Arizona republican., 1920-01-31
Bob Carries Me to Safety Just As the
 Hacienda Went Up With


 It would be the final beneficience of living, l thought, to die with Bob. But my husband wasn't at all ready to die with me, il appeared. With strength which was almost superhuman. he carried me swiftly down the stairs and ran with me toward the patio. He had placed me on a bench and was pant ing hard for breath, when q noise like that of thunder after a lightning stroke hurt my ears.
 Bob's body bent over me. close to me, as bits of flying debris c.2ttered around us.
 Jane. Jane. Janet" I heard him murmur. not i'm reproach, but with the utmost tenderness.
 The explosion of the munitions rocked all the little world which was centered in that hacienda. The bench boat high on a wave. Then stiffness like that of a tomb followed the thunder
 Bob raised me in his arms and car ried me back to my bed. Before we reached the balcony. I heard the scur rying of hundred feet. Women were sobbing and screaming Men were shouting orders for buckets and hose. caught the throb of the engine which worked the pumps of the deep wells. Then 1 felt the softness of warm blank cts about me. and l clutched my hus- bands hand in my unbnndaged hand and went to sleep.
 At least 1 no longer heard the hub bub out of doors. I wasn't awake. nevertheless, one part of my mind was going over and over one of the most beautiful thoughts l had ever had in my life.
 Bob and I loved each other more and more the longer we lived together. hat was the real wonder of true love like ours. We didn't wear it out with Use. 1 had come close to death, and to the very end. my husba Inland our mutual love-had been the only thought in my mind. Sometimes l reused myself myself from my sleep to reassure myself that I still held Bob's hand.
 A man and a woman who desire a perfect existence, couldn't invent for themselves a more wonderful institu tion than marriage and monogamy," thought I. And I reviewed, in my sub conscious state, the menace to old so- cial institutions which has been much discussed since the war. Even the most conventional persons consider themselves cultured when they arraign marr iage as an inStitution-as if hu- manity had invented something too ideal to live up to,
 Marriage isn't at fault at all. is it? said turning to Bob. People are al fault"
 Bob didn't understand, of course. He touched my hair with his lips and Don't talk, honey, Go to sleep again."
 I closed my eyes, but my brain kept V firling the same theme over.
 Love isn't a game of solitaire, l said. Some men expect their wives to treat it so. Marriage. prescribed by law, is the absolutely ideal state, but, rf course. the type of man who car r es the picture of four queens in his pocket can never understand that. But really nice men-idealists like my h1s- Oand-normal men-ali know that nai riage is not failure. The people .rho undertake it, fail.
 Woman by her stiffness is kept from to what heights of glory her devotion to her husband can carry her Ard man, by his own selfishness. de- stroys the very splendor which he is .ternally seeking
 And I remembered that Hamilton -erteis had loved me, and Katherine Miller had loved Bob.
 'Everywhere-and all the time here is an opportunity for every man md woman to be disloyal to true love- said to myself.
 hat poor wondering ghost knows,r l