Page 66 - 1918 Hartridge

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He r name was once Clara Hummer, and she used to live on a farm where the hired men ate their coffee and used their fingers oftener than their forks, according to their natures. The
chairs in the parlor had crocheted tidies on them, and the sofa was black horsehair. A glass bell covered a group of wax flowers, and the carpet was green with red roses. It was like hundreds of others.
Clara used to run barefoot, wore a gingham apron, and her hair in two tight unbecoming braids. She drew pictures of the teacher on her slate—as a form of relaxation. They were uncanny figures, un­ cannily dressed. One summer, when she was fifteen and her figures
had become more life-like, a boarder became enthusiastic over her draw­ ings. After that, the farm was as a bushel to the candle of Clara’s genius, and every day spent there kept her longer from inscribing her name in the Hall of Fame along with other great artists. When she was eighteen and mistress of her own fate, she gathered together the best of her belongings and all the available cash and departed for the Big City of Dreams—and Xightmares. She declared that the village of IMillville would know her only at a distance.
All that was changed now. Her name was Clarisse Humere, and she wore bobbed hair and a sea-green smock, joined the Barefoot Dancers (because it was then fashionable), and lived in Bohemia in a
“studio”—so-called. It had a medley of Chinese art objects and JNIex-
ican rugs to give the artistic effect, and a gas-plate and a washstand
for utilitv.
At times she was sore put to it to gather the wherewithal to pur­
chase another smock or a box of crackers, but her studio neighbors helped her out with cash or food when they had it, and she was sup­
posed to return in kind. Her work was illustrating, but sometimes there was nothing to illustrate. The magazine' for which she worked was new and rather bizarre and gained success but slowly.
It was on one of these lean occasion that she returned from a scanty dinner and, stumbling around in the dark maze of her room, discovered that she had no matches. It was entirelv too earlv for anv
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