But best of all--for they were rather seriously inclined at the age of
eighteen, or, rather, on the verge of nineteen--they adored sketching, in
water colors, out of doors.
Scrubby forelands set with cedars, shadow-flecked paths under the scrub
oak, meadows where water glimmered, white sails off Center Island and
Cooper's Bluff--Cooper's Bluff from the north, northeast, east,
southeast, south--this they painted with never-tiring, Pecksniffian
patience, boxing the compass around it as enthusiastically as that
immortal architect circumnavigated Salisbury Cathedral.
And one delicious morning in early June, when the dew sparkled on the
poison ivy and the air was vibrant with the soft monotone of mosquitoes
and the public road exhaled a delicate aroma of crude oil, Drusilla and
Flavilla, laden with sketching-blocks, color-boxes, camp-stools, white
umbrellas and bonbons, descended to the great hall, on sketching bent.
Mr. Carr also stood there, just outside on the porch, red, explosive,
determined legs planted wide apart, defying several courtly reporters,
who for a month had patiently and politely appeared every hour to learn
whether Mr. Carr had anything to say about the new invention, rumors of
which were flying thick about Park Row.
"No, I haven't!" he shouted in his mellow and sonorously musical bellow.
"I have told you one hundred times that when I have anything to say I'll
send for you.
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