Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1914-12-11

late for the local. They've put him on
the express. and it'll drop him at the
draw"
The tense air crumpled into breath
ings. and a soft clamor filed the rooms
as they told one another and came to
tell her how glad they were. She pull
ed herself together and tried to slip
into her natural manner.
1T did give me a turn" she confess
ed. II thought he'd been-he'd GOT
she went into the dining room, still
without great wonder that they were
all there. But when she saw the wom-
en- in white aprons and the table ar
rayed and on it Ellen Bourne's Christ
mas rose blooming she broke into a
little laugh.
"oh." she said, you lone this a-pur-
pose for him.
81 hope. Mary. you won't mind"
Mis- Mortimer Bates said formally,
lit being Christmas SO. We'd have
done just the same IN any other day."
i"Oh." Mary said. "mindr'
They hardly knew her. she moved
among them so flushed and laughing
and c~onformable, praising. admiring.
thanking them.
Honestly. Mary" said Mis- Moran
finally. well have you so you can't
tell Christmas from any other day
it'll be SO NIGEL"
The express would be due at the
draw at S:30-S:33. After told her
when he came back washed up"
Mary watched the clock. She had not
MIXED or fed the cows before she
went because she had thought that
he would like to watch the milking
and 1t would be something for him to
do on that first evening. So when b
could she took her shawl and slipped
out to the shed for the pals and her.
lantern and went alone TO the stable.
Mary opened the door. and her Ian
tern made a golden room of light with
in the borderless shadow. The hay
smell from the loft and the hangers.
the even breathing of the cows. the
quiet safety of the place. met her.
She hung her lantern In Its accus-
toned place and went about her task.
Her mind turned back to the time
that had elapsed since the local came
in at the Old Trail Town station. She
had stood there, with the children
about her, hardly breathing while the
two Trail Town men and a solitary
travelling man had alighted. There
had been no n else. In terror lest
the child should be carried past the
station. she had questioned the con-
ductor, begged him to go in and look
again, parleyed with him until he had
swung his lantern. Then she had
turned away with the children, utter
ly unable to formulate anything.
There was no other train to stop at
Old Trail Town that night. 1t must
mean disaster = indefinable disaster
that had somehow engEkfed him and
had not pointed the way that he had
gone. She recalled now that she had re-
fused Buff Miles invitation to ride, but
had suffered him to take the children.
Then she had set out to walk home.
On that walk home she had unlfved
her plans Obscure sp~eculations. stir
ring in her fear, at first tormented her
and then gave place to the conclusion
that John had changed his mind, had
seen perhaps that he could not after
all let the child go so far, had found
some one else to take him, and that
the morrow would bring a letter to tell
her SO. In any case. she was not to
have him. The conclusion swept her
with the yigor of certainty. But in
stead of the relief for which she would
have looked, that certainty gave her
nothing but desolation. Until the mo-
ment when the expectation seemed to
die she had not OWNED how it had
grown into her days. as subtly as the
growth of little cell and little cell.
And now the weight upon her, instead
of lifting. soaring in the possibility
of the return of her old freedom. lay
the more heavily. and her sense Of OPP
preston became abysmal. Something
is going to happen" she had kept say
ing. Something has happened"
So she had got on toward her own
door. There the swift relief was like
an ~upbearing into another air, charged
with more intimate largess for life.
Now Mary sat in the stable in a sense
of happy reality that clothed all her
feeling-rather. in a sense of super
reality. which she did not know how
to accept. So. slowly singing in her
as she sat at her task. came that which
had waited until she should open the
way.
In the stable there was that fusion
of shadow and light in which captive
spaces reveal all their mystery. Little
areas of brightness. of f~unctioning;
then dimness. then the deep. Bright
ness in which surfaces Of worn floor.
slivered wall. dusty glass. showed
values more specific than those of col
or. Dimness in which gray rafters
with wavering edges, rough posts, each
with an accessory of shadow; an old
harness in grotesque loops. ceased to