Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1897-07-24
AMONG THE HILLS.

Rosa Giovanni sat at the door of the ash
mans hoyel and looked at the faraway
hills.
Rosa loved the hills asshe loved God
and thought of them as she did of heaven.
She had heard that God was great and
strong and sheltering So, she knew, were
the hills And heavenS 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 a 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, it settled about the faces and
forms of the children and made them look
pale and wraithlike.
''Evermore! Eyermorel' Rosa had
heard tho 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. 7"
Rosa looked at the sister thoughtfully,
with her big, solemn eyes. "We 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 % 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 ached
from the burden of carrying them to soothe
their cries. and her head ached woefully.
Rosa was dwarflike girl with well
developed head, pale, olive skin and big
brown eyes that would not permit you to
forget her. There was 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 it's owner.
There was an animals pain in them and
human unrest. They reminded you OF
the eyes of woman which you can never
forget, one who had looked upon the woes
"
die. 1t was with such prayer in her eyes
that Rosa Giovanni looked at the PARKWAY
hills The two smallest brown babies WERE
asleep. The others were playing in an
other room with children who were ole
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 hills! How fresh ane
beautiful they look 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 thos'
flowers once, and it was sweet-as sWee
as heaven and the hills. All, to hav'
some of them in her lap at this moment
To press her hot forehead against thei
cool softness and SO forget that it ached 81
terribly. The half closed eyes opened
wide. They stared in a wild way at tn
hills. A resolve was being born-a re
solve that sprang from her ignorance ant
pain. She would go to the hills The.
were not very far. Some one had said the.
were far away, but they had come close
to her. They seemed to be opening thei
soft, green rims to her. She would go
She would come back again to the brown
babies, but she must seek that coolnes
| 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
| IRE, for the haunting eyes did not seel
| their faces and challenge their curiosity
| Those strange eyes looked past the hurry
ing people to the strip of velvety green be
You'd the roofs. She sped along the street
! stopping not for questions. She could no
be lost. Did she not know where she wa
going, and was it not to the hills, whicl
her eyes never left for moment? Sh
shivered, but not from fear. The fog ha,
wrapped her about in it's stealthy embrace
but she thought: "The hills will take car
of me. They are warm and kind"
Her breath came shorter. She wa
tired, but not as when she left the celia
of the gray house, for was she not coming
nearer to that wavy line of green at ever.
step? Once she fell but she drew hersel
up again and walked on more slowly thi
time But the feverish light in her eye
had become a fierce fame. Her cheek
burned. The hills were coming closer
She could not walk much farther. The
knew it, and they were coming to her.
II found her lying across the curb. Sh
was stretching out her arms on the side
walk and saying something like, All
good, kind hills, I've found your Sh
must have been there an hour or two, TO
she was cold as the stones of the sidewalk.
The big policeman put the stunted form
into the matron's arms.
'Poor little lamb" she said. She wa
used to sad sights, but tears filled her eye
as she looked at the drawn, dark feature
and warped body.
After they had laid her in the snow
bed she opened her wandering eyes upo
rows of clean COTS whereon she saw tn
faces of children. She looked at the moth
erly face bending above her, then throug
the window at the sunshine falling upo
a waving line of green.
'It was true" she said, and the wor
little face took on its last child 8 happiness
"Heaven is here among the hills"
The matron drew sheet over the sini
ing face, and they placed screen abou
the cot.-Ada Patterson in ST. Louis RI
i public.