Robin Hood's Barn 



prance alone, to express our individual moods 

 by dancing or curvetting, we could do without 

 that yoke-fellow who holds down our high-step- 

 ping and keeps us steady to his pace. 



So it is that while my brother turns the pages 

 of "Our Sentimental Journey," those early ad- 

 ventures of the Pennells made by tricycle through 

 France and Spain, you must not think he is ad- 

 miring solely the genius of the master-craf stman. 

 True, he cannot help lingering over the small 

 sketches scattered through the volume; poplars 

 blown against a wind-swept sky; lanes winding 

 in and out beside a hedge of bristling willows; 

 courtyards set cool and deep in shadow by the 

 foreground's sultry blaze ; or peasants caught in 

 an unconscious attitude by dextrous and unerring 

 stroke. But deeper than his envy of the artist 

 lies his envy of the man. That cantankerous cur- 

 mudgeon, old Joe PenneU, who wiU admit no il- 

 lustrator save himself since the brave swagger- 

 ing days of Howard Pyle! Let him bluster, let 

 him grumble. Why, the man has the patience 

 of a saint. Witness the books — a whole half- 

 dozen — ^he has turned out with his wife. 



[i8] 



