"TOM PEAR-TREE'S PORTRAIT"

Tommy Gainsborough did a very dreadful thing. If he had not possessed such a trick in the use of pen and pencil, this never would have happened. But, you see, he spent most of his school hours in drawing pictures on the fly-leaves of his books, which pleased the other boys so greatly that he filled their books also with sketches of people, trees, and houses; while they, in return, worked out his problems in fractions and wrote his spelling lessons for him. His copy-book he was content to keep himself, for he chanced to be the best penman at the Sudbury Grammar School, and his pages were always elegantly inscribed.

As the months went by, and his lesson papers were daily found to be correct,[Pg 72] the teacher's reports of Master Gainsborough's progress proved highly gratifying to the boy's parents. But while Jack supplied his answers in arithmetic, and Joe prompted him with names and dates at history time, Tommy Gainsborough's ignorance of these subjects was deplorable, and his conduct towards parents and teachers was deceiving indeed.

As spring came on he grew restless under the confinement of walls and rules, and longed for the dewy fields and fragrant lanes. If only he might spend the days outside, he thought, instead of sitting mewed up in this dreary schoolroom, what splendid woodland pictures he could draw. Twice he asked the schoolmaster to excuse him, but Mr. Burroughs curtly refused, since it would be unfair to dismiss one pupil to roam the meadows and keep the others at their tasks. Tommy next tried his father, but that gentleman replied with all seriousness,—

[Pg 73]

"My son, you have worked so well this term that I wish you to keep a perfect record until the end of the year. When vacation comes you will be free to spend every day out of doors, but your education is too important to be slighted for pleasure."

Tommy was much disappointed at this decision, and, I am sorry to say, closed the door quite ungently as he started for school.

The day was an enchanting one, and as the boy trudged along the unpaved streets that ran between rows of quaint and ancient houses, a feeling of hot rebellion took possession of him.

"Father does as he likes," he muttered, "and I think I ought to do the same way once in a while. What is the sense in listening to old Burroughs drone all day about nouns and divisors?"

The fresh spring breeze, with its scents of green things growing, was so tantalizing that he paused before the schoolhouse door and thoughtfully wrinkled his brow.[Pg 74] Presently his face grew defiant, and he dashed into the schoolroom with the look of a man who had made up his mind to do as he pleased.

Finding himself to be the first arrival, he hurried to his desk. Deftly tearing from his copy-book a slip of paper resembling those upon which Mr. Gainsborough wrote Tommy's occasional excuses, the boy dipped his pen and quickly wrote the words,—

"Give Tom a holiday."

Now if he had used his own style of penmanship the ruse would have been readily understood by the schoolmaster; but he boldly imitated his father's finely pointed lettering to a nicety, and at the end jotted down the initials, "J. G.," with two short lines drawn under them, just as his father would have signed the note.

Carefully drying his pen, he closed his desk and left the building before any one else arrived. He waited around the corner until almost time for school to[Pg 75] begin, then rushed into the schoolroom, now filled with noisy pupils, marched straight up to the master's desk, and presented his forged excuse.

Mr. Burroughs read the slip with some surprise.

"Of course, Tom," he said, "if your father wishes you to have a holiday, I shall not refuse permission; but I understood that he wished you to remain steadily at school until vacation time."

"May I go?" queried the boy hastily, not caring to discuss the question.

Mr. Burroughs bowed, but laid the slip of paper in his desk. Tommy, not lingering for further debate, sped from the room; and when he reached the place in the next street, where, under Dame Curran's rosebush, he had hidden his sketch-book, he threw his cap high in air from sheer joy of springtime and freedom.

Out from the town he hurried, and soon was tramping through the forest that furnished the banks of the winding[Pg 76] river Stour. All day long he revelled in the glory of the woods, and hour after hour he worked with his pencil, striving to put into his book the charming bits of landscape that greeted his eye on every side. One sketch comprised a bend in the river, with grassy meads beyond; another, an old vine-covered bridge, now fallen into disuse; a third merely pictured a broken tree lying across the sunlit path.

