knows; The wind blows, And nobody knows. It was a strange little song, its very tunelessness made it hard to forget, the tunelessness was so much a part of it.
 
I thought of the last thing she had said to me, before she turned and walked away. But people couldn't wait for other people to grow up; they grew up together, side by side, and pace by pace, one as much as the other; they were children together, and old folks together; and they went off together into that something that was waiting—sleep, or heaven, I didn't know which.
 
I shivered; the big gray dusty radiator in front of the window was only luke-warm. I should have to talk to Mrs. Jekes again, I thought. But I felt suddenly sad, as though someone had just told me an old story about grief. There was no use trying to work any more that night; I went to bed, to keep my courage up.

 
I WAS behind in my rent again. I think Mrs. Jekes would have asked me to leave, if she could have found anyone to take my place; but nobody wanted a studio like mine, with the furniture falling to pieces, and the ceiling dusty with age. Just the same, she took what I had to say about the heat in very bad part. "This isn't a hotel," she said. "Not for what you pay, it isn't.
 
"That is," she added grimly, "when you pay it." I used to dread my meetings with her. She would stand there in front of me, her mouth tight, her thin hands folded across her stomach, and a look in her eyes as though she were seeing through me into the future, and finding it as hopeless as the past. You may wonder that I didn't leave and go somewhere else; but the truth is, I had nowhere else to go. Cheap studios were hard to find; and besides, I was almost always in arrears, and so much without hope myself, those days, that I stayed on because I didn't believe that anything else would be any better.
 
It was a time of depression everywhere. Hatreds clashed and fought in the air above our heads, like the heavenly battles of angels and demons in the dawn of creation. What a world for a painter; a world for a Blake, or a Goya. But not for me. I was neither—neither mystic nor revolutionary; there was too much of my mid-western father in me for the one, and too much of my New England grandmother for the other. Yet their heaven had been bright with faith.
 
I believe that Mrs. Jekes admired my paintings, although she never said so. She used to stand and look at them, with her tight mouth and folded hands; and once she accepted a sketch of the town landing on the Pamet River in Truro, in place of a week's rent. It would fetch a much bigger price today, I suppose, but I doubt if she knows it. Nor do I know what she saw in it—some memory, perhaps, of sunnier days. I had tried to put the stillness of summer into it, the peace of the ever-moving river, the quiet of old boats deserted in the grass. Perhaps she saw it there, too—or only guessed; I don't know.
 
She didn't care for my pictures of the city. Now that I look back at it, I can see that they were only an old story to her—only the city, in which she was caught like a fly in molasses. What did she care for the cold sky above the river, or the mountain blue of the windy, shadowy streets? She knew them only too well; she had to live her life with them.
 
But I was full of hope; it lasted for three days. By the end of that time, I had found out that I could not sell my city sketches, either.
 
It was late in the afternoon of the fourth day that the turn came. I didn't think of it then as a turn; it seemed to me just a piece of luck, and no more.
 
I was on my way home from tramping about the streets, my drawings under my arm, when I found myself in front of the Mathews Gallery. I had never been there before; it was a small gallery in those days, on one of the side streets off Sixth Avenue. There was a show going on, of some young painter's work—mostly figures and flower pieces; and I went in more or less out of curiosity. I was looking around when Mr. Mathews came up to me, and asked me what I wanted.
 
I know Henry Mathews very well by now, I know all about him. In fact, it was he who sold my Girl In A Black Dress to the Metropolitan six years ago. I know him to be both timid and kind; he must have hated to see me come in, for he knew at once that I wasn't there to buy anything. But it was getting late, and he wanted to close up; and so he had to get rid of me. Miss Spinney ran the office for him in those days, too; she had gone home, otherwise he would have sent her out to talk to me. She knew how to deal with people who wanted to sell him something.
 
He came out of his little office at the rear of the gallery, and smiled at me uncertainly. "Yes sir," he said; "what can I do for you?"
 
I looked at him, and I lodged down at the portfolio under my arm. Oh well, I thought, what's the difference? "I don't know," I said; "you could buy one of my pictures, perhaps."
 
