Boys Who Became Famous Men

far, and trying all the while to keep his wayward charges in a group where he could count them from time to time. His chief care was to prevent them from straggling into the lonel

r if he had really stepped out from a mountain boulder to command these gentle troops, for like all woodland sprites, he was brown. His eyes were brown, his hair was brown, and the tunic reaching barely to his knee was made of cool brow

all about him, cropping the mosses, he threw himself down in the shad

ted the place, but his father, who every spring carried wool thither to market, had often told him of the splendid bridges, towers, and palaces to be seen there. Great men lived there too, Giotto's father had said, and one of them, a certain Cimabue,[2] painted such pictures as th

nd with the sight came a desire that caused him to leap

g

g one of the sheep that nibbled beside the stone; "just b

began to draw upon the flat white stone. Patiently, thoughtfully he worked, glancing now up at his placid companion, now down a

ot that he was warm, forgot that he was tired, even forgot that

by a hand up

by a hand upo

y the touch, for he had believed himse

y,[Pg 5] his face pale and serious. He was gazing intently downward, no

o draw?" he exclaimed in a

iotto wonderingly. "Nowher

ou how to use your pencil?" The speaker searched the boy's face earnestly

his simple experience, replied sadly, "

" declared the stranger, hoarse w

tto,

imabue,

the lad, falling back a step, unable to believe that he who s

Florence, child, I will make of you so great a painter that ev

e boy, and grasping the master'

s, and I will go with you anywhere—" He broke off suddenly a

our father forbade, you would not go with me,

ng down his eyes, "even though

ntly; "a true heart should ever direct a painter's hand,

at his feet; and when they came before Giotto's father with their strange request, and the Tuscan peasant learned what fortune had befallen his child,

f your colors; tell him the secret of your art and the mystery of your

of the little

g

painter in all the world. Even his master turned to him for instruction, and picture-lovers journeyed from distant countries to see him and behold his works. H

TNO

(pronounc

unced Chím-a-boó-y