Occasionally he experienced a sharp twinge somewhere when he remembered that all this pleasure was stolen. "But then," he argued, "what difference does it make? Old Burroughs didn't know, and father will never find it out!"

He stifled these pricking thoughts as fast as they arose, not permitting them seriously to disturb his holiday. He whistled, he sang, he lay on his back and looked up at the sky through the chinks in the tender foliage. Sometimes he closed his eyes and listened, and the mysterious woodland sounds, mingled with the purling of the river, yielded[Pg 77] him boundless enjoyment. When, however, the shadows of the trees fell at a certain angle, Tommy closed his sketch-book with a sigh and went swiftly homeward.

"I must get there at the usual time," he meditated, "else they'll ask me where I've been."

As he came in sight of the "Black Horse," the public inn of bygone times, where armored knights had claimed food and shelter, but which was now the comfortable residence of John Gainsborough, Tommy began to whistle airily.

Approaching nearer, he discovered that his father had come with pipe and chair to the front stoop, and was sitting with his face turned down the street, as though watching for somebody.

Tommy began to whistle louder, and as he turned in at the gate, his countenance was beaming with innocence.

He bounded up the steps with the intention of getting into the house as quickly as possible, but as his hand[Pg 78] touched the latch a stentorian voice said,—

"Thomas!"

The boy stopped short, his eyes round with surprise, his lips still puckered for the whistling that had been so abruptly quelled.

"I called for you at school to-day."

"Called for me at school to-day," echoed Tommy, reddening in dismay.

"I did. I found that I must drive out to Squire Bagley's place, and I decided to take you along. It seems that you had already given Mr. Burroughs an excuse from me."

Tommy's fingers began to pick at his jacket, and he racked his brains for a story that would fit the occasion.

"Well, father, I thought—"

"Silence, if you please! I am terribly shocked to find that my son would deliberately write and act a lie. Such conduct deserves the severest punishment. Will you take your whipping before tea or after?"

[Pg 79]

"After," said Tommy promptly; and accepting this as a dismissal he vanished into the house.

The evening meal was not a joyous one for the culprit, owing to his foretaste of what was coming later. His brothers and sisters evidently knew nothing of his escapade, and chattered among themselves as usual; but his mother's eyes rested upon him from time to time with sorrow in their depths. Once a sob came into Tommy's throat, but he fiercely choked it back, scorning to weep even under such harrowing circumstances.

As the family rose from the table, Mr. Gainsborough, pointing to the stairway, said sternly,—

"To your own room, Thomas!"

Very slowly the boy obeyed, and when the upper door had closed upon him, Mrs. Gainsborough laid a detaining hand upon her husband's arm.

"Wait for a moment, John, and look at the child's work."

Mrs. Gainsborough, who was herself[Pg 80] an accomplished painter of flowers, opened Tommy's sketch-book, and laid before her husband's eyes the record of the day's outlawry.

A whispered consultation followed, then Mr. Gainsborough ascended the stair with a heavy, portentous tread.

Tommy, sitting miserably on the side of his bed, heard the measured tramp, tramp along the corridor; and folding his arms he set his teeth grimly and waited for the worst.

Mr. Gainsborough entered the room and closed the door behind him.

"Thomas," he began in a relentless tone, "you have disgraced yourself and your family by your behavior to-day, but I have decided not to give you a whipping."

Tommy leaped from the bed with an exclamation of puzzled relief.

"Instead, my son, I shall take away all your pencils and drawing materials for a month, and shall see that you do not have access to any at school."

[Pg 81]

"Oh, father," howled Tommy despairingly, "I'd rather take the whipping—even two of 'em, if you'll give me back my things! Please whip me, father, as you said you would, and let me have my sketch-book!"

"At the end of a month, and not one day sooner."

