"Look, look!," he whispered from behind teeth that clicked like castanets. "See! He's coming!"

To earn a living in illustration meant creating some paintings of no personal interest at all. In May 1914 Wyeth wrote to his fellow Pyle alumnus and illustrator Sidney M. Chase, "To-day on my easel stands a canvas vividly portraying two murderers in a death-cell. The apparition of a hideous blood-stained face stares at them from the wall. It is only by using my utmost power of control that I do not get up from this note and destroy the damned thing! But patience! I see the opening clear, where I can choose what kind of thing shall be my output" (NCW to Sidney Chase, dated by NCW "Studio / Tuesday noon" and in another hand May 4, 1914, Wyeth Family Archives).