Judsonia weekly advance., 1922-03-16

quietly established in her fathers lap, had smiled with mschievous enjoy ment; nobody else, to Peters surprise, had paid this extraordinary remark the slightest attention. He remembered that he had fancied only the smallest of these children, and had been glad when they all went out of the room.
 Looking down at the cabin, the years slipped past him like a flying film and it was the present again, and Alix-Alix was gone.
 He reused himself, spoke to the dog, and they went on their way again. Mud squelched beneath Peters boots in the roadway the dog sprang light ly from clump to clump of dried grass. But when they left the road, and cut straight across the rise of the hillside, the ground was firmer, and the two fig ures moved swiftly through the dark night. The early stars came out, and showed them, silhouetted against the sky above Alix's beloved Tamalpais, the mans erect form with it's slight limp, the dog following faithfully, his plump tail and feathered ruff showing dull luster in the starlight.
 Cherry, with her violet eyes and corn-cOlored hair, Cherry, with her lit tie hands gathered in his, and her heart beating against his heart, and Alix, his chum, his companion, his comrade on so many night walks un- der the stars-he had lost them both. But it was Alix who was closest to his thoughts tonight, Alix, the thought of whom was gradually gripping his heart and soul with a new pain.
 AliX was his own; Cherry had never been his own. It was for him to com fort Cherry, it had always been his mission to comfort Cherry, since the days of her broken dolls and cut fin gers. But Alix was his own comfort CT, and AliX might have been laughing and stumbling and chattering beside him here, in the dark, wet woods, full of childs happy satisfaction in the moment and confidence in the nor TOW.
 "Alix, my wife!" he said softly, aloud 'T loved Cherry-always. But you were mine-you were mine We belonged to each other-for better and for worse-and I have let you go!"
 He went on and on and on. They were plunging down hill now, under the trees. He would see light after a while. and sleep for few hours, and ho h,1ato,,,e, h. again. And he knew that for weeks for months-perhaps for years, he would wander so,- through the great mountains, with their snow and their forests, over the seas, in strange cities and stranger solltudes. Always alone always moving, always remembering That would be his life. And some day some day perhaps he would come back to the valley she had loved
 But even now he recoiled in dis taste from that hour To see the fa- miliar faces, to come up to the cabin again, to touch the music and the books
 Worse, to find Cherry little older, happy and busy in her life of sacri- flee, not needing him, not very much wanting the reminder of the old tragic times
 An owl cried in the woods; the mournful sound floated and drifted away into utter silence. Some small animal, meeting the death it's brief life had evaded hundred times screamed shrilly, and was silent. Great branches, stirred by the night wind, moved high above his head, and when there was utter silence, Peter could hear the steady, soft rush of the ocean, dulled here to the sound of a gigantic, quiet breathing.
 
 Suddenly she seemed again to be beside him. He semed to see the dark, animated face, the slender, tall girl