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6 AND ON EARTH —PEACE —By Zona Gale Christmas Romance. m CROSS a mile of flat white pasture ! /m lßnd one light shone - Bertha Millet / /-i saw the light, and hated it. y M Snow flakes were whirling against the glass. There was wind. Her first night in the hills was to be a night of storm. She only hoped that Carl would come with her mail and her supplies before the storm grew fierce. This would be his last trip up into the bills before Christmas—only three days away. Christmas! The first Christmas day that She had ever spent alone. How they were talking down in the valley. “Bart Millet's wife—yes, the flighty one. No wonder he left her for Jane Graham, a sober, quiet, industrious creature, who understood all that he had put up with from Bertha, who was no housekeeper. Jane was 30, a widow with a girl of 8. She must have pitied him—poor Bart. Not that Bart had done right—nobody was defending him—but to understand weak ness was your duty. As for that Bertha Millet, with her independence and her high ways, who could understand her? Who wanted to under stand her?” She could hear their voices as if they were rising from the valley. She listened for the sound of Carl’s car coming up the Glen road, but all that she heard was the roll of voices. She knew what else they said. "And Bart Millet’s death,” they were saying, “was Bertha’s fault and nobody else’s. Because, if Bart hadn't gone off with Jane, he wouldn’t have hired out to the lumber camp—and the raft wouldn’t have drowned him. Bertha killed him just as much as if she’d pushed him off the raft into the river. And there was poor Jane, trying to keep her girl Anne off in school — away from gossip.” It was Jane's light which Bertha could see across the valley. Bertha stood at the window watching for Carl and thinking how perfectly neat the room was where that far lamp was set—the room which she herself had never kept In order. But Bertha had left that house on the day after Bart had gone. She had lived on in the town in a boarding house. And now Jane’s light shone across the mile of flat pas ture into Bertha’s new abode—a small place, aet up in the hills, the farm which had be longed to Bertha’s father. jpOR the last fortnight, Bertha knew, that light had shone on some one besides Jane Graham-Millet. It had been shining on Anne, Jane's daughter, home for the Christmas holi days, home for the first time since the upheaval. Bertha wondered if she knew. The valley and the village wondered if she knew. "Poor little thing! Os course, she couldn’t understand like the rest of us. She’ll think her mother has done something awful. She won’t know what kind of a cook Bertha was. Mebbe some of us could kind of explain, like her mother can’t——” Bertha had no doubt that somebody had ex plained. The wind was strong and it beat upon the house. Bertha had on the kettle to make Coffee for Carl—she could make good coffee, even if the valley hadn’t liked her way of serv ing vegetables and salads instead of pastry and cake. And Carl could eat at any moment of the day or night. She had loved him from his lit tle boyhood, when he had run over from the adjoining farm and asked her to tell him a story. She had opened to him a new world, and he admired her increasingly when his two years of college were done and he had come back to manage his father's farm. He was her one link with the world now, she told herself. But they must have it understood that on a night like this he must not drive up with her provisions. Snow was falling so that she could hardly see Jane’s light. She turned away, and the wind was so strong that she did not hear the sound of Carl’s car until he had driven into her yard. She Sung open the door and he came in, and the room filled with the odor of the cold and with flying snow. The lamp flickered, the fire leaped in the draft and his presence seemed to wake the air. *T’m a sight, Mrs. Millet,” he said. ’’The snow came in even through the windshield. I’d Just drop the basket and go, only ” He looked at her and at the window, caked With the flakes. “Take off your coat,” she cried. “I’ll have some coffee in 10 minutes—but it’ll only take me a second!” They laughed, as they had always laughed— together. She was actually bustling—the valley would not have believed it of her—getting ready bis supper. He did not take off his coat, but made in effective dabs with his cap, beating away the snow. His face was brown and firm, his blond hair was thick. “I can’t,” he said. "I must get