Edna Ferber: Fanny Herself

8. CHAPTER EIGHT (continued)

"So it's going to be business, h'm? Well, I suppose it's only natural. Your mother and I used to talk about you often. I don't know if you and she ever spoke seriously of this little trick of drawing, or cartooning, or whatever it is you have. She used to think about it. She said once to me, that it looked to her more than just a knack. An authentic gift of caricature, she called it--if it could only be developed. But of course Theodore took everything. That worried her."

"Oh, nonsense! That! I just amuse myself with it."

"Yes. But what amuses you might amuse other people. There's all too few amusing things in the world. Your mother was a smart woman, Fanny. The smartest I ever knew."

"There's no money in it, even if I were to get on with it. What could I do with it? Who ever heard of a woman cartoonist! And I couldn't illustrate. Those pink cheesecloth pictures the magazines use. I want to earn money. Lots of it. And now."

She got up and went to the window, and stood looking down the steep green slope of the ravine that lay, a natural amphitheater, just below.

"Money, h'm?" mused Father Fitzpatrick. "Well, it's popular and handy. And you look to me like the kind of girl who'd get it, once you started out for it. I've never had much myself. They say it has a way of turning to dust and ashes in the mouth, once you get a good, satisfying bite of it. But that's only talk, I suppose."

Fanny laughed a little, still looking down at the ravine. "I'm fairly accustomed to dust and ashes by this time. It won't be a new taste to me." She whirled around suddenly. "And speaking of dust and ashes, isn't this a shame? A crime? Why doesn't somebody stop it? Why don't you stop it?" She pointed to the desecrated ravine below. Her eyes were blazing, her face all animation.