Show AMONG THE HI LS rosa giovanni Glov annl sat at the door of the ash mans hovel and looked at the fara baj wa hills bill rosa loved the hills as she to loed td god and thought of them as a she did ot of heaven she had learned that god was wa great and strong and sheltering so BO she knew were the hills and heaven that was waa far very far away and it was hard to reach but oh it WOO was so beautiful and the more she dreamed of it the more she cadt 0 to o believe that heaven was somewhere tome ome where here among the hlll rosa was the ash mans daughter she lived with the ash man and his wife and their man meaze ned brown children in the basement of a gray house on a gray street in the gray city of san I 1 francisco ranc laco the poor little room in the basement had nothing bright in it it too was dull and gray like the house and the street and when the cold fog rolled into the crowded room as it always did in the evening it settled about the faces and forms of the children and made them took look pale and wraithlike IE evermore I 1 evermore rosa had heard the word wood at sunday school and it t haunted her she asked the good bleter bister what it meant and she had smiled kindly and said it meant ial I al always it 6 eternally 11 rosa looked at the slater thoughtfully with her big solemn eyes we have e evermore e amore babies at atour our house ahe said A nd so it m as when rosa I 1 he belittle little elder sister had taught tle the last thin brown broa n baba bab a little patois and encouraged it to take a few steps another walling stranger would mould demand those offices rosa loved to ed the brood of little ones but she tired sometimes of their weak cries and her thin arms and narrow shoulders shoulder ached from the burden of carrying them to ta soothe their cries and her hend head ached oc fully rosa was a dwar flike girt girl with a well de aclei eloped head pale olive skin and big brown eyes that would abot permit ou to forget her there was a haunting earn estness a wistful A questioning in them that you recalled sometimes in gay crowds where the hungry orbs arbs were out of place they followed and troubled 3 you ou as does the gaze gae of a dog that has lost its on owner ner there was sin an AM animals malva pain in them and a human unrest they reminded 0 3 a i of the eyes of a woman whom 3 QU ou can never forge one wh who 0 had looked upon the woes boes and mocker les lee of life until she prayed ed to die it was walh N 11 h such a prayer in her eyes that rosa giovanni Glov annl looked at the faraway hills the two smallest brown babies were asleep the others were placing ing in another room with children who were 0 old id enough to care for them so the small brown hinds were idle for on once c e they I 1 li i crossed in the lap of the dreamer the great green hillst how fresh a and n d beautiful they loona had not nina the neighbor told her it was A as there the flowers grew the dew delicate flowers which she had seen a countryman of hers selling at the place where many streets crossed bhe tad rad caught the breath of some of thom 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 r softness and so forget that it ached so terribly I 1 the bait closed eyes opened wide I 1 hey stared in a wild way at the hills II if resolve was being born are so solve lye livit sprung from her ignorance and maln she bhe would gf to the hills ohp were not very pir fir some one had wild they w m ere far away but they had come closer to her they seemed to be opening their green arms to her bhe would go she bhe would come back again to the biown babies but she must seek that coolness and rest and the flow ers era she ran up the narrow street and among the cars and wagons at the crowded crossing nobody noticed the little figure for the haunting e ees es did not seek their faces and chri chal lenge their heir curiosity those strange ea ees es looked past part the hurr hur hurrying ing people to the strip of velvety green the roofs she sned along the he street stopping not for questions she bhe could not b be lost did mie dhe not know where she was as going ind was as it not to the hills which her asjes 3 es never neer left for a moment bhe but not from fear the fog hid w rapped her about in its stealthy embrace but she thought 1 I 1 he hills will take care of me they are kind and warm arm iler her breath came shorter she bhe was tired but not as when she left the cellar at atthe the gray house for was she not corn com ing nearer to that wavy line of green at every step once she fell but she drew herself up tip ag aln and walked ost on more slowly this time but the fever feverish lh light in her ca eyes es had become n fierce flame let her cht clucks eks burned birned the hills were com coming ng clot cloter clorer er she bhe could not walk much farther they knew it and they were ere coming to her so IF 0 1 I found her lying across the curb she wig was stretching her arm on the sidewalk and saying something like ah goodkind good kind hills t ive found you she must have been there an hour or two for or the was wa cold as a the stones tone of the filke alke walk the big policeman put the stunted form into the matrons matrona mat rons arms poor little lambl lamb she said aid she was used to sad sights but tears tear filled her eyes as a a ehe he looked at the drawn dark features feature and warped bod body after they had laid her in the he snowy bed she opened her wandering eyes eye upon rows row of clean cots whereon she he saw the faces facea of children she looked at the motherly face bending above hero her then through the window at the sunshine falling upon a waving line of grien green it was waa true she said ald and the worn little face took on itu its last childs happiness 44 heaven to fi there here among the hills halli the matron drew a theet sheet over the smiling face and they placed a screen about the cot ada patterson Pat tenon in st louis Re republic |