The Journeyman

I highly recommend this book. It does a superb job of describing the life of an "Early American Itinerant Artist"...one who travels the country painting portraits, walls and objects for a living. It even throws in a beautiful "enduring" love of very young man as he earns his way to be able to marry.

A tiny cry rends the air as Jared Austin makes his first appearance. It is one of New Hampshire's coldest winters, and a young mother loses her life trying to keep her baby warm.Jared spends his first years, until his father's second marriage, being raised by kindly neighbors. Mother Thaxter works hard to put meat on his bones, but Jared is made to be scrawny.As he moves back home at six, Jared learns to regard his bitter father with fear and trembling. He often comes under Eban's anger by forgetting his duties, lost in the beauty surrounding the Austin farm. Jared's passion is for beauty, wherever it may be found, but to Eben, beauty is little but a waste of time.Sitting under a tree one day, talking with pretty Jennet Thaxter and making a stencil out of a leaf, Jared hears his father's angry call. Sure of a beating, Jared is surprised by a visitor who has saved him from that immediate fate. But Jared finds that this is not just any visitor, Mr. Toppan in a journeyman painter. A man who spends his whole life just traveling the country making beauty.Young Jared Austin is apprenticed to Mr. Toppan, and in one day, his life is transformed. Now, the learning and creation of beauty is encouraged. With his new master, Jared journeys many miles, learning how to make beauty on grey walls, dreaming of Jennet, and planning his return. Jared knows he cannot return until he is worthy of her; until he can face his father.