24 THE COUNTRY, BOY 



round bay horse with knowing brown eyes. In 

 fact, he was one of the family; all of us except 

 my own mother and father had learned to ride 

 and drive with Old John, as had all the neigh- 

 bors' children. It wouldn't do to take him to 

 Silverton, as he was afraid of covered bridges 

 and bass drums, and they had one of each in 

 that place. 



Father didn't want to leave the farm he had 

 chosen, of all the wilds of Oregon, in 1851. 

 But my stepmother knew it was the only 

 thing to do especially for my art education, 

 which had already begun. I heard Father and 

 Mother in arguments, and heard Father say 

 that the city was no place to teach art; that art 

 was most in evidence in the countr}^ especially 

 such a country, but w^omen always win, so 

 later in the spring my father sold the most 

 beautiful farm I ever saw that we could move 

 to Silverton, a town of three hundred inhabi- 

 tants; that I might live in the Latin Quarter 

 of that village, and inhale any artistic atmos- 

 phere that was going to w^aste. 



Old John was left at Grandma Geer's with 

 their Old Charley, a liorse nearh^ as old but not 

 half as smart. AVhen the folks moved to 



