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million in the West. Like the Louvre or the Vatican? No. The same rich lights and repose and a few of the same serene old works of the Masters. the people! There is something grotesque and pathetic, and something deeply impressive too, in these ten thousand come from the millions beginning to see. Loudly critical, pretending, or humbly silent, dazed; shrewd, kindly, curious, amused, or just quietly happy; many languages are here, for Chicago is a mixing-bowl for the nations of the earth; many American dialects are here, for men and women are come from North and West and South; all kinds of attire are here, for here are rich people and poor, from city, village, farm, and ranch. Eyes understanding, eyes art-hungry, eyes hopelessly blind-all are here. Young people are here, trying to see and feel, and beginning, with a long life of health and power and widening vision ahead. America is here.

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Why, yes, young feller, I'd be glad to." The speaker was a short, stout, middle-aged man with sandy hair and shrewd, kindly blue eyes. Though I don't suppose I know much more about pictures than you do. You see, I can't get here often. I run a grocery store down the State, and a two hundred and twenty acre farm besides. Just built a new barn. So I'm kept busy. Here,

we'll go down this gallery.

"What makes me hot," he went on, "is that I didn't find this place sooner. I struck it, just happened in, about a year ago, and since then I've been here every time I'm in town. And I'm just beginning to get the hang of the pictures. Except this!" He stopped and pointed scornfully to a fantastic creation-probably a landscape.

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"Now this," he said, "is what the catalogue calls By the Impressionist School.' Are you impressed? I ain't not a bit-only downright annoyed. I can't make head nor tail to the thing! I've figured an' figured, but the closer I get to it, the worse it looks. The man either painted in his sleep, in a regular rip-roarin' nightmare, or else he struck work before it was done. Seems a pity, don't it, if this American business rush has to go into painting too!

"An hour ago I saw an old farmer contemplatin' at it, and he looked so long and hard and curious that I got close to listen. He was one of those 'blessed are the meek' kind of old ones, and so was his wife. They looked a long time, sort of dazed. 'Well, Jenny,' he said at last, with a quiet touch of a smile, there is plenty of paint here. Nice rich paint-ain't it?' And they went on.

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"Funny what queer things you can hear people say, if you listen," he remarked as we moved down the gallery. Maybe you don't know how to use your eyes and ears without apparent effort, but if you'd run a country store for sixteen years-you would. Now look here." He stopped before a weird, fascinating night scene-" Arabs on the Desert."

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Here's something you can make head or tail to. It's what I call interesting. In the first place, it's the real thing; I don't know beans about Arabs, but I could swear they look just like this. And, second, look at the way he puts on his colors. He don't paint as if he was reelin' drunk! No, sir, he's got some self-respect. And there's nothing cheap about it either, like a circus poster. Look at that blurrish white moon! Look at them heavy-hangin' black clouds, and the dark mysterious face of that there camel. Look at this Arab chief's face under his turban, with eyes sunk 'way in, kind of ghostly. It makes you feel things, don't it? Well, that's Art. Give me scenes to make me think and feel, and then rich colors to give 'em a tone. That's it." That's it." He paused a moment, and added simply: "There ain't many colors in my town."

For the next half-hour he showed me, one by one, his favorites, which all supplied the color that was lacking in his town. An ancient German castle just before a storm, an altar scene in St. Mark's in Venice, dark rocking ships in harbor on a windy night, Sicilian flowergirls, "Alice," two lovers in a boat-not fishing-" Darius at the feet of Alexander," a gay studio scene in the Latin Quarter, Bringing Home the New-born Calf." At last we stopped before " The Trial of Catherine of Aragon," and here

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one, "do we taxpayers get stuck for all old frock suit, and by the looks of his this?" boys" they had all come straight from his church. He led them through to the end of the modern galleries, stopped before "The Two Disciples at the Tomb," and stretched out his hand. All looked in admiring silence.

"Not yet," Jim admitted. "It's run by a syndicate of about three thousand people with a few big wise ones on top. But sooner or later, mark my words, they'll get us all in! And then the price of this blamed thing will be raised from thirty thousand to sixty! Oh, I see their game," he murmured. "Plain as day. Watered stock." Again he turned a last indignant look on the meek, unoffending, world-famous little picture. "Two feet square. Not an inch more, an' shopworn at that. Thirty-thousand dollars! Come on!"

A Polish laborer turned and looked after them, his long, big-boned face breaking into a smile. Then he drew a deep, contented breath and looked back at a dark-brown Van Dyke, and at once forgot all the crowd. He was a giant, but his threadbare clothes hung loose and his hands were thin; he drooped slightly as he stood there, resting his weight heavily on one foot, which had a big hole in the instep of the dusty shoe. One hand slowly tugged on his soft yellow mustache, and his big deep-blue eyes shone. Now and then he smiled and nodded slowly to himself.

"That big Pole ?" said the guard. "Oh, yes. He comes every Sunday. He don't say anything to me or anybody else. Only once long ago at closing time he asked me to mark out on some paper how to walk back to the Stock-yards. That's a good two hours' walk, but from the look of him I guess he walks both ways. He never misses a Sunday, though, not even in blizzards, and he always stays till closing time at five o'clock. I've seen him spend two whole hours in front of that one Van Dyke, without hardly moving. And Rembrandt's "Portrait of a Girl" is another old chum of his. Once he brought a little girl dressed up nicely in American clothes; but she was like a good many Americans, she couldn't see what he saw. She fidgeted and giggled at him, called him a silly.' And the big chap looked kind of sad that day. Since then he comes alone."

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Right dis way, boys," said a tall, delighted negro preacher He wore a shiny

"Boys," he said simply, "dis yeah pictah took de first prize of all de hundreds of pictahs by all de American artists. An' de man who did it was a niggah." Instinctively the little group drew closer, and the voice grew intense and low; from outside the circle you could barely hear it. "Why could he do it? Because he got de beauty of God an' Jesus 'way deep down in his heart. Why do I keep bringin' all you boys, dozens and dozens, heah to see? Because, boys, I know sometimes it ain't any fun to be cullud. An' sometimes in dis yeah big city it ain't easy to keep sobah an' steady an' pure in heart, an' good to youah wives an' little chilluns. Sometimes, even wid Jesus to help us, things don't look bright fo' us niggahs. It looks mighty like as if we was all left. out, an' de only thing to do is jest to die, like de Indians did." Lower and lower: "We don't say nothin' to white folks, but we all feel like dat—sometimes, when we's blue. But, boys"-the voice rose slightly, and thrilled. "Heahright heah-is what one niggah did by tryin'! Just look at it good. An' den go out an' bring youah friends to see it. Because dis pictah will do you mo' good dan a whole dozen of sermons !"

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