T

IN

BY ALLAN A. HUNTER

HE war was over. It was the morning of the first Christmas after the armistice, in Bethlehem. But the place where the Prince of Peace was born proved the scene of hatred and violence. Of course that hatred and violence were held in leash by the hand of the British administration. Two British Tommies were on guard beside the silver star which, according to tradition, marks the spot upon which the angels looked as they sang of good will among men. Those soldiers were on guard with bayonets fixed in their rifles and cartridges ready to see that the Greek priests did not start massacring the Armenian priests, or the Armenian priests the Roman Catholic, or the other way round.

A more ironical contradiction of the spirit of Christ would be hard to find. Here on Christmas morning, in the little cave-stable under the famous Church of the Nativity, there may have been two or three worshiping in spirit and in truth; but one noticed only the pomp, pride, and circumstance of those who had come either to show off or to see. Priests exhibited on their Orthodox bodies the crimson and purple of goldlaced robes. (These they had changed many times at a crowded ceremony the evening before.) As for the gaudy curtains and lamps, the ornate manger and the wax bambino, all that bric-a-brac made one think of a curio shop. What symbols there were represented, not the radiant Christ of the brotherly age that will come, but the musty past and its hopelessly stupid quarrels.

The silver star was a definite cause

so they say-of the Crimean War. Some holy Orthodox fanatic stole it. An opposing sect called in the French to win it back. Clash! Another war! However that may be, many fights have taken place in this underground room and some have given their lives over such an issue of moment as this: Shall the Orthodox or the Armenians own such and such a nail on the wall, or shall the Catholics wash a certain window?

That crypt under the Church of the Nativity stands for the clenched fist and the incredibly grotesque. You can break your heart over it, or you can take it bumorously, and rather sensibly, as did the British sergeant.

THE STAR IN THE GROTTO OF THE CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY

I met him in a room adjoining. He was off duty at the time; and he cherished no delusions about the holy places. To him the salient thing in this church was the wine cellar of one of the superintending priests.

"They're a rum lot, sir," he commented on the religionists. "But the wine's good, sir. Werry good, sir."

Tommy Atkins in Palestine was a wise and weathered man. He refused to worry himself sick about the graft and bigotry of the holy places. He was there for the sole purpose of guarding them, of doing his duty.

Nor his to reason why. As I left the church I asked a sentinel (with a wound stripe and many service stripes) where the field of the shepherds was.

"I don't know, sir."

"How long have you been stationed here?"

"Six weeks, sir."

Men might crawl out of bed before the dawn and walk the six muddy miles from Jerusalem to visit the field where the shepherds watched their flocks by night, but this field of the shepherds was nothing to him.

It was something to me, however. I hadn't fought four years in the war; on Gallipoli and then across the scorching sands of Sinai. (I had come up in comparative comfort six months before on the "Milk and Honey Express.") I hadn't marched with a ninety-pound pack all the way up the Philistine plain and then through the slush and storms of the Judæan hills to David's home town. So the field beyond Bethlehem was worth some walking to see.

It was only half a mile from the church, over a hill and then down again. Walking up through the narrow, twisting streets, I passed a string of kneeling camels, an immense solemnity in their faces as they chewed their cud; and donkeys, the most lovable little fellows with fuzzy eyebrows and a patience in their eyes born of carrying innumerable burdens. Their backs would bend, but apparently without pain, as they twinkled down the street, half hidden under bulging sacks of grain and clover. One moment's hesitation, and "Thwack!" would come the driver's stick on the mouse-brown haunches, with the exhortation, "Yu Hamar!" (O donkey!) These drivers were robed in jellabias or glorified nightgowns, originally a brave Prussian blue, but now, thanks to many washings, the mild color of the sky. They were amiable barefoot Syrians who seemed genuinely to mean their deep-throated salutation of "Salaam aleikum !" (Peace be upon you!)

