The Best Short Stories of 1917 Part 64

MOST RIGID AUTOCRACY IN THE WORLD OVERTHROWN

RUSSIA REJOICES

"Mamma! Mamma! My G.o.d, Mamma!"

"Home, s.h.i.+la; home! My husband who died for it--Aylorff! Home now, quick! My wreaths! My wreaths!"

"O my G.o.d, Mamma!"

"Home!"

"Yes--darling--yes--"

"My wreaths!"

"Yes, yes, darling; your wreaths. Let--let me think. Freedom!--O my G.o.d, help me to find a way! O my G.o.d!"

"My wreaths!"

"Here--darling--here!"

From the floor beside her, the raffia wreath half in the making, Mrs.

Coblenz reached up, pressing it flat to the heaving old bosom.

"There, darling, there!"

"I paid with my blood--"

"Yes, yes, mamma; you--paid with your blood. Mamma--sit, please. Sit and--let's try to think. Take it slow, darling--it's like we can't take it in all at once. I--we--sit down, darling. You'll make yourself terrible sick. Sit down, darling, you--you're slipping."

"My wreaths--"

Heavily, the arm at the waist gently sustaining, Mrs. Horowitz sank rather softly down, her eyelids fluttering for the moment. A smile had come out on her face, and, as her head sank back against the rest, the eyes resting at the downward flutter, she gave out a long breath, not taking it in again.

"Mamma! You're fainting!" She leaned to her, shaking the relaxed figure by the elbows, her face almost touching the tallowlike one with the smile lying so deeply into it. "Mamma! My G.o.d, darling, wake up! I'll take you back. I'll find a way to take you. I'm a bad girl, darling, but I'll find a way to take you. I'll take you if--if I kill for it. I promise before G.o.d I'll take you. To-morrow--now--n.o.body can keep me from taking you. The wreaths, mamma! Get ready the wreaths! Mamma, darling, wake up. Get ready the wreaths! The wreaths!" Shaking at that quiet form, sobs that were full of voice, tearing raw from her throat, she fell to kissing the sunken face, enclosing it, stroking it, holding her streaming gaze closely and burningly against the closed lids.

"Mamma, I swear to G.o.d I'll take you! Answer me, mamma! The bank-book--you've got it! Why don't you wake up--mamma? Help!"

Upon that scene, the quiet of the room so raucously lacerated, burst Mr.

Haas, too breathless for voice.

"Mr. Haas my mother--help--my mother! It's a faint, ain't it? A faint?"

He was beside her at two bounds, feeling of the limp wrists, laying his ear to the grenadine bosom, lifting the reluctant lids, touching the flesh that yielded so to touch.

"It's a faint, ain't it, Mr. Haas? Tell her I'll take her back. Wake her up, Mr. Haas! Tell her I'm a bad girl, but I--I'm going to take her back. Now! Tell her! Tell her, Mr. Haas, I've got the bank-book. Please!

Please! O my G.o.d!"

He turned to her, his face working to keep down compa.s.sion.

"We must get a doctor, little lady."

She threw out an arm.

"No! No! I see! My old mother--my old mother--all her life a n.o.body--she helped--she gave it to them--my mother--a poor little widow n.o.body--she bought with her blood that freedom--she--"

"G.o.d, I just heard it downstairs--it's the tenth wonder of the world.

It's too big to take in. I was afraid--"

"Mamma darling, I tell you, wake up! I'm a bad girl, but I'll take you back. Tell her, Mr. Haas, I'll take her back. Wake up, darling! I swear to G.o.d--I'll take you!"

"Mrs. Coblenz, my--poor little lady--your mother don't need you to take her back. She's gone back where--where she wants to be. Look at her face, little lady; can't you see she's gone back?"

"No! No! Let me go. Let me touch her. No! No! Mamma darling!"

"Why, there wasn't a way, little lady, you could have fixed it for that poor--old body. She's beyond any of the poor fixings we could do for her. You never saw her face like that before. Look!"

"The wreaths--- the wreaths!"

He picked up the raffia circle, placing it back again against the quiet bosom.

"Poor little lady!" he said. "s.h.i.+la--that's left for us to do. You and me, s.h.i.+la--we'll take the wreaths back for her."

"My darling--my darling mother! I'll take them back for you! I'll take them back for you!"

"_We'll_ take them back for her--s.h.i.+la."

"I'll--"

"_We'll_ take them back for her--s.h.i.+la."

"_We'll_ take them back for you, mamma. We'll take them back for you, darling!"

THE STRANGE-LOOKING MAN[15]

[Note 15: Copyright, 1917, by The Pagan Publis.h.i.+ng Company.

Copyright, 1918, by f.a.n.n.y Kemble Johnson.]

BY f.a.n.n.y KEMBLE JOHNSON

From _The Pagan_

A TINY village lay among the mountains of a country from which for four years the men had gone forth to fight. First the best men had gone, then the older men, then the youths, and lastly the school boys. It will be seen that no men could have been left in the village except the very aged, and the bodily incapacitated, who soon died, owing to the war policy of the Government which was to let the useless perish that there might be more food for the useful.

Now it chanced that while all the men went away, save those left to die of slow starvation, only a few returned, and these few were crippled and disfigured in various ways. One young man had only part of a face, and had to wear a painted tin mask, like a holiday-maker. Another had two legs but no arms, and another two arms but no legs. One man could scarcely be looked at by his own mother, having had his eyes burned out of his head until he stared like Death. One had neither arms nor legs, and was mad of his misery besides, and lay all day in a cradle like a baby. And there was a quite old man who strangled night and day from having sucked in poison-gas; and another, a mere boy, who shook, like a leaf in a high wind, from sh.e.l.l-shock, and screamed at a sound. And he too had lost a hand, and part of his face, though not enough to warrant the expense of a mask for him.