OCR Text |
Show f "She," Their I Christmas I Love srsre H By MARY GRAHAM BONNER J (, 1924, Western Newspaper Union.) TVX'KC? Af7 E AVERE stopping fc&yj yJ v over at a little !5vfi mountain town Yy&l Jj which was nothing KrT MVYViP?r way d I v i s 1 0 n a 1 1 WMtS point. But all p-SyTa' VfcH about were splen-d splen-d I d, snow-capped mountains. And marvelous is the beauty and scenery they bestow upon mortals. We wanted to look at the mountains from this quaint little settlement with Its wooden sidewalks now crisp with sparkling frozen snow. So that we might have a few hours longer to walk about we arranged to arrive very early In the morning. The sun was not up. Almost we wished we had not so decided. But we were told we could have an excellent breakfast break-fast at' the Chinaman's. And to the Chinaman's we went He had never made orange Juice but he understood what we meant when we explained it to him. His portions of everything were enormous. His place was never closed. When he slept his brother kept it open. It was Immaculately clean. He didn't mind if you went into his kitchen and helped yourself to your second cup of coffee or tea it was a shining kitchen, a kitchen of which any man would be proud! Ah, this was all so nice. Here we were, far away from every traveler and tourist, on a beautiful Christmas holiday, about to take a splendid walk, having a hot, delicious breakfast, under un-der the most unusual of surround- f 1 ings. We were In the Christmas spirit. spir-it. We were joyous and happy and filled with good cheer. The world was a lovely place, and people so nice even in its tucked-avvay tucked-avvay corners, and even the people we had never bothered both-ered to know well enough before to appreciate them. At the other side the restaurant were many trainmen. train-men. We liked their looks, too. Sensible, genuine human beings, all of those fellows were. Their voices rose higher. "Oh, of course I Nothing could be simple and sweet and nice. Always men had to be talking about women, about their charms, about their capabilities, capa-bilities, their powers, their "beautiful lines." Here they were ; all discussing what "beautiful lines" "she" had, boasting, each taking so proprietary an interest in her. And she had them all dangling after her! Oh, yes; human nature was the same, no matter where you went. Always Al-ways men were thinking of women or talking of them, or longing for their society. The interesting little Chinaman China-man and his clean kitchen and his eager willingness to serve and the newspapers he had about to amuse his guests he wasn't so Interesting any more. Doubtless he, too, was thinking of some Chinese "she." Couldn't one get away from it for a little while 'way off here, for example? ex-ample? Couldn't we feel the beautiful, pure spirit of Christmas for a sustained length of time? And there we sat mortified. It was our human nature that was the same no matter where we went. It was because we thought people were all the same. We had thought "she" was a woman. "She" was a new engine, and they called her their Christmas love. For the trainmen loved her and her power and her beautiful lines and her attractiveness at-tractiveness and her speed. |