Miss Hale

Miss Hale, the artist daughter of Dr. Edward Everett Hale, enters Mary Antin's life as a figure of artistic and intellectual patronage, becoming one of the most significant mentors in the young immigrant's American journey. As a painter with a studio at the top of her father's house on Dover Street, she represents a world of creative endeavor and refined sensibility that Mary, newly arrived from the Pale of Settlement, could scarcely have imagined. Her decision to invite Mary to sit for a portrait transforms the girl's Saturday mornings into a ritual of discovery, one that would leave a lasting imprint on Mary's sense of self and her understanding of what America could offer a woman of talent and ambition.

Identity and Introduction

Miss Hale is introduced as the daughter of Dr. Hale, the celebrated minister and author whose modest gray house, with its pillared porch curtained by vines, becomes a sanctuary for Mary. The artist's studio at the top of the house is the destination that draws Mary into the gables, a space that would otherwise have remained unexplored. When Miss Hale asks Mary if she would sit for a portrait, the girl consents with the greatest alacrity, feeling that something was going to happen to Dover Street. This invitation is not merely an artistic commission but an initiation into a household where the troubled came comforted and the fallen came uplifted, a place where even the most humble visitor was sure of a welcome.

The Portrait Sittings and Artistic Validation

The first sitting proves to be an exciting and unconventional experience. There was hardly any sitting to it; instead, Miss Hale and Mary moved around the studio, repositioning the easel, and trying on ever so many backgrounds and poses, only to leave everything as it had been at the start, because Miss Hale had had the right idea from the beginning. Mary was surprised to find she would not be obliged to hold her breath and was allowed to wink all she wanted. Posing was simply sitting with her hands in her lap while enjoying the most interesting conversation with the artist, touching on such out-of-the-way topics as the marriage laws of different states. The morning flew so fast that Mary could have sat right on into the afternoon without tiring, and she watched the progress of the portrait with utter lack of comprehension but with perfect faith in the ultimate result.

Before her first sitting, Mary studied herself long in her blotched looking-glass, seeing just what she expected: a face too thin, a nose too large, a complexion too dull, hair too short to be described as luxurious tresses, and wrists that looked consumptive. Yet she understood that it was not for her beauty that Miss Hale wanted to paint her, but because she was a girl, a person, a piece of creation. This recognition was profoundly validating for Mary, who had learned to draw interest out of a broom, a milk wagon, and a rain spout through her writing. She reasoned that if she could write an interesting composition about a broom, why should an artist not be able to make an interesting picture of her? It was not what a thing was that made it interesting, but what one was able to draw out of it, and it was exciting to speculate as to what Miss Hale was going to draw out of her.

Patronage, Payment, and the Question of Motive

One small thing disturbed Mary's enjoyment of those Saturday mornings: a silver coin, hardly as big as a pen-wiper, which Miss Hale gave her regularly when she was going. Mary knew that models were paid for sitting, but she was not a professional model, and when people sat for their portraits they usually paid the artist rather than the reverse. What troubled her was not the suspicion that she did not earn the money, but that she did not know what was in her friend's mind when she gave it to her. Mary speculated that Miss Hale might have asked her to sit on purpose to be able to pay her, so that she could help pay the rent, since everybody knew about the rent sooner or later because Mary was always asking her friends what a girl could do to make the landlady happy. Mary might have asked for an explanation, for she dearly loved explanations which cleared up hidden motives, but she concluded that the answer would not have made any real difference; she would have accepted the money just the same. Miss Hale was not a stranger, like Mr. Strong when he offered her a quarter; she knew Mary, believed in her cause, and wanted to contribute to it.

The Nativity Painting and the Transformation of the Antin Family

Miss Hale's most consequential act for the Antin family was finding a use for their superfluous baby. She came to Dover Street several times to study the tiny Celia, in swaddling clothes improvised by Mary's mother after the fashion of the old country. Miss Hale wanted a baby for a picture of the Nativity which she was doing for her father's church, and of all the babies in Boston, the little Jewish Celia was posing for the Christ Child. Though the Infant that lies in the lantern light, brooded over by the Mother's divine sorrow of love, in the beautiful altar piece in Dr. Hale's church, was not actually painted from the Antin baby in the end, the significance lay elsewhere. The point was that Mary's mother, in less than half a dozen years of America, had so far shaken off her ancient superstitions that she feared no evil consequence from letting her child pose for a Christian picture. This act of artistic patronage thus became a measure of the family's Americanization, a concrete demonstration of how far they had traveled from the constraints of the Old World.

Narrative Role and Significance

Miss Hale's role in Mary's life extends beyond the portrait sittings and the Nativity painting. She represents the world of American culture and refinement that Mary was so eager to enter, a world where a woman could be an artist, a creator, and an independent spirit. In the Old World, as Mary's narrative makes clear, a girl's real schoolroom was her mother's kitchen, where she learned to bake and cook and manage, to knit, sew, and embroider, while her mother instructed her in the laws regulating a pious Jewish household and the conduct proper for a Jewish wife. Marriage was a sacrament, and woman's only work was motherhood; to be left an old maid was the greatest misfortune that could threaten a girl. Miss Hale, by contrast, embodied a different possibility: a woman who pursued an artistic career, who had a studio of her own, and who could engage a young girl in conversation about the marriage laws of different states. She was living proof of the American promise that Mary cherished, the promise of a long girlhood, a free choice in marriage, and a brimful womanhood. Through her friendship with Miss Hale, Mary glimpsed a future in which her own talents might find expression, and the silver coin that passed between them each Saturday was not merely payment but a token of that possibility, a recognition of Mary's worth as a person and a piece of creation.