illet was a French peasant boy—very poor. He says his grandmother would come into his room early in the morning and call:

"Awake, my little FranÇois; if you only knew how long a time the birds have been singing the glory of the good God!"

He would insist when he was helping in the fields that there was beautiful color over the plowed ground, and when the other fellows laughed at him, he would say:

"Wait, some day I will paint a picture and show you the color."

After he was an artist he was going by a field one day when a peasant cutting grain called to him:

"I would like to see you take a sickle."

"I'll take your sickle," Millet answered quickly, "and reap faster than you and all your family."

Of course the man laughed, for how could an artist cut grain. He soon stopped laughing, for Millet cut much faster and farther than he could.

Millet would often go into the forest just back of his house to rest after painting all day. Then he would say:

"I do not know what those beggars of trees say to each other, but they say something which we do not understand, because we do not understand their language."

Millet's work is often called "the poems of the earth."

Once when I was in Barbizon I found the gate open into Millet's door-yard. Of course I walked in, but the owner insisted that I walk out again. I shall never forget the peep I had of the little garden and the doorway and the long rambling house. That Millet lived there with his large family and there painted the pictures we love makes the place a joy to us.

Please click here for a modern color image