The Press., 1919-12-11
FROM A CLEAR SKY By AGNES c. BROGAN.

ROsala walked beside the tangled hedges of roses in her garden and look eG wistfully up and down the road.
 "ReckOn," she said, i've may as well give up looking for some one to come or something to happen Susan, we've been looking good many years"
 The black cat who was the lone little woman's Nnly companion, answered by a syEpathzing purr.
 "SeemS." ROsalia went on, that we ought to get over expecting. If anything new or pleasant had been coming our way, it would have come when the old house was fresh, when father tended the rose vines and kept them neat. when carriages drove past our door with happy folks coming to town for holiday, or stopping in to visit"
 Rosalia sank down upon grassy mound and drew the cat into her lap, silent with her memories.
 'Carriages come no more down our quiet lane," she told the cat, tits autos now, great whirrng autos fly ing along the great white road.' ROsalia rose to her feet smiling whim- sically upward, "anything that will come our way these days, puss, must drop from out a clear sky" And as the woman stood gazing absently upward. a whirring sound coming not from the main road rent the air. Then she saw it-the wonder thing with the out spread wings of a monster bird sweep ing the sky. And before RoSnlia could catch her astOniShCd breath. the won der thing circled, dropped. and still cir cling, came crashing toward her own neglected garden.
 Like thrObbing monster 1t lay in the wide space beyond the rose hedge; and ROsalia. trembling, rushed to man who frantically beckOned from it's side. He was young man and dead ly white.
 "You'd better get someone" he gasp ed, ito help carry me inside. Nothing but broken bone, I guess-awful jar, but made landing-in time." Then the man of the airplane tainted.
 When she returned with the assur- ance that help would soon come, the young man turned upon the cushions she propped about him.
 "It's probably nothing to worry about" he said slowly, "but you nev- CT can tell. Might be internal injury. So I wondered-if you'd be kind enOugh-to write sort Of-message to girl. You could mail it to her from me in case" he smiled faintly. "Well, in either case" he said.
 So Rosalia brought her best notc- paper, and seated herself close to the great broken bird, which had scared toward the sky.
 "Yes," she prompted.
 Begin it." the man said steadily. 'Dearest,' that includes everything"
 "Dearest," Rosalia wrote, and wait ed. ''TOday only, do dare to tell you that which has long been in my heart, I love you. Always, I think I have loved you" She still waited as he lay with closed eyes apparently think ing.
 Rosalia was thinking also. She had wished for something to happen. Something miraculous had happened, the something had darted into her solitude from out a clear sky. RO- nance itself, was close to her, and she, as usual, but an onlooker. She thought of this dearest 'girP far away, won dering if she had listened wearily for a step that never came back. But the Dearest girl did not live, she was sure, in an old house set far back from the road, where briers and cares grew thick, to screen and choke young life. The dearest girls lover had not gone away years before. He was young lover still. Neither had heart less parents sent him abroad to finish a medical education, killing romance country romance they had called it, with one blow. And after twenty-five nance still had power to bring a mist to Rosalia's blue eyes.
 He had married-her own lover of long agO-a gay creature abroad, who had not lived long enough to return with her husband to his home. And when he had returned, taking up in later years his fathers practice of medicine, Rosalia kept resolutely and proudly out of his way.
 As an auto rounded the curve, she jumped apprehensively to her feet and hurried into the house. It was the same step she remembered, which now crossed the porch, as the doctor car ried the aviator upon his own broad back. The same confident laugh which echoed back from her sitting room.
 Presently the doctor sought her out.
 "We shall need you" he said, but his eyes were upon her, as he talked with his patient.
 And later when Rosalia and her low CT of long ago stood together beside the airplane in the garden, the doctor bent to pick up a piece of paper.
 "Dearest," he read, "tOday only, do l dare to tell you that which has long been in my heart, I love you. Always. think, I have loved you."
 He turned, as he was leaving, to put the paper into ROsalia's hand.
 q will come again this evening"" he said.
 And as she would have continued the young lovers letter, she saw be- meath her own handwriting q hastily added line:
 "This is my message to you. Rosalia, the message l. myself, would have written"
 And when the moon shOne through the old house windows at evening, she found herself again listening for step.
 Copyright, 19A9, Western Newspaper Union)