straight on tonight ” She turned. "Why, my dear! I haven’t seen you—l haven’t seen anybody since you were here last week. Os course,” she caught herself, “I don’t want to see anybody—but I do want to see you— —” THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., DECEMBER 22, 1929. Ann and Bertha met as two beings having no wrongs and no relatives. “I know," he said. “I’ve no end of stuff 1 want to talk over with you, but tonight ” He turned to look to the window. - "You shouldn’t have come," she told him. "I’ve been anxious for two hours. That road— Carl, don’t you think that you should stay here?” Again his look went to the window, where the lights of his car made the flakes sparkle. “I could get on all right myself,” he said, “only ” “What, Carl?” “I’ve got some one with me.” "Well, then—of course, you’ll both stay here!” "I don’t think you’d like that, Mrs. Millet. I don’t think ” She made a gesture; her face was not even curious. "X shall not mind, whoever it Is." Her thought caught, as on some visible obstacle. “Perhaps you mean it’s somebody who wouldn’t care about putting up with me?” "It’s not that —why, she’s up here with me, Isn't she? But you—l wish it wasn’t such a bad night!” “If she wouldn’t care,” said Bertha lightly, “that’s all. Don’t keep her out there freesing to death, Carl!” “My dear,” he said, “it’s Anne—Anne Gra ham.” For an Instant her look was blank. “Jane Graham’s daughter,” he had to add. "Does she know?” Bertha asked only. “Oh, everything!” “Then she shares the valley’s idea that I deserved what I got. She won’t want ” “Don’t be absurd. But are you sure ” “Don’t you be absurd,” she said, and took down another cup. His look was his answer. Then she heard him: "Anne! Mrs. Millet wants us both to stay.” ANNE and Bertha met as two beings having no wrongs and no relatives. “Mrs. Millet,” Anne said, "I do wish we weren’t making you so much trouble! I was paralyzed at that Glen road coming up. I * daren't think of it going down ” "I shouldn’t have forgotten either of you,” Bertha said. Anne slipped out of her coat—she had a scarf over her hair and she wore nothing over '-heT shoes. She was in a black gown, but her bright, short hair and her high color height ened the room like light. "Come and have some coffee,” said Bertha, and the doubtful moment was at an end. That Carl’s path and Anne's were irrev ocably crossed became at once evident to Bertha. She wondered what there is to signal that two people are in love. Not words nor looks—but they flowed together, mind and mood, like an hour and a clock—and no more to be said about it. Love, among many things, was what they were for, and they assumed It. And yet, Bertha saw, there was not less ro mance, but more! Carl and Anne were not, in the manner of older lovers, disconcerted. Merely they were exquisitely, jubilantly at home. When, therefore, Carl said, "Anne, shall we tell her?” Bertha said: “Do tell me the par ticulars, the plans! Everything else I see for myself.” “But,” cried Anne gayly, "we’re not going to be married. We want to be free—perfectly free. We —I don’t believe in marriage.” Faced thus abruptly with the open phrasing of a secret thought which had sometimes come to her through the years of her own marriage to Bart Millet, Bertha’s first stricken amaze ment was more at this barefaced announcement than at the opinion itself. Yet instinctively she cried: “Oh, my dears, not that!” She felt her mistake in their instant with drawal. They said no more, seeming oddly to feel that the burden of proof lay upon her. "I shouldn’t have thought,” she accused them feebly, “that you’d stand for anything so unoriginal.” They laughed. This was better. Carl, she saw, had wistfully expected of her something like this. “To go against marriage ” she began, and glanced at Anne and faltered. “Don’t mind me.” said Anne briskly. “Moth er gave you a rotten deal —nobody feels that more than I do. I’m frightfully ashamed of it.” "Every case seems special,” Bertha heard herself saying. This had come so suddenly— she had no time to sort her certainties! Anne leaned toward her. “Look here,” she said winnlngly, "he yourself with us, please! Don’t feel you have to stand up for society. We both know—everybody knows—what you’ve been through. You—you were a wonder, and marriage simply crucified you. You were a brick—but—it—it killed some of you, all the same. Don't stand up for that sort of thing—to us!” Bertha looked at Anne’s wise young face—so strangely wise on such youthful shoulders. Why, she was not 23 yet! And