Show AMONG THE HILLS rosa ro ca glovanni giovanni sat eat at the door ot of the ash mans hovel and looked at the faraway hills rosa loved the hills as ar she loved god and thought of them as she did 0 of heaven she had learned that god was war great and strong and sheltering so she knew were the hills and heaven that was far very far away and it was hard to reach but oh it was so beautiful and the more she dreamed drea of it the more she came to fo believe that heaven was homem somewhere here among the hills rosa was I 1 he ash mans daughter she lived with the ash man and his wife and their many brown children in the basement of a gray house on a gray street in the gray city of san francisco the boor little room in the basement had nothing bright in it it too was dull and gray like the house and the street and when ahen the cold fog rolled into the crowded broomas it always did in the evening it settled about the he faces facer and forms of the children and made them look pale and wraithlike evermore evermore rosa had heard lie he w word ord at sunday school and it haunted her she asked the good sister what it meant and she had smiled kindly and said it meant always eternally rosa looked at the sister ister thoughtfully with her big solemn eyes we have evermore bibles babies at our house she said and so etwas it was when rosa the little elder sister had taught the last thin brown baby a little patois and encouraged it to take a few steps another walling wailing stranger would demand those offices rosa loved the brood of little ones but she tired sometimes of their weak cries crier and her thin arms and narrow shoulders ached from the burden of carrying them to soothe their cries and her head ached woefully rosa was a dwar flike girl with a well developed head pale olive skin and big brown eyes that would ant permit you to forget for gether her there was a haunting earnestness a wistful questioning in them that you recalled sometimes in gay crowds where the hungry orbs arbs were out of place they followed and troubled you as does the gaze of a dog that has lost its owner there was war an animals pain in them and a human unrest they reminded you of the eyes of a woman whom you can never forge one who had looked upon the woes boes and mocker les ies of life until she prayed to die it was with such a prayer in her eyes that rosa giovanni Giov annl looked at the faraway hills the two smallest brown babies were asleep the others were placing pla ing in another room with children who were old enough to care for them so the small mail brown hands were idle for once they lay crossed in the lap of the dreamer amer the great geat green hills how fresh and beautiful they loon had not nina the neighbor told her it was there the flowers grew the dewy delicate flowers which she had seen a countryman of hers selling at the place where many streets crossed she had caught the breath of some of those flowers once and it was sweet as sweet as heaven and the hills ah to have some of them in her lap at this moment to press her hot forehead against their cool softness and so forget that it ached so terribly the half closed eyes opened wide they stared in a wild way at the hills 11 resolve was being born a resolve that sprung from her ignorance and pain she would go to the hills they the y were not very far some one had said they were far away but they had come closer to her they seemed to be opening their soft green arms to her she would go she would come back again to the brown babies but she must seek that coolness and rest and the flowers slie she ran up the narrow street and among the cars and wagons at the crowded crossing nobody noticed the ragged little figure for tile the haunting eyes did not seek their heir faces facer and challenge their curiosity those strange eyes looked past the hurrying people to the strip of velvety green beyond the roots roofs she sped along the street stopping not tor for questions she could not be lost did she not know where the she was going and was it not to the hills which her ayes never left for a moment she but not front from fear the fog had wrapped her aboltin about in its stealthy embrace but she thought the hills will take care of me they abelind and warm her breath came shorter she was tired but not as when she left the cellar ot the gray house for was war the she not corn COM ing nearer to that wavy line of green at every step ate p once she tell fell but she drew herself up again and walked ott on more slowly this time but the feverish light in her 03 es had become a fierce flame her checks burned the hills were coming coining closer she could not walk much farther they knew it and they were vere coming to her A 1 I found her lying across the lie curb she was wag stretching her arm on the sidewalk and saying something like ah good kind hills ive found you she must have been there an hour or two for she was war cold as the stones of the the big policeman put the stunted form into the matrons matrona mat rons arms poor little lamb she said she was used to sad sights sight but tears filled her eyes as she look looked edat at the drawn dark features and warped body after they had laid her Inthe in the snowy bed she opened her wandering eyes upon rows of clean cots whereon she saw the faces facer of children she looked at the motherly face bending above her then through the window at the sunshine falling upon a waving line of green it was wag true she said and the worn little face took on its last c hilds childs happiness heaven to Is here among the hills the matron drew a sheet over the tim smiling liang face and they placed a screen about the cot ada patterson dinst in st louis republic |