The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-07-05
AMONG THE HILLS.

Rosa Giovanni sat at the door of the ash
mans howell and looked at the PARKWAY
nils
Rosa loved the hills as she loved God
snd thought of them as she did of heaven.
She had heard that God was great and
strong and sheltering. So, she knew, were
Che hills. And heavenf That was far,
very far away, and it was hard to reach.
But, oh, it was SO beautiful And the
more she dreamed of it the more she came
to believe that heaven was somewhere
among those hills.
Rosa was the ash mans daughter She
lived with the ash man and his wife and
their many weakened, brown children in
the basement of gray house of San Fran
cisco. The poor little room in the base
ment had nothing right in it. 1t, 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, 1t settled about the faces and
forms of the children and made them look
pale and wraithlike
'Evermore! Evermorep' Rosa had
heard the word 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 thoughtfully,
with her big, solemn eyes. ave have ever
more babies at our house." she said.
And SO it was. When Rosa, the little
elder sister, had taught the last thin,
brown baby little patois and encouraged
it to take 8 few steps, another wailing
stranger would demand those offices. Rosa
loved the brood of little ones, but she tired
sometimes of their weak cries, and her
thin arms and narrow shoulders aohed
from the burden of carrying them to soothe
their cries, and her head ached woefully.
Rosa was a dwarfiike girl with well
developed head, pale, olive skin and big
= 49,
forget her. There was a haunting earnest
ness, wistful questioning In them, that
you recalled sometimes In gay crowds
where the hungry orbs were out of place.
They followed and troubled you as does
the gaze of dog that has lost its owner.
There was an animals pain in them and
a human unrest. They reminded you of
the eyes Of a woman which you can never
forget, one who had looked upon the woes
and moekeries of life until she prayed to
die. 1t was with such prayer in her eyes
that Rosa Giovanni looked at the faraway
hills. The two smallest brown babies were
asleep. The others were playing in an
other room with children who were old
enough to care for them. So the small,
brown hands were idle for once They lay
crossed in the lap of the dreamer.
The great, green hillsl How fresh and
beautiful they look Had not Nina, the
neighbor, told her it was there the flowers
grew, the dewy, delicate flowers which
she had seen countryman of hers selling
at the place where many streets crossedi
She had caught the breath of some of those
flowers once, and it was sweet-as sweet
as heaven and the hills. All, to have
some of them in her lap at this momentl
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
hoi11 hn1.
solve that sprang from her ignorance and
pain. She would go to the hills. They
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 rims to her. She would go.
She would come hack again to the brown
babies, but she must seek that GOODNESS
and rest and the flowers.
She ran up the narrow street and among
the cars and wagons at the crowded cross
ing. Nobody noticed the ragged little fig
ure, for the haunting eyes did not seek
their faces and challenge their curiosity.
Those strange eyes looked past the hurry
ing people to the strip of velvety green be-
yond the roofs. She sped along the street,
stopping not for questions. She could not
be lost. Did she not know where she was
going, and was it not to the hills, which
her eyes never left for a momentf She
shivered, but not from fear. The fog had
wrapped her about in its stealthy EN- brace,
but she thought: ''The hills will take care
of me. They are warm and kind"
Her breath came shorter. She was
tired, but not as when she left the cellar
of the gray house, for was she not coming
nearer to that wavy line of green at every
stepS Once she fell, but she drew herself
up again and walked on more slowly this
time But the feverish light in her eyes
had become a fierce flame. Her cheeks
burned The hills were coming closer
She could not walk much farther. They
knew it, and they were coming to her.
at found her lying across the curb. She
was stretching out her arms on the side
walk and saying something like, 'Ah,
must have been there an hour two, for
she was cold as the stones of the sidewalk
The big policeman put the stunted form
into the natron's arms.
Poor little lamb" she said. She was
used to sad hts, but tears filled her eyes
as she looked at the drawn, dark features
and warped body.
After they had laid her in the snowy
bed she opened her wandering eyes upon
rows Of clean cots, whereon she saw the
faces of children. She looked at the moth
erly face bending above her, then through
the window at the sunshine falling upon
a waving line of green.
"It was true" she said, and the worn
little face took on its last child's happiness.
Heaven is here among the hills"
The matron drew a sheet over the sInil-
ing face, and they placed a screen about
the cot.-Ada Patterson in St. Louis Re
public.