They are a strangely lovable people, the Syrian village folk, even if they do overload their animals. To be sure,

they have weaknesses. They do not seem to be interested in veracity; possibly they have no conception of what it is. They are not keen on what we Americans call co-operation; there is too much jealousy and distrust all round for that. They do not abound in initiative and the strenuous life. But they have a gift for quick sympathy and a dignity like the dignity of some children, that suggests the kingdom of God. Their lives are taken up pretty largely with finding sufficient grass for the family donkey and earning enough pancake-loaves of bread for the hungry mouths in the limestone box of a house where parents and little ones all literally go to bed with the chickens. Olives and occasional figs, or a special slice of impossible cheese, with grapes in summertime and a rare Jaffa orange, serve for dessert. Since this is Christmas time, they will indulge in three or four pieces of bouclauwa, or honeyed pastry, and the children will make piles of colored eggs on which have been etched, with a nail, the manger scene or the Wise Men. Nearly everybody will join in, for the little town of Bethlehem is mostly Christian, and the few Mohammedans are not unwilling to help the Christians keep their festival.

As I reached the top of the hill and looked back over the hollow where huddled the small white houses of the town, I saw that most of the windows were margined in spite of their lack of glass; margined with blue, in honor of the Mother of our Lord. Bethlehem from this distance was lovely to look upon, "all bright and glittering in the smokeless air."

What met me as I left the town behind and started eastward down the hill was even more enchanting. For there in truth was Palestine! Simplicity and peace! In front of me, across the field gleaming with barley stubble, was a yoke of slow-moving oxen, fresh brown in the sun, tugging away at a wooden plow, and followed by a peasant crooning an eery song. That plow could have been used by the servants of Boaz in this self-same field where Ruth gleaned among the harvesters. With that song Abraham may have heartened himself along the Bethlehem road as he set out with his camels for pastures new. And

those watch-towers-tall cylinders of unhewn stone-that stood as sentinels among the terraced vineyards on the hillsides round about. Did not David survey this very valley from towers like these? Perhaps the fig and olive trees were thicker then, and the vines more generous; for half the trees of Palestine the Turks cut down, and blighted all her fairness.

The boy David must have loved these hills and wadys, that distant wall of blue whence the sun had risen, the mountains of Moab that forever haunt the Holy Land. Perhaps he led his flocks over this field to nibble grass or dewy moss among the crannies of stone walls.

Anyway, sheep were browsing on the edges of the field, and there were two or three shepherd boys; ragged young bare

foot Arabs, as native as the oak or thorn.. Possibly they had gathered here deliberately on Christmas morning in the field where the shepherds watching their sheep had heard good news from heaven. I did not know. It was enough to admire the nine-year-old shepherdess, holding in her arms a kid with a shining jet nose, a picture of tranquillity.

After exchanging "peace" with these carers of the flocks, I climbed up the hill again toward the little town, and as I climbed I remembered:

They all were looking for a king
To slay their foes and lift them high.
Thou camest a little baby thing,
That made a woman cry.

Nearing the crest of the hill, I noticed, stark and white, clear cut against the blue-the Cross.

BY ELIAS LIEBERMAN

R. SPANGLER stood in the kitchen, pulling on a pair of heavy and oft-mended gloves. It was half-past three on the afternoon of the day before Christmas, and he was about to leave Plympton in his motor omnibus for Summit Hill, fifteen miles away.

The kitchen, with pretty Mrs. Spangler sitting by the table, was pleasanter than the mist-enshrouded outof-doors.

Mrs. Spangler held up her work for Spangler to see. It was a cat whose outline had been printed on muslin which she had stuffed into shape with rags. It made a safe and delightful toy for a little child.

"I've stuffed a cat and a dog and a doll to-day," she said, merrily. "And tomorrow I'll stuff a turkey."

Spangler laid his hand on the latch. Mrs. Spangler was the light of his eyes, and he never left her without a pang.

"What would you say if I didn't get back in time to help trim the tree?" he asked, ruefully.

Mrs. Spangler laid down her work. "You won't have to make an extra trip to-night?"

"I'm afraid I will. Four college students are coming home by way of Fort Edward, and the boss told me to meet them."