Mr. Mathews coughed gently behind his hand. "Landscapes?" he asked.
 
"Yes," I said; "mostly."
 
Mr. Mathews coughed again; I know that he wanted to say to me, My dear young man, there's not a chance. But he could not bring himself to say it; for he dreaded the look in people's eyes when he had to say No. If only Miss Spinney had not gone home—she would have sent me about my business in short order.
 
"Well," he said doubtfully, "I don't know. Of course, we buy very little… almost nothing… and the times being what they are… However, let me see what you have. Landscapes. Hmm… yes; too bad."
 
I undid the strings of my portfolio, and propped it up on a table. I had no hope of anything, but even to be allowed to show my work, was something. It was warm in the gallery, and I was cold and tired. "Those are some studies from down on Cape Cod," I told him. "That one is the fisheries at North Truro. That's Cornhill. That's the church at Mashpee."
 
"Landscapes," said Mr. Mathews sadly.
 
All the tiredness, the hunger, the cold, the long waiting and disappointment, caught me by the throat, and for a moment I couldn't speak. I wanted to take my pictures, and go away. Instead, "Here are one or two sketches of the city," I said. "There's the bridge—"
 
"What bridge?"
 
"The new one," I said.
 
Mr. Mathews sighed. "I was afraid of it," he said.
 
"And here's a view from the Park, looking south…"
 
"That's better," said Mr. Mathews wanly. He was trying not to look too discouraging; but I could see that he was unhappy. He seemed to be wondering what on earth to say to me. Well, go on, I thought to myself, why don't you say it? Tell me to get out. You don't want any of these…
 
"There's the lake, with ducks feeding…"
 
All of a sudden his eyes lighted up, and he reached out for the portfolio. "Here," he cried; "what's that?"
 
I looked, myself, with curiosity at the drawing he had in his hand. "Why," I said uncertainly, "that's not anything. That's only a sketch—it's just a little girl I met in the Park. I was trying to remember something… I didn't know I'd brought it along with me."
 
"Ah," said Mr. Mathews happily; "but still—this is different. It's good; it's very good. Do you know why I like it? I can see the past in it. Yes, sir— I've seen that little girl before, somewhere; and yet I couldn't tell you where."
 
He held it out in front of him; then he put it down, walked away, and came back to it again. He seemed a lot more cheerful; I had an idea that he was glad because he wouldn't have to send me away without buying anything. My heart began to beat, and I felt my hands trembling.
 
"Yes," he said, "there is something about the child that reminds me of something. Could it be that child of Brush's up at the Museum?"
 
I drew in my breath sharply; for a moment I felt again the dream-like quality of that misty walk through the Mall with Jennie. "Not that it's a copy," he said hastily, "or even the same child; and the style is very much your own. There's just something in each that reminds me of the other."
 
He straightened up briskly. "I'll buy it," he said. But all at once his face fell, and I could see that he was wondering what to pay me for it. I knew that it wasn't worth much, just a sketch done with a little wash… if he paid me what it was worth, I should hardly have enough for one decent meal. I am sure now, as I look back on it, that he was thinking so too.
 
"Look here, young man," he said… "What's your name?"
 
I told him.
 
"Well, then, Mr. Adams, I tell you what I'll do. I'll take the girl—and that park scene—and give you twenty-five dollars for the pair."
 
My hands were trembling in good earnest now. Twenty-five dollars… that was a lot of money to me then. But I didn't want to seem too eager. What trouble we go to, trying to fool people who see right through us anyhow.
 
"All right," I said; "it's a deal."
 
Before he went back to his office to get me the money, he took a little pad out of his pocket, and wrote something down on it. I happened to glance at it where he had left it lying open on the table. It must have been the Gallery expense account, for there were two columns of figures, marked Sales and Expenses. Under Sales he had written: 1 small etching, water scene, Marin, 2nd impression, $35; 1 colored print, blue flower piece, Cezanne, $7.50; 1 litho, Le Pare, Sawyer, pear wood frame, $45.
 
