From a Bench in Our Square

a Bench in Our Square, by
Samuel Hopkins Adams

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Title: From a Bench in Our Square
Author: Samuel Hopkins Adams
Release Date: February 4, 2004 [EBook #10944]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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BENCH IN OUR SQUARE ***

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FROM A BENCH IN OUR SQUARE
BY
Samuel Hopkins Adams

1922

Contents
A Patroness of Art
The House of Silvery Voices
Home-Seekers' Goal
The Guardian of God's Acre
For Mayme, Read Mary
Barbran
Plooie of Our Square
Triumph

FROM A BENCH IN OUR SQUARE

A PATRONESS OF ART
I
Peter (flourish-in-red) Quick (flourish-in-green) Banta (period-in-blue)
is the style whereby he is known to Our Square.
Summertimes he is a prop and ornament of Coney, that isle of the blest,
whose sands he models into gracious forms and noble sentiments, in
anticipation of the casual dime or the munificent quarter, wherewith, if
you have low, Philistine tastes or a kind heart, you have perhaps
aforetime rewarded him. In the off-season the thwarted passion of color
possesses him; and upon the flagstones before Thornsen's Élite

Restaurant, which constitutes his canvas, he will limn you a full-rigged
ship in two colors, a portrait of the heavyweight champion in three, or,
if financially encouraged, the Statue of Liberty in four. These be,
however, concessions to popular taste. His own predilection is for
chaste floral designs of a symbolic character borne out and expounded
by appropriate legends. Peter Quick Banta is a devotee of his art.
Giving full run to his loftier aspirations, he was engaged, one April day,
upon a carefully represented lilac with a butterfly about to light on it,
when he became cognizant of a ragged rogue of an urchin regarding
him with a grin. Peter Quick Banta misinterpreted this sign of interest.
"What d'ye think of that?" he said triumphantly, as he sketched in a set
of side-whiskers (presumably intended for antennae) upon the butterfly.
"Rotten," was the prompt response.
"What!" said the astounded artist, rising from his knees.
"Punk."
Peter Quick Banta applied the higher criticism to the urchin's nearest
ear. It was now that connoisseur's turn to be affronted. Picking himself
out of the gutter, he placed his thumb to his nose, and wiggled his
finger in active and reprehensible symbolism, whilst enlarging upon his
original critique, in a series of shrill roars:
"Rotten! Punk! No good! Swash! Flubdub! Sacré tas de--de--piffle!"
Already his vocabulary was rich and plenteous, though, in those days,
tainted by his French origin.
He then, I regret to say, spat upon the purple whiskers of the butterfly
and took refuge in flight. The long stride of Peter Quick Banta soon
overtook him. Silently struggling he was haled back to the profaned
temple of Art.
"Now, young feller," said Peter Quick Banta. "Maybe you think you
could do it better." The world-old retort of the creative artist to his

critic!
"Any fool could," retorted the boy, which, in various forms, is almost
as time-honored as the challenge.
Suspecting that only tactful intervention would forestall possible
murder, I sauntered over from my bench. But the decorator of
sidewalks had himself under control.
"Try it," he said grimly.
The boy avidly seized the crayons extended to him.
"You want me to draw a picture? There?"
"If you don't, I'll break every bone in your body."
The threat left its object quite unmoved. He pointed a crayon at Peter
Quick Banta's creation.
"What is that? A bool-rush?"
"It's a laylock; that's what it is."
"And the little bird that goes to light--"
"That ain't a bird and you know it." Peter Quick Banta breathed hard.
"That's a butterfly."
"I see. But the lie-lawc, it drop--so!" The gesture was inimitable. "And
the butterfly, she do not come down, plop! She float--so!" The grimy
hands fluttered and sank.
"They do, do they? Well, you put it down on the sidewalk."
From that moment the outside world ceased to exist for the urchin. He
fell to with concentrated fervor, while Peter Quick Banta and I diverted
the traffic. Only once did he speak:

"Yellow," he said, reaching, but not looking up.
Silently the elder artist put the desired crayon in his hand. When the
last touches were done, the boy looked up at us, not boastfully, but with
supreme confidence.
"There!" said he.
It was crude. It was ill-proportioned. The colors were raw. The
arrangements were false.
But--the