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THE END OF THE GYPSY TRAIL

By ALFRED F. OGDEN

Down at the end of the Gypsy Trail,
Close to the sun-kissed sea,

There's a dear little hut, a queer little hut,
That calls and calls to me.

The roof is thatched, and the walls are patched,
And swallows nest in the beams;

But my love is there, and my heart is there,
Along with my golden dreams.

Dreams that come with the tinted dawn
And weave their fancied way

'Till the laughing feet of a baby meet
With mine at the close of day.

Love that waits in the open door;
A chair in the purple dusk;
The fragrant twine of the Jessamine,
And a garden filled with musk.

A song, a song of the Gypsy Trail
That leads to a sun-kissed sea;
And a dear little hut, a queer little hut
That calls and calls to me.

CALIFORNIA

By CAROLYN SHAW RICE

If I, most humble of all bards, dare sing
The glories of this storied land of gold,
Esteem me honest, friends, if overbold.
I love thy circling hills—a giant ring—
Set with the sapphire of Saint Francis' Bay;
I stand upon their russet heights and gaze
O'er mystic miles of blue and wat'ry ways-
Out through the Golden Gate at set of day,

And deem that Heav'n itself lies close at hand.

And when God's white stars look, with radiant gleam, Through drooping leaves of eucalyptus, I,

A vagrant idler in this lang'rous land,

Confess her beauties utterly, and lie

Upon her breast and dream and dream and dream.

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By VERNE BRIGHT

JUMMER lay over Picardy with a mild