Under Expenses he had written:

lunch, with beer  $ .80
cigar  .10
hat check  .10
bus (both ways)  .20
stamps  .39
Spinney  5.00
flag from man in veteran's hat  .10
2 water colors, Adams  15.00
 

For a moment my heart sank, for I had thought he had said twenty-five. But before I had time to feel too badly about it, he came out again with the full amount, two tens and a five. I tried to thank him, but he stopped me. "No," he said, "don't thank me; who knows, in the end I may have to thank you."
 
He gave me a timid smile. "The trouble is," he said, "that nobody paints our times. Nobody paints the age we live in."
 
I murmured something about Benton, and John Steuart Curry. "No," he said, "we'll never find out what the age is like, by peering in a landscape."
 
I must have looked startled, for he coughed in a deprecating way. "Let me tell you something, Mr. Adams," he said. "Let me give you some advice. The world is full of landscapes; they come in every day by the dozen. Do me a portrait of the little girl in the Park. I'll buy it; I'll buy them all. Never mind bridges; the world is full of bridges. Do a great portrait, and I'll make you famous."
 
Clapping me timidly on the shoulder, he ushered me out into the cold winter air, blue with twilight. But I no longer knew whether it was winter or not. Twenty-five dollars…
 
It was not until long after that I found out the truth about that fifteen dollars in the expense account. It was all he thought they were worth, and he was afraid of what Miss Spinney would say in the morning. He meant to make up the difference out of his own pocket.

