The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1918-10-12


were running with their mothers, and
the thrushes and blackbirds sang;
when the gulls had gone back to sea
and the rocks were making a tremen-
dous TODD over the building of their
houses, someone came to make call.
After the usual talk about the wealth
er and the house and the neighbors
the caller said:
81 hear your elder boy has gone to
the war. So sad that the two boys
who used to be in this house were
killed. One after the other. Two
beautiful boys! Their poor mother!"
She asked when they were killed.
"Oh, poor children! Guy last Octo-
Der and Pat just recently. They were
so devoted to each other. Pat always
said that he was going to follow Guy
quite happily and without any
gloom. He was such darling-so
full of life and merriment Guy was
quite different. He was already paint
ing beautifully. That is one of his
pictures over there"
"Oh!" She had been wondering
about those pictures with their strange
glow of light and color. They lit any
room they were in; and they were in
many rooms. When you entered a
room with one of these picture in it
your eye was unconsciously drawn to
it; you saw nothing else. Il was won
dering who the painter could be.
They are very beautiful. He gets the
strange Western color, the cloud of
indigo blue above group of feather
| ike trees with their feet in the bog
| flood; a sky of immense mole-colored
cloud with light below it, light silver
| and gold and primrose green all in
one"
People rave about his pictures"
the caller said, getting up to go. "a
| thousand pities the war should take
such as he! They were both beauti.
full boys"
After that she became quite famil-
lar with the coming and going of the
boys She saw them or thought she
saw them-she was so short-sighted
that she could not be quite sure
| passing through the sunlit glades of
the woods, tall and young, one with a
fond arm about the neck of the other
the golden head and the thrush-brown
head side by side. Or they rocked in
the boat under the dappling of the sun
and the pale-green uncurling leaves
| When she came nearer there was nc
one. 1t might have been Imagination
The house overlooked with pictures
At the end of the long corridor there
was a room full of them, their faces
turned. to. the wall: When she had
taken the house from an agent, ant
had gone. through the inventory with
his clerk, she had not troubled to see
what lay the other side of those can
vas backs. But since she had become
interested in the pictures of the elder
of the two brothers, she had gone
from one room to another-there were
a great many rooms-examining thu
Epictures,- good, bad and Indifferent
And so, at last she came to the room
where the pictures stood with thei
faces hidden, three or four deep.
It was one of the long, bright even
ings of high summer, and all outside
to the height of the immense sky, wa
flooded with pale gold. The room il
which the pictures were faced nortl
was full of a dazzling reflection. Fo
a time nothing rewarded her search
There were many oil paintings, SOM
good, some bad copies of famous orig
inals. Very little of interest. Sht
had all but concluded that the littl,
room was lumber room when sh,
found portrait.
1t was with quick leap of thu
heart that she recognized it. 1t wa
Guy, the painter. He had been paint
, ed in a scarlet hunting coat and Their
was a little black velvet cap on hi
hair, which showed brown beneath il
There were the yelvety brown eye
, and the thin brows arched to a point
The skin was olive-hued, with some
thing of the color of a ripe pear il
the cheeks. The lips were sweet ant
grave. There was something compass
. sionate in the young face, from which
: she turned away half frightened.
! The picture was not we'll painted
5 it was amateurish-bu there was lif
: | in it. The great flood of pale gol'
n from the North sky seemed to have
reflection from the depths of tn
: brown eyes. Sharply she turned tn
: picture again with its face to the othe
3 canvases. She loved it, but it hur
3 her.
During that summer, with the SUI
$ cession of it's flowers, they did no
e often come. Once, smelling the shar
q sweetness of clove-pinks under he
I window, she looked up from her wri
g ing and had momentary glimpse c
the boys: but they stayed away s
q long sometimes that she thought the
: were gone forever. Sometimes, TOT
e she had sense that they were there
e though she could not see them. Sh
e prayed for them with her own boy'
and others in peril, and those killed
n the war, in the little oratory wher
!; they had knelt at their childish an
L boyish prayers. 1t seemed to her tina
:, in the narrow room with it's crucifi.
s its never-extinguished lamp and f1oy
ers, where they were glad to see he
q L 1rtho hn