"I did look around. People was walking along close to the wall, one after another, a-smellin' every picture in turn. In the other rooms there was women standin' on clouds, and there was children with wings on and nothin' else; but everybody give them things the complete go-by. Yes, sir, let me tell you, Melissa Crabb, all those folks was once just country folks like you and me. Those there city people had all come from the country some time or other, and they was all a-longin' for country sights and country smells. They're Western people, too, and they want Western scenes painted for them by Western artists. There's fame a-waitin' for the man who can do that--and money too. I guess I'm beginning to see a way to make the old farm pay, after all." IV Jared during his visit to the city had not confined his attention to the display of the Western artists. He had talked with several dealers, and had visited one or two makers of picture-frames, and had taken note of the prominence given to "art" in the offices and corridors of the great hotels. "I tell _you_," he declared roundly, "paintin' 's got the call everywhere. You go into one of them bang-up hotels, and what is the first thing you notice? A painting--scenery; ten or twelve feet long, too--some of 'em. Well, that's all right; I can paint as big as they want 'em, and frame 'em too, I guess." He had formed some ideas of his own about framing. The prices mentioned by the frame-makers astonished him as much as those entered in the sale catalogue by the fond artists themselves. "No gilt for me. That's clear." He thought of a wide flat frame he had seen at the exhibition. "It was just a piece of plain boarding daubed over with some sort of gilt paint. It had a fish-net kind o' strung round it, I recollect." "What was that for?" asked Melissa. "It was a sea view, with boats and things. Seemed a pretty good notion to me." "Why, yes." "But there was one old codger come along who didn't seem to like it. Specs and white whiskers standing out. Lot of women with him. 'Well, I declare,' says he, 'what are we coming to? I can't understand how Mr. English could have let in such a thing as that!' He was going for the frame. I stepped over to the girl at the desk----" "Seems to me you talked a good deal to that girl." "Well, I did. She was from Ringgold County too, it turned out; hadn't been in town but six months. She was up to all sorts of dodges, though--knew the whole show like a book." "Oh, she did, did she?" "Well, she wasn't so very young, nor so very good-looking, if that's what you're after." "Oh, she wasn't, wasn't she?" said Melissa, somewhat mollified. "'Who is that funny old feller?' says I to her. He was poking out his arms every which way and talking like all possessed. "'Why,' says she, sort o' scared like, 'that's Doctor Gowdy.' You might have thought I had let drive at the President himself. I see I had put my foot in it, so I pulled out as fast as I could."