SO swift is the hot heart of youth, that I thought I had already made а success, and wanted all the world to share it with me. That night I had supper at Moore's Alhambra, on Amsterdam Avenue; for all my glory, that was the best I could do for myself. As I came in, Gus Meyer, who owned the taxicab that used to stand at the corner of our street, waved to me from a table. "Hi, Mack," he exclaimed; "park yourself." He called everybody Mack; it was his way of telling people that they meant nothing to him personally; or else that he liked them.
"Well," he said, after I was seated, "how are you doing?" He had a big plate of pigsknuckles in front of him, and a glass of beer. "The specialty today," he said; "you'd ought to have some."
Fred, the smaller of the two waiters, came over and I gave him my order. "I'm doing all right," I said to Gus. "I just sold two pictures to an art gallery."
His fork stopped half way to his mouth; and he gaped at me. "You mean you got money?" he asked.
He put his fork down, and shook his head in wonder. "I guess you probably had it coming to you," he said. "But don't lose it, now. Put it in a bank, like you read about in the advertisements."
I told him that most of it would have to go to my landlady, and he looked sorry for me. "An artist don't make so much," he remarked, to comfort me. "It's the same as me. You don't get a chance to lay nothing aside."
For a moment or two he gazed with a peaceful look at his plate. "I had six hundred dollars once," he remarked. "But I spent it."
Almost as an afterthought, he added, "I gave some of it to my mother."
And һе returned to his eating, with ап air of having finished off the matter.
"This is elegant pigsknuckles," he declared.
For a while we ate in silence. When he was finished, he pushed his empty plate away, and taking a wooden toothpick from a glass on the table, leaned back to remember, and to reflect.
"Some day," he said thoughtfully, "there'll be no more pigsknuckles, and no more beer. When that time comes, I don't want to be here, neither."
"I don't want to be here now," I said; "but I am."
"Well," he said, "you can't do nothing about that. Here you are, and here you stay. So what's it all about? I ask myself."
He gave his toothpick a long, careful look. "But I don't answer," he declared. "You're born poor, and you die poor; and if you got anything, they try to take it off you."
I made the obvious answer, that some men though born poor died rich. "Then they got other troubles," said Gus. "I don't envy them. All I want is a new coil for the cab. She stalls on me."
"T want more than that," I said.
"You got the wrong idea," he said. "I had six hundred dollars once, and I spent it."
I reminded him that he had given some of it away to his mother.
"So what?" he said. "A feller's got a mother, he's got to look after her, don't he?"
"I don't know," I said. "I haven't got опе."
"I'm sorry, Mack," said Gus. He remained downcast, and silent. "Maybe you're married," he said presently. I told him no.
"Well, you're young yet," he said. "Some day you'll meet up with the right one, and you'll be all set." He leaned forward, and looked at me earnestly. "You're a nice kid, Mack," he said. "Put your money in a bank, so when you meet up with the right one, you'll be all set."
I didn't want to talk about things like that. "Listen," I said; "I haven't any money. I never have had any. I just go along, and trust to God."
"Suге," һе agreed; "sure. But that don't signify. What you want to ask yourself is, what does God think about it?"
It brought me up short, and made me feel a little uncomfortable. "I don't know, Gus," I said. "What do you think He thinks?"
The toothpick was well chewed out by now; he wrapped his legs around the rungs of his chair, and leaned back. "I wish I could tell you, Mack," he said; "I do indeed. Sometimes you'd almost think He don't know we're here at all. And then when it looks worst, you get a break; along comes a fare for Jersey City, or some drunk tips you what's left of a five dollar bill. That don't make you believe in God, but it shows which way the land lies."
"The pillar of fire," I said, "which went before the chosen people."
