BENI'S KEEPER

One summer morning, long ago, a small boy guarded his father's sheep on a hillside in the Apennines. Up and down the stony pasture he trod, driving back the lambs who strayed too far, and trying all the while to keep his wayward charges in a group where he could count them from time to time. His chief care was to prevent them from straggling into the lonely passes above, where wild animals might set upon and devour them; and to watch that they did not wander down the wooded slope and imprison themselves in the tangled thickets below.

The boy might easily have been mistaken for a dryad, as he sprang from rock to rock, whistling shrilly here, [Pg 2]coaxing, calling there, and waving his crook to direct the truants back to the flock. It would have seemed no great wonder if he had really stepped out from a mountain boulder to command these gentle troops, for like all woodland sprites, he was brown. His eyes were brown, his hair was brown, and the tunic reaching barely to his knee was made of cool brown linen. His sleeves were rolled to the shoulder, and his arms and legs, bared ever to the sun, were as brown as bronze itself. A crimson cover-kerchief wound carelessly about his head was the only bit of vivid color on the mountain side.

The sun shone hot, and when Giotto was satisfied that his sheep were all about him, cropping the mosses, he threw himself down in the shade of an ilex-tree, and wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his tunic.

Below, he could see his home nestling in a forest of sturdy pines, and far down the valley shone the roofs and spires[Pg 3] of the village. Southward appeared a glimpse of the public road that threaded its way through the hills to the mighty city of Florence. Giotto had never visited the place, but his father, who every spring carried wool thither to market, had often told him of the splendid bridges, towers, and palaces to be seen there. Great men lived there too, Giotto's father had said, and one of them, a certain Cimabue,[2] painted such pictures as the world had never seen before. Of this painter and his colors the boy was never tired of hearing; and as he lay on the grass under the ilex-tree, he was longing unspeakably for the time to come when he himself might go to Florence and behold the pictures wrought by Cimabue's hand.

Musing, his eye fell upon a smooth flat stone near by, and with the sight came a desire that caused him to leap from his lounging position, his face alight with purpose.

[Pg 4]

"Hold still for a little while, Beni!" he said, addressing one of the sheep that nibbled beside the stone; "just be quiet, and I'll play I'm Cimabue, and draw your picture."

Giotto reached for a sharp bit of slate that had chipped from the rock above, and carefully studying the woolly face before him, began to draw upon the flat white stone. Patiently, thoughtfully he worked, glancing now up at his placid companion, now down at his flinty canvas, and coaxing Beni back into position with tempting handfuls of grass whenever the animal turned to trot away.

The sun rose high, and the boy, bending low over his task, forgot that he was warm, forgot that he was tired, even forgot that he was hungry, until he was roused by a hand upon his shoulder.
He was roused by a hand upon his shoulder

"He was roused by a hand upon his shoulder."

He sprang up, startled beyond speech by the touch, for he had believed himself alone with the silence and the sheep.

Before him stood a man in the robes of a scholar. His manner was stately,[Pg 5] his face pale and serious. He was gazing intently downward, not upon the little Tuscan shepherd, but at Beni's picture upon the stone.

"Boy, where did you learn to draw?" he exclaimed in a voice of strong excitement.

"Learn to draw?" queried Giotto wonderingly. "Nowhere, sir. I haven't learned."

"Do you mean me to believe that you have had no teacher, no one to tell you how to use your pencil?" The speaker searched the boy's face earnestly, almost fiercely, in his desire to know whether the child spoke the truth.

Giotto, innocent of all but the facts of his simple experience, replied sadly, "My father is too poor to pay for lessons."

"Then God Himself has taught you!" declared the stranger, hoarse with agitation. "What is your name?"

"Giotto, sir."

"I am Cimabue, Giotto."

"Not—not Cimabue, the painter of[Pg 6] Florence!" ejaculated the lad, falling back a step, unable to believe that he who stood before him was in reality the hero of his boyish dreams.

"Yes," affirmed the man gravely, "and if you will go with me to Florence, child, I will make of you so great a painter that even the name of Cimabue will dwindle before the name of Giotto."

Down upon one bare knee fell the boy, and grasping the master's hand in both of his, he cried,—

"Oh, teach me to paint pictures, great and beautiful pictures, and I will go with you anywhere—" He broke off suddenly and rose,—"if father will give me leave," he concluded quietly.

"Oho!" and the artist smiled curiously. "If your father forbade, you would not go with me, even though you might become a great painter?"

"No," said Giotto slowly, casting down his eyes, "even though I might become a great painter."

"Most good, most good," burst out[Pg 7] the master exultantly; "a true heart should ever direct a painter's hand, and yours is true indeed, Giotto. Come, let us go to him."

Down the steep they hastened, the boy running on before to point the way, the master following with the look of one who has found a diamond in the dust at his feet; and when they came before Giotto's father with their strange request, and the Tuscan peasant learned what fortune had befallen his child, with the promised teaching and protection of Cimabue the renowned, he bared his head, waved his hand toward Florence, and said to the painter solemnly,—

"Take him, master, and teach him the cunning of your brush, the magic of your colors; tell him the secret of your art and the mystery of your fame, but let him not forget his home, nor his mountains, nor his God."

And what became of the little Tuscan shepherd?

[Pg 8]

He dwelt with Cimabue in the wonderful city of Florence, studying early, studying late; and by the time he had grown to manhood, he was known to be the greatest painter in all the world. Even his master turned to him for instruction, and picture-lovers journeyed from distant countries to see him and behold his works. He was encouraged by the church, honored by the court, loved by the poor; and in all Christendom no name was more truly revered than that of the painter, Giotto.
FOOTNOTES:

[1] Giotto (pronounced Jótto).

[2] Cimabue (pronounced Chím-a-boó-y).