If Portraits Could Speak...

This is worth more than one glance. Old portraits again, I know. But old portraits of women are especially interesting. Consider the fact that these women have their photo taken in the raw, so to speak. No make-up. At all - NONE. I've read in antique novels that modest ladies might pinch their cheeks or bite their lips to bring some color out in their complexions. No hair product. Maybe why a hat was such a good idea, right? Hard times, yes? Well.

This portrait stands on its own, really. There's no hat that could've helped any more than this feathery-floral one. The earrings are a shining distraction, but not enough, I think, to keep us from seeing, even a hundred or so years later, that...

...it's a guy.

Did he lose a bet? Was it a joke - something he did to make his sisters laugh? Could it have been some sort of twisted punishment imposed on a drunken and disorderly cowboy? What???