More striking, because more unexpected, was the influence of a large copy of the same picture upon a little boy not two years and a half old. Although this child was passionately fond of pictures, no other picture ever seemed to appeal to him as this one did. As soon as it was brought into the house he instantly began to examine it, and pass judgment upon it. He at once found the center of interest, the young child and his mother, then pointed to the angels, the "grandfather," and lastly to the "lady," but returned always to the "dear little baby Jesus." From this time the story of the birth of Jesus was the one story most loved by the child. And a collection of thirty or more madonnas ("mother-pictures," the child called them) by other great masters was a never-failing source of delight to him. Even very young children appreciate the best pictures and the best stories. In fact the younger they are the better sometimes seems to be their taste. Are we doing all that we may to gratify, and at the same time to form, this taste? But our term, "picture-work," includes more than pictures painted with the brush. Literature is full of pictures no less beautiful in theme and in execution, and even more important in meaning, than Raphael's masterpiece. The story of the good bishop, Monseigneur Bienvenu, as it is told for us in "Les Miserables," is a picture, and so are all such stories. Literature is full of them. The Bible is a treasure-house of masterpieces. More wonderful, too, are these story pictures, just as they are, if told so that they can be seen and felt, than they could ever be made with brush or pencil. How may we gain the power to paint these pictures, helping when help is needed, standing aside when our bungling efforts would only destroy the interest and the charm--rub off, as it were, the delicate bloom? To give help in finding the answer to these questions is the object of the chapters that follow. Meanwhile we return to our present theme. What is picture-work? There is the main story and the telling of it--a work of art as we shall see--and there are also the side-lights, without which no story-teller can capture and hold his audience. The story to be told, let us say, is the healing of the paralytic. But before the story begins, the ground must be cleared. The oriental house and bed must be pictured. Get a real specimen of each, if you can, of course.[1] Provide yourself with pictures in any case, but first of all, make an eastern house and bed yourself. A square paper box--a hat box will do--with a hole cut in the top, ready to be torn up when the time comes; a stairway made of paper, leading up the outside of the house to the roof; a small piece of felt--an old bed-quilt will serve equally well--with strings tied in each end, for the bed, to show how a bed could be let down, rolled, and "taken up"; with these accessories the teacher is ready to begin the work of sketching the real picture, the story of the miracle.