The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1910-05-07

mother was good woman, God have mercy her
soull''
. am not as good as she was, !" said the alien.
But the world calls me good and have done my
best
AN what are We doin' hereq'' she was asked.
- don t know, y answered the alien.
When she got away from the gate she went to
the end OF the town and back again, by another
route She met many people. Once she passed
brakeman IN faded jeans and with his dinner
basket on his He was hurrying along. She
knew that he was freight man, undoubtedly IN the
rounds" and she knew that he might be killed on
this trip. 1t often happened She shut her eyes
and saw her father in his place. fastening down the
village street. So she had seen him many, many
times, twenty-five years ago! The wheel of for
tune
On the top Of the hill she turned and looked
back upon the smoked and shabby hamlet. II they
had not left it five and twenty years ago. would she
be back there now in the gray and the dirt, cook
ing some good mans dinner9 She smiled and
shrugged her shoulders Oh! God knew best, and
she thankful that His best had carried her and
hers away from this cheerless, hard existence
Suddenly she knew why she had come back to-
day! She was creature of sensations and self-ln-
flicted tricks. She had been madly unhappy and
disconnected for months amid the prosperity and
glamor that were hers, and she had come back
deliberately to this which might have been her
sordid lot that, by contrast she might take new
grasp of life and fight the melancholy that threat
ened to engulf her. Oh! it good to be alive
81 am satisfiedr' the alien cried, aloud, to the
flowers and the and the birds. am con-
tented All this shows me the weight OF my good
luck. | am going back today Goodman shall have
his play next month land all the magazine orders
shall be filled as soon as ossibe. How can work!
What fool l have been! To think that imagined,
conjured up pictures of all those useless pangs!'
She skipped step or two. She brushed fleck
from her fautless coat and touched her exquisitey
made hat song crept to her lips, and she
hummed bar. She took her way, lightly ,joyously,
down the hill. toward the trolley line.
She passed close beside sunny cottage and
looked up suddenly and into its vine-hung porch,
young woman stood there, holding tiny baby
with its head against her cheek. man came out
Of the house in his shirt-sleeves, and gathered
woman and baby into his arms. He kissed first one
and then the other, again and again. He laughed,
and the wife laughed, and the baby crowed Some
where in the trees the birds took up the music.
The alien grasped the fence and stared IN at
them. She had grown colorless and hagard. AT
length she tore her shaking fingers from the
pckets. and turned away She stumbled on The
corners of her mouth took a droop, her eyes
darkened lines came between her brows Her lace
had become unaccountaby old. She clenched her
hands until the nails dug into her flesh
t'You can not have everythingl' she moaned
DULY. lifeessly; "you can not have everything
At the bottom of the hill, she turned and looked
back at the vinehung cottage. She tired to SMILE
and the smile died in a choking Sob
'fYou must go farther to understand, she sad
ouietIy. 'Perhaps-perhaps, you might better
have never moved away from here Jerome
Harte in Benziger's Magazine.