But Gus shook his head gloomily. "That was the toughest break we ever got," he said. He brought his chair down, and leaned forward across the table. "Listen, Mack," he said, "did you ever ask yourself what for were we chosen? How I see it is, we weren't chosen for no favors. We were chosen because we were tough; and He needed us like that, so we could tell the world about Him. Well, the world don't want to listen; they want it their way. So they kick us around. God don't care; He says, just keep on telling them."
"And Jesus?" I asked.
"He was a Jew, wasn't He?" said Gus. "He told them; and what did it get Him? If you did what Jesus said today, you'd be kicked around so fast you wouldn't know your tail from a hole in the ground."
He sat up and looked at me, a dark look, like one of the old prophets. "That's, where we got a tough break," he said; "being chosen."
"Have another beer," I said; "оп me."
"Okay," he said. "I don't mind if I do."
Mr. Moore brought over our beer himself. He was a big man, stout and anxious. "How are you, Gus?" he said. "You look fine. Was everything all right?"
"Elegant," said Gus. "Meet my friend. What's your name, Mack?"
Mr. Moore and I shook hands, and he sat down at our table. "Mind if I sit with you for a minute?" he asked. "Not at all," I said.
"Mack here is an artist," said Gus. "A painter. He just made а lot of money."
The proprietor of the Alhambra beamed at me. "Well now," he said, "that's fine. You satisfied with everything?"
I said yes, that everything was fine.
"We got a nice little place here," said Mr. Moore, looking around slowly, as if he were seeing it all for the first time. "We try to have everybody satisfied."
I felt warm and happy; it was good to be with people, to talk about things without thinking all the time, What am I going to do now?
"You're in a good business, Mr. Moore," I said. "But I guess you know it."
He looked at me, suddenly cautious. "Well, now," he declared, "I don't know. We have a lot of trouble in this business, what with the unions and all. And food costs a lot. We don't make out any too good in this business. At night we don't fill half our tables. It's a lunch business mostly."
"You'd ought to brighten up the place," said Gus. "You take my cab; I give the old bus a going over once a week. Make it shine. That attracts the customers; they like things to look good."
"Sure," said Mr. Moore. "Only I can't afford it."
Gus broke his toothpick in half, and reached for another. "Mack here is a painter," he said. "Leave him paint you something."
Mr. Moore looked from Gus to me; he took up a bowl of sugar, and set it down again. "Well, now," he said, "that's an idea." But I could see that he was waiting to hear what I might have to say.
I thought it was a good idea, too, although it surprised me; it wasn't the sort of thing I would have thought of myself. "Of course," said Mr. Moore. "T couldn't pay much."
"All right," said Gus; "you can feed him, can't you?"
"Yes," said Mr. Moore thoughtfully; "I can feed him."
"Well, Mack," said Gus; "there's your meal ticket."
"It's a good idea," I said.
Mr. Moore gave me а sideways look. "Maybe you could paint me a little something over the bar," he said. "Something tasty, like you'd enjoy standing and looking at."
"He means something with dames in it," explained Gus. "You know— sitting in the grass without nothing on."
The restaurant owner moved uncomfortably; and his fat face grew pink. "It ought to be ladies," he said, "on account of people being a little particular."
"A sort of modern Picnic in the Park." I said, nodding my head. "Yes."
He looked more uncomfortable than ever. "It has to be clean," he said. "Something that wouldn't get me into trouble."
I told him that I thought I knew what he wanted, and he looked grateful. "All right," he said; "go ahead. You can eat here while you're doing it, and afterwards, if it's all right, we can come to an agreement."
It was not a very business-like arrangement, but we shook hands, and he beckoned to the waiter. "Your little dinner was on me," he said, taking our bill and scribbling across it.
When we got outside, Gus patted me on the shoulder. "You're in the money now, Mack," he said. I tried to thank him, but he waved it aside. "Listen," he said; "I got my own dinner out of it, didn't I?"
And as he climbed into his cab, he added with a chuckle,
"Keep it clean, Mack."
I went home thinking what a good world it was. That night I gave Mrs. Jekes the money for two weeks' rent I owed her, and a week's rent in advance. "What's the matter," she inquired; "you been robbing a bank?"
It didn't even spoil things any, to have her say that. "No," I said. "I'm doing some murals."