yet she was aware of truths. Bertha caught herself on that. Truths? Yes, there was truth in what Anne had just been saying. She knew, the village knew—and other villages and other valleys, the world around. There were marriages that killed some of the souls of those who had taken marriage vows. But, oh, couldn't they see the others ” “Would you go through it again?” Anne de manded. "I mean, as you did before ” "No,” she said, “indeed I would not. And certainly if I had only known that ” she cried to them, “but you two! Don’t you know that you love each other?” She tried to add gayly: “I know it—l can see that you do!” "We love each other too much to bind each other,” said Anne solemnly. Bertha turned to Anne. “Tell me,” she said, "you don’t mind my asking—do you feel this— or is it only because ” Anne laughed. “No, I’ve believed this way for ages.” “Your mother,” said Bertha. "Forgive me— she acted on that principle of freedom—do you think that she ” "Oh, but she wasn’t free!” cried Anne. "She was bound —or she ought to have been—by your bondage. That’s it—when you’re once inside you can never get free yourself or let anybody else be free. Os course, mother has suffered fearfully. That’s one of the things that make me know marriage is so wrong. It—it binds everybody, perfectly miserably. And Carl and I ” J-£E put out his hand, and she took it. Their look was the look of two who would never let each other go. “You’re bound already,” said Bertha. "Don’t you see that?” They looked startled, but they quickly rallied, however. “For just as long as we want to be,” said Anne stoutly. “And how do you know that you will both cease to want to be at the same time?” “I wouldn’t want anything Anne didn’t want,” said Carl. “Wouldn’t you?” Bertha looked at him in tently. “Wouldn’t you lore her at this minute whether she loved you or not? If you wouldn’t I wouldn’t give much for your love!” Carl said remorsefully: "We didn’t mean to worry you with this. We came by the Olen road only because I wanted to leave your things ” Bertha turned to them with a startled look. “You don’t mean that you’re leaving now?" she cried. “Three days before Christmas! You’re not leaving home now!” Anne had a definite air of trying to be casual. “We pay too much attention to Christmas, don’t you think?” “Anyway, the elements are on your side,” said Carl. He strolled to the window and peered out unhappily. Anne followed him. “Look!” cried Carl. “There comes a car up the Olen road!” Bertha joined them and saw down the valley the light of a car making its way in the storm. The light of Jane’s house was now obscured in the surging of the snow. “Somebody must be as much in love as I am,” said Anne. Bertha stared at them. How beautiful they were! How they loved each other! More than they knew! Was she so certain that they had chosen badly?” The question, stabbing at her, swung her round to face some inner clamor of which she had been aware from the first. “Do you mind telling me,” she asked, uncer tainly, "I mean, do you want to tell me what your plans are? Where will you go?” “Some place where people understand,” said Anne. “Understand,” Bertha repeated. “Do you mean—know how you will be living?” Well, free people," said Anne, with energy. "Generous, big-hearted people not like these ghastly folks in our valley—but big souls who won’t make a jolly row over things that are none of their business ” “None of their business?” Bertha repeated. “Not if we aren’t harming any one.” • Bertha was feeling her way, wondering if she knew how to say the next word. “What do you mean by harming any one?” she asked. "Oh, just breaking their old laws for them,” Carl explained. "And history,” Anne informed Bertha prettily, "is built on outgrown laws.” "Which somebody had to break before they could be outgrown," Carl added defiantly. “What martyrs you are going to be—for the new society!” cried Bertha. They looked at her a little stupidly. It was Anne who said, with dignity: “No. It’s first of all because we love each other. We each want the other to be free.” “Then if,” said Bertha clearly, "either of you finds somebody whom you love more ” "We shall always love each other,” Anne be gan. Carl put In. "That’s unthinkable." But they may suddenly have remembered that this was neither certain nor modern, and they looked at each other a bit foolishly. Carl burst out: "Mrs. Millet—you’re not going to pretend that you weren’t glad when Bart went away?” "In spite of everything, didn’t—didn't my mother really do you—a service?” said Anne,