Mr. Gainsborough kept his word, and throughout the following weeks Tommy's fingers fairly tingled for the touch of his beloved instruments. Pencils and paper were so costly at that time that it was useless for him to save his pennies in the hope of buying them for himself; and during the weary days of waiting, Tommy decided positively that his pen should never again perform dishonest tricks, plunging him into such trouble.

One midsummer morning, weeks after Tommy's pencils had been restored to him, Mrs. Gainsborough appeared at the corner of the garden, where the boy was busily digging worms for fish bait.

"Tommy," she inquired in a vexed[Pg 82] tone, "have you been gathering my yellow pears?"

"No," returned he, pushing his hat back and looking up at the distressed lady.

Now Tommy was guilty of so many mischievous doings that when anything went wrong about the place he was always suspected of being in the plot somewhere, though sometimes he was truly innocent, as happened to be the case just now.

"No," he repeated, "I haven't touched a single one of the yellow pears. Honor bright!"

"Then some one else has," declared Mrs. Gainsborough. "For three days, since they have been ripening so beautifully, I have tried to find enough to fill a fancy basket for the dean; and although each evening I have seen ten or twelve that would be perfect in another day, I have gone the following morning to gather them, and have found only hard and green ones hanging. The other[Pg 83] children know nothing about it, so I suppose some one has stolen the pears. It is too provoking!"

Mrs. Gainsborough turned away, and her son went on with his digging, giving no further thought to the missing fruit.

The next morning he awoke very early, so early that the great red sun was just peeping over the hill. He turned drowsily on his pillow and was preparing to launch into another delicious nap, when it occurred to him that sunrise was a capital time for the drawing of shadows.

Instantly he scrambled out of bed, and five minutes later was on his way through the orchard with his sketch-book under his arm.

Dew lay thickly upon the grass and leaves, and even the ruddy fruit hanging overhead sparkled brightly as the first rays of the sun shone upon its clinging drops.

"Now for the shadows," thought Tommy, glancing about the orchard.[Pg 84] "I think I'll draw that clump of currant bushes, if I can get a good position."

He walked up and down several times, trying to find a place where his view would be unobstructed. This was no easy matter amid so many trees, but at length he found that by sitting inside the entrance of an old rustic summer-house he could command his model exactly.

A few feet at his left, and close beside the stone wall dividing the orchard from the public road, grew his mother's pear-tree, laden with ripe, rich fruit.

Tommy had opened his book, and with half-closed eyes and uplifted pencil was measuring the height of the currant bushes, when, to his surprise, a head suddenly appeared above the wall, at the very spot shaded by the pear-tree.
A head suddenly appeared above the wall

"A head suddenly appeared above the wall."

The stranger cast a quick, cautious glance about the premises, showing that his errand was no friendly one, then threw back his head and gazed greedily at the luscious pears that grew above[Pg 85] him. As he stood thus, with the morning light falling brightly across his visage, Tommy saw that his features were strongly marked and prominent, his face seamed by deep and vicious lines.

The boy, accustomed to study the form and appearance of things, quickly comprehended the stranger's long nose, low brow, pointed chin, and hollow cheeks.

The man looked furtively about for the second time and sprang to the top of the wall. Quite unconscious that a spectator was eagerly watching from the covered structure near by, the intruder ascended boldly into the pear-tree and proceeded to fill his pockets and hat with the juicy fruit.

Never a sound came from the summer-house, but before the rogue had completed his stolen harvest, Tommy's cunning pencil had drawn the robber's portrait, with the narrowed eyes, leering lips, unkempt hair, and rakish hat, exactly as they had impressed him at[Pg 86] the moment when the vagabond stood gazing aloft at the fruit overhead. Tommy finished the sketch with a few hasty strokes, then closed his book and burst suddenly from the summer-house, shouting "Wow, wow!" at the top of his voice.

Down leaped the man to the earth, and scaling the wall at a bound, he fled, dropping many of the pears as he ran.

Tommy's unearthly shrieks had roused the household, and he hurriedly explained to his mother the cause of her daily vanishing pears, displaying his sketch as proof of his argument.

An hour later Mr. Gainsborough opened Tommy's book before the squire, pointed to the drawing upon the last page, and related the story of the boy's early morning experience.

The squire immediately recognized the picture as of a ne'er-do-weel who had been loitering about Sudbury for some time, and who had more than once been convicted of petty thieving.

[Pg 87]

"I'll send for him," declared the magistrate; and that very afternoon the offender was brought in.

Mr. Gainsborough accused him of invading his orchard and attempting to carry away his fruit; but the culprit stoutly denied all knowledge of the episode.

Quietly the squire opened Tommy's book, and held it before the defendant's astonished gaze.

He uttered a baffled whine, then, with a laugh that was like a snarl, he admitted his guilt of the morning, and also confessed to having robbed the pear-tree upon three previous occasions.

"My man," announced the squire sternly, "I shall let you go free this time upon your promise of good behavior, but if you ever repeat the offence I'll give you a sentence of confinement on bread and water. There is plenty of honest employment to be had in Sudbury, and I advise you to go to work and live as a decent citizen."

[Pg 88]

The man shambled out, and from that day forth was seen no more about the village.

Mr. Gainsborough, concluding from the day's developments that he could justly afford to encourage this play-work of Tommy's, which was beginning to take on a shade of importance, bought a large new sketch-book and presented it to the boy.

Tommy turned five somersaults to express the warmth of his gratitude; but before despatching the old book to its future home on the closet shelf, he opened it and, with his bravest flourishes, wrote beneath the sketch on the final page,—

"Tom Pear-tree's Portrait."

When years had gone by and Thomas Gainsborough had arrived at manhood, he astonished all England by his remarkable paintings. His pictures of woods and lanes, fields and shining water, captivated the country folk by presenting so[Pg 89] perfectly the scenes before their doors; and the city dwellers were awakened by his colors to the charms of the wide, sweet country they had forgotten.

These landscape studies set Thomas Gainsborough high in the world of art, but when at length he turned his cunning brush to the task of painting portraits, his fame was heralded from city to province. He began by making likenesses of his wife and daughters, and when these were exhibited at the Royal Academy, people exclaimed at the skill and dignity of the work. Even King George III., who chanced to visit the gallery on one of these occasions, paused before Gainsborough's canvas, and clasped his hands in admiration.

"Summon this painter to the palace," commanded he, "and let him paint his sovereign and his queen."

This order from the king made Gainsborough's portraits the fashion at court, and straightway all the ladies of rank[Pg 90] and beauty came to him, entreating him to paint their pictures.

His fortune and reputation, by these well-earned favors, rose far beyond anything he had expected, and if ever a man was truly happy in his life and work, that man was Thomas Gainsborough.

He was so generous, so good-humored, so lovable in his old-time frankness, that people who sought his acquaintance because he was a famous artist quickly forgot his amazing skill in the pleasure of his ever-boyish company.

It was supposed that he had reached the climax of his art when he exhibited a picture of the Duchess of Devonshire, for this set Great Britain agog with praise and wonder; but Thomas Gainsborough was destined to climb yet one step higher in the ladder of public esteem, and the work that crowned his success and brought the world to his feet was a childish portrait entitled "Blue Boy." This was hung on the wall of the Royal Academy, and when the spectators came[Pg 91] surging through the gallery, chattering amiably of this canvas and that, they halted speechless before the boy with the thoughtful eyes, the fresh brown skin, and the pale-blue dress. The lad was so young, so sweet, so lifelike in his quiet pose, that not a word was uttered by the critics standing by. One by one they slipped away, aware that Thomas Gainsborough had not attained the goal of his greatness by pictures of kings, queens, court beauties, and mighty soldiers, but by the youthful, innocent portrait entitled simply "Blue Boy."