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Show Hannah Mae and the Mona Lisa 12 Colby had sketched our new calf, spindly-legged and knock-kneed. Her wet tongue stroked across her nose and her big, calf eyes were filled with questions. Colby's sketch was so real it made you want to reach out and scratch Beulah behind the ears. I asked, "Have you shown these to your dad?" Colby shook his head and closed the notebook. Colby's dad doesn't see much use in having a son who can draw, especially a son as big and useful as Colby. But Colby is good-really good. The first sketch Colby ever let me see was of a wild rabbit. I had never imagined you could capture the soul of a thing on a piece of paper. With nothing but a number two pencil and a sheet of scratch paper, Colby had drawn every hair and whisker. But best of all, he had drawn the worry and fret you can see in a wild rabbit's eye. I asked Colby if I could have it and I pinned it to my bedroom wall. That Christmas I gave Colby a sketchbook and real art pencils. I wish I could convince Colby's dad to let him take art lessons. Not the drawing lessons they offer in school, but real art classes taught by a real artist like Mr. Morris, the painter who moved to Willard last year and bought forty acres of land so he could be alone and paint whatever he wanted. I think Mr. Morris must be the most remarkable thing ever to happen to Willard County. Imagine, a real artist moving from New York City. Why, I figure the only thing more romantic would be actually living in Paris like the famous impressionists of the past-artists like Monet and Renoir. I once told Colby that he should plan to live in Paris and learn to paint like the masters. "You're good enough," I said. "You'd be terribly poor, and you would live a tragic life because nobody important would see your work until you had given up all |