"Oh, dear!” cried Mrs. Spangler. "It means five dollars," said Spangler. "And you may have the five."

Outside, the mist created a premature twilight through which Spangler went briskly down the street. There were wreaths in the windows and festoons over the doors and Christmas trees by dozens for sale along the curb, and the Christmas spirit was in Spangler's heart. He wished that he could give some great, priceless gift to somebody, not his family he was able to give them everything they wanted-but some forlorn person or some child.

In the garage he was hailed with shouts. He was probably the most popular person in the community, and there was no one who more deserved popularity. He climbed at once to the driver's seat of the unwieldy omnibus, in which two passengers, afraid of not getting seats at the starting-point in the Square, had already found places. One was Mrs. Hedge, tall, black-haired, and very cross-looking. The other was Mrs. Lischey, who was short and heavy and timid, with a broad, expressionless face. Mrs. Lischey had the comfortable seat beside Spangler, and Mrs. Hedge, behind her, glared at the back of her old-fashioned bonnet. The four seats of the omnibus rose like steps, and it was only beside the driver that one was not tossed violently from side to side, as well as tipped backward and forward as

BY ELSIE SINGMASTER

the bus climbed or descended the steep hills.

A mischievous mechanic looked at the two ladies.

"Look out going round Dead Man's Curve," he warned. "It'll be slippery."

"Slippery nothing!" rejoined Spangler, with a reassuring glance at his passengers. He blew the horn and called, "Look out there!" and guided the lumbering vehicle into the street. The engine roared like that of a powerful locomotive.

At the Square twenty passengers waited, and his car was supposed to hold fourteen. Not only were there human beings, but there was one dog, and there were baskets and suit-cases beyond computation, and one trunk. There were also the early arrivals and himself. The sum to which the human beings added seemed to have a profoundly humorous significance to Spangler, and he said, in a loud tone, "Twenty-three!" It seemed to have a humorous significance for the crowd also, because they shouted with laughter.

"I've got to get home to milk the cows, Spangler," called some one.

"I engaged a place this morning, remember, Spangler. You know I did," said another.

"I don't take up much room," said a very fat man. He was a drummer who had traveled with Spangler for ten years, and he always cast tender and entirely ineffective glances at the ladies. He looked smilingly at Mrs. Hedge, and she repaid him with an indescribably fierce scowl, exhibiting for an instant the artificial substitute which had long since replaced her canine tooth.

Spangler began to,give loud directions. "All you grown people 'll have to hold children," he commanded. "Myron and Billy, you go only a short distance-you stand on the running-boards, one on each side. This ark 'll have to be balanced. All the bundles 'll have to go on the top. Now those that go farthest, in first. Mrs. Hedge, you kindly move front with Mrs. Lischey."

Mrs. Hedge was about to say, "I'll do nothing of the sort," but she changed her mind; not because public opinion was clearly against her, but because she would rather crowd Mrs. Lischey than be herself crowded by the fat man or hold a child on her lap.

Five passengers who came running up at the last minute Spangler could not take. He drove off amid a loud clamor, shouting at the top of his voice:

"I'll make another trip at 7:30. You'll have to wait. Have patience."

Every one on the street stopped to look at the omnibus, and almost all the men wasted their breath shouting at Spangler. The last generation created a

certain nameless and admired work of art by covering a jar or jug with putty and affixing thereon a variety of small articles-buttons, jackstones, buckles, tiny unclothed dolls, wishbones, and so forth, and completing the work by gilding. The bus was not gilded, but otherwise it resembled one of these objects. The trunk was strapped on the rear, baskets and bundles were placed in a rack on the top, a man stood on each side, human heads projected occasionally from between the curtains, and the dog whined piteously on the running-board. The front of the car was decked with greens and a Christmas tree was strapped to the rear. Through the windshield could be seen the face of Spangler, kindly, bright-eyed, smiling, and a little anxious. This was the heaviest load he had ever carried. Fortunately, his passengers would begin to leave at the end of the first mile, and few would be left to carry up the steep incline at the end of the journey.