 
ІТ was оп а Sunday morning that І saw Jennie again. There had been two ог three weeks of clear, cold weather, and the big lake in the Park at Seventysecond Street was frozen, and good for skating. I took out my old pair of Lunns, and went over. The ice was crowded with skaters; I sat down on a bench by the shore to put on my skates, and strapped my shoes to my belt. I stepped off the edge in a wide glide, drew up in a turn that made the snow fly, and set off with the sun in my face.
It was one of those days of beautiful weather such as we get in New York in winter, with a blue-white sky, and light, high, white-grey clouds going slowly over from west to east. The city shone in the sun, roof-tops gleamed, and the buildings looked as though they were made of water and air. I struck out in a long stride, taking deep breaths, feeling young and strong, feeling the blood run warm in my veins, and the air cold and fresh on my face. Couples crossed me, going by with linked hands and red cheeks; schoolboys fled past, like schools of minnows, bent over, on racing skates, cutting ice and wind. An old gentleman was doing fancy figures by himself; dressed in brown, with a red woolen scarf, he swung forward, turned, jumped, and circled backward, his skates together in a straight line, knees bent, and arms akimbo, intent and proud. I stopped and watched him for a moment, and then went on again, into the sun. All around me was the quiet flow of skaters moving and gliding, the creaking sound of steel on ice, the cold air, the bright colors.
I found Jennie near the bridge between the two ponds. She was all in black velvet, with a short, wide skirt, and white boots attached to her round, old-fashioned skates. She was doing a figure eight; and none too well, I thought. But she seemed to me to be taller than I had remembered her older, too; I wasn't even sure that it was she, until she looked up and saw me. "Hello, Mr. Adams," she said.
She coasted over to me, and put out her hands to stop herself. "I didn't know it was you," I told her. "You look older than last time." She smiled, and pressed the toe of one skate down into the ice, to hold herself. "Oh well," she said; "maybe you didn't see me very good."
I don't know how long we stood there, smiling at each other. In a little while, Jennie put her arm in mine. "Come along," she said. "Let's skate."
We started off together arm in arm; and once again the world around me grew misty and unreal. Skaters flowing like a river around us, the little flash of steel in the sun, the sound of that river moving, forms seen for a moment and then gone—our own quiet and gentle motion—all served to bring back to me a feeling I had had once before... that feeling of being in a dream, and yet awake. How strange, I thought. I looked down at the slender figure at my side; there was no question about it, she was taller than I had remembered.
"It seems to me," I said, "that you've grown a lot since I saw you."
"I know," she answered.
And as I said nothing, but only smiled uncertainly, she added seriously, "I'm hurrying."
She seemed as light as a feather beside me, but I could feel her arm in mine as we skated. I could see the wide black ripple of her skirt flare out as we swung along; and I wondered if we looked like something in an old print. "How are your parents?" I asked her. "Are they having a good season?"
"Yes," she answered. "They're in Boston now."
I thought: and they left you here all alone. But I suppose that's better than taking you everywhere with them...
"I did a little sketch of you," I told her, "and I sold it. It brought me luck."
"Tm glad," she said. "I wish I could see it."
"T'll do one some day just for you," I said.
She wanted to know more about the sketch I had made. I told her about Mr. Mathews, and the portrait he had asked me to do; and about Gus, and the picture I was painting over Mr. Moore's bar. She wanted to see that, too; but it was the portrait for Mr. Mathews that interested her most. "Who will it be of?" she asked; I thought that her voice sounded almost too casual. "I don't know," I answered. "I haven't found out yet."
She skated along a moment or two without saying anything. Then, "Perhaps..." she said. And all at once, іп a breathless rush—"Will you let it be me?"
Of course, I thought... who else? I realized suddenly that there was no one else, that there never could be anyone else for the picture that Mr. Mathews wanted. If only she were a little older...
"I don't know," I said. "Perhaps."
She gave my arm another squeeze, and made a wild swoop to the right. "Hooray," she cried; "I'm going to have my picture painted.
"Won't Emily be mad."
"Emily? "I asked.
"Emily is my best friend," she explained. "She had her picture painted by Mr. Fromkes, and I said you were going to do mine, and she said she'd never heard of you, and so I slapped her, and we quarreled."
"Well," I said. "But I thought it was Cecily you always fought with."
She looked away suddenly, and I felt her hand tremble on my arm. "Cecily died," she said in a whisper. "She had scarlet fever. Now my best friend is Emily. I thought you'd know."
"How would I know?" I asked.
She stumbled suddenly. "My shoe is untied," she said. "I've got to stop."
We coasted to the bank, and I knelt down to tie her shoe lace. Kneeling there, I looked up at her, the flushed face of the child, framed in its dark hair, the brown eyes tenderly dreaming, lost in some other time, some other where and when... I thought: she is playing at being Cinderella, or perhaps Snow White, so proud to have me kneeling in front of her, tieing her shoe lace.
We had come to shore near the little refreshment booth which they build each year for the skaters, and I asked Jennie if she would care to go in and rest, and if she would like a cup of hot chocolate. She came out of her dream with а long sigh; then her whole body began to quiver, and she clapped her hands gleefully. "Oh yes," she cried. "I love hot chocolate."
Sitting at the counter together, while the hot, watery brew steamed under our noses, we talked about the weather and the world. She wanted to hear, all over again, about how I had sold the sketch of her to Mr. Mathews; and I for my part wanted to know how she was getting along in school. "It's all right," she said, but without much enthusiasm. "I'm having French."
"French?" I asked; startled, because the last time she had been just beginning her sums. "Yes," she said. "I can say colors, and I can count to ten. Un, deux, trois, quatre...
"I can say the war, in French. C'est la guerre."
I couldn't make out what she was talking about. "The war?" I asked. "What war?"
But she only shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "It's just the war."
But then her eyes grew wide, and she looked at me in fright. "They won't hurt children like me," she asked; "will they?"
"No," I said. "No." She took a deep breath. "That's good," she said. "I don't like being hurt." And she dipped her little nose happily into the chocolate again.
I was happy too, sitting there, with the air smelling of ice and damp wool, peppermint, and wet wood and leather; and Jennie next to me, drinking her chocolate. Perhaps there was something strange about it; but just the same, it felt altogether right, as though we belonged just there, where we were, together. Our eyes met in a glance of understanding; we looked at each other and smiled, as though we had both had the same thought.
"This is lots of fun," she said.
The chocolate was finished at last; we climbed down from our stools, and clumped our way to the door. "Come along," I said; "we've time for one more round." She took my arm, going down the steps to the ice. "I hate it to stop," she said, "because when will we ever have it again?"
We set off together hand in hand, and made a grand tour of the lake; after that it was time for me to be getting back to work at the Alhambra. I said goodbye to her at the bridge between the two ponds, where we had met. But before I left, I wanted to get one thing straight in my mind.
"Jennie," I said, "tell me—when did Cecily die?"
She looked away; it seemed to me that her eyes grew clouded, and that her small face grew dim.
"Two years ago," she said.