“I don’t see any purple at all in the real grass,” he said.

“There is purple there, however; but of course, you, not being an artist, cannot see it.”  She laughed a little for fear he might think her pronouncement harsh.

“What—­what is an artist?”

“An artist is one who has learned to see more than other people can in the common things about them.”

The definition was not quite clear to him.  He had proved that he could see farther and clearer than she could when looking at trees or chipmunks.  He looked critically again at the picture.

“I mean, of course,” she added, as she noted his puzzled look, “that an artist is one who sees in nature the beauty in form, in light and shade, and in color.”

“You haven’t put that tree in the right place,” he objected! “and you have left out that house altogether.”

“This is not a photograph,” she answered.  “I put in my picture only that which I want there.  The tree isn’t in the right place, so I moved it.  The house has no business in the picture because I want it to represent a scene of wild, open lonesomeness.  I want to make the people who look at it feel so lonesome that they want to cry!”

She was an odd girl!

“Oh, don’t you understand.  I want them only to feel like it.  When you saw that charcoal drawing I made the other day, you laughed.”

“Well, it was funny.”

“That’s just it.  An artist wants to be able to make people feel like laughing or crying, for then he knows he has reached their soul.”

“I’ve got to look after the water for a few minutes, then I’ll come back and help you carry your things,” he said.  “You’re about through, aren’t you?”

“Thank you; I’ll be ready now in a few minutes.  Go see to your water.  I’ll wait for you.  How beautiful the west is now!”

They stood silently for a few moments side by side, looking at the glory of the setting sun through banks of clouds and then down behind the purple mountain.  Then Dorian, with shovel on shoulder, hastened to his irrigating.  The blossoming field of lucerne was usually a common enough sight, but now it was a stretch of sweet-scented waves of green and purple.

Mildred looked at the farmer boy until he disappeared behind the willow fence, then she began to pack up her things.  Presently, she heard some low bellowing, and, looking up, she saw a number of cows, with tails erect, galloping across the fields.  They had broken the fence, and were now having a gay frolic on forbidden grounds.  Mildred saw that they were making directly for the corner of the pasture where she was.  She was afraid of cows, even when they were within the quiet enclosure of the yard, and here was a wild lot apparently coming upon her to destroy her.  She crouched, terror stricken, as if to take shelter behind the frail bulwark of her easel.