At the edge of the town he turned on the lights. The mist had thickened and the sky had darkened, and the excrescences on the bus became invisible. The vehicle looked like some enormous elephant or hippopotamus with fiery eye hastening through the night. A mile out the young man addressed as Myron stepped down, and a little beyond the young man named Billy. Every one in the bus shouted "Merry Christmas!" and the young men shouted back and waved their hats.

Still a little farther on two persons got out. One was Mrs. Hedge, who said no good-by, but went directly into her great dim house. The other was a stout woman who, with Spangler's assistance, climbed into a buggy waiting for her at the entrance to what was known as the "back road," which climbed the mountain in a zigzag direction and joined the main road miles away near Summit Hill. The passengers pitied her because of the wretched road on which she must travel. Some one expressed anxiety also for Mrs. Hedge, who lived alone and had tempting possessions, but this sympathetic person was laughed at. No burglar would attack Mrs. Hedge; if he did, said some one, he would "get his."

On the first short incline Spangler waved his hand at a dim light. In a little house close to the road lived Mrs. Graybill, a gentle old lady of whom he and his wife were very fond. He smiled into his stubby mustache and his blue eyes brightened. To-morrow morning he would take Mrs. Graybill home with him to eat her Christmas dinner.

In the village of Worleysburg the bus was almost emptied. There was a long pause here, for all the bundles were

moved from the roof and handed to the departing passengers or put inside, and the trunk and the tree were unfastened. The monster had now only his own grayish hide.

Beyond Worleysburg began the steep ascent of the mountain, and there were few houses. Of the passengers who remained Spangler was well acquainted only with the fat drummer, who took the place by his side and began to discourse about the mistakes of the Government. From Summit Hill he would take the trolley to Fort Edward, and there catch an express train and reach home before morning.

The lights of the car, illuminating first a little space on this side of the road and then the other, showed no more fields, but rank upon rank of bare peach and apple trees. Presently, as Spangler changed gears, the landscape changed again. The grade was steeper, and on each side were thickets of rhododendrons and the lower boughs of pines and hemlocks, which vanished upward into blackness. Though Spangler had made the journey twice a day for more than ten years, he never failed to take a profound pleasure in the woodland, and he liked to have some one beside . him with whom he could share his satisfaction. The drummer was not a congenial soul.

The woodland was not entirely unbroken. Set apparently in the midst of the forest was a little farm. Here lived two young people named Filson, who, like all the people on the road except perhaps Mrs. Hedge, were Spangler's friends. Several years ago they had lost their only child, and it had seemed at first as though Mrs. Filson would never recover her health or her cheerfulness. A few months ago, however, a great happiness had come to them. They had taken a child to raise, a stranger who had been found for them by the Children's Aid Society. She was a beautiful dark-eyed little girl, about ten years old, whom they called Esther. They longed to adopt her, but the Aid Society advised against any immediate approach to her father, who had treated her cruelly. Spangler stopped each morning and took her to school at Summit Hill, and brought her back in the evening. Now he blew his horn fiercely as he passed the little farm, and he saw the light darken as Mrs. Filson pressed her face against the pane to see him go by. When he came back, she and Filson would both be at the side of the road waiting.

A little farther on he blew his horn again. Here there was a dark aperture in the wall of foliage where the back road rejoined the pike. There was no danger of running into any one-the back road was hardly used once a month. Spangler thought of its few lonely inhabitants, then of Mrs. Spangler and the children, then of the five dollars he would earn; then, with a shake of the head, of Mrs. Hedge. The

wickedness and unhappiness of some members of the human family astonished him-it was so easy to be happy and good.

At Summit. Hill there was an amusement park for the citizens of Fort Edward. It had been intended originally that the trolley should run down to Plympton, but funds had given out and it was doubtful whether it would ever be continued. There were a few houses, a little store, and a schoolhouse. It was with the storekeeper's children that Esther Filson stayed until Spangler came for her.

When Spangler drew up beside the platform at the trolley station, Esther came running to meet him and scolding prettily. Her black eyes shone out of a red hood, dimples came and went in her cheeks, and her tongue ran as though its mechanism were different from that of other people's tongues. Spangler was bewitched by her. He had begged Mrs. Filson to let him take her down to play with his children, and Mrs. Filson had said, with a little hesitation, "Some time." She seemed to be afraid to have the little thing out of her sight. As the departing passengers climbed down Esther climbed in.

"I knew you'd be on time," she said, reproachfully. "I knew it."

"Ain't I always?" asked Spangler. "Yes, but this evening you might have been late. We thought surely you'd be late with all your passengers. We were trimming a tree, and I could have stayed to supper."

"Is that what ails you?" said Spangler. "Well, I tell you. I'm going to make another trip, and I can take you down then."

Esther clapped her hands.

"But what will my mother say?" "I'll fix it with her," said Spangler, easily. "I'll stop and tell her."

"Oh, goody!" cried Esther, and was gone, across a dark space into the broad streak of light from the store window. Spangler heard a cry of delight, then the door opened and closed.

It was not until the trolley had come in and the passengers had been transferred and Spangler was approaching the Filson house that he began to feel that he had made a mistake. Mrs. Filson might have other plans for Esther. It was now a little after six; he would reach Summit Hill again and pick Esther up at nine. After all, that was not late!

Mrs. Filson and her husband were both at the road. Mrs. Filson gave a little cry when Esther did not spring down, but her husband laughed at her uneasiness.

"It's all right. She'll have a good time, and you can finish your presents without sitting up all night. She'll be home now for a whole week." He waved Spangler on. "We'll be watching for you."

In Plympton Spangler found the five disappointed passengers also. The recol

lection of Mrs. Filson's distress still worried him, and he put on all possible power for the return journey to Summit Hill. He saw again the dim bulk of Mrs. Hedge's house and the lamp of Mrs. Graybill. In Worleysburg he was left alone. He blew his horn loudly as he passed the Filsons' and again as he passed the dark opening of the back road.

At Summit Hill Esther ran forward out of the darkness and the storekeeper's wife stood in the doorway until Spangler shouted, "All right." Esther clambered up beside him, a basket in her hand.

"I have popcorn and candy and a present. I can't wait till I see my mother! Do you suppose Santa Claus will bring me anything?"

Spangler turned in his seat and looked down at the little figure. He had heaped up a pile of blankets to serve as a footstool, and he was determined to have no one else share his seat. He could hear the distant rumble of the trolley car over the rough roadbed.

"Doesn't he always come to your house?" he asked. "He always does to mine."

"I hadn't any house till this year," said Esther.

"Why, what did you live in?" asked Spangler, jocosely.

"Well, it was part of a house," explained Esther. "It was a cellar." "A cellar!" repeated Spangler. "Yes," said Esther. "I made flowers. My name wasn't Esther Filson; it was Maria Rapallo."

"Didn't you go to school?" asked Spangler, amazed. He was destined to be still further astonished.

"No, indeed! I worked," said Esther. "From morning till night. A man used to whip me. I have marks on me." "Oh, I guess not!"

"But I have," insisted Esther. "But now he can't find me. He's in jail."

"I should hope so!" said Spangler. The color came back to his ruddy cheeks. The child was romancing, as children did. He looked down at her as the brilliant light of the trolley car, advancing round the bend, illuminated her face. Her impossible story made him uneasyshe had always seemed like a straightforward, honest little child. Now she looked strange, with her round eyes and her rich complexion and her swiftmoving tongue.

His eyes were still fixed upon her when the trolley car stopped. He stepped down, prepared to show the passengers places in the omnibus. To his astonishment there were only two-one a woman with a basket who departed in the direction of the little settlement, the other a strange man whom the conductor was directing. The college boys, after the habit of their kind, had not kept their word. As he stepped out to guide this single passenger to a place, he glanced down at his companion. Her eyes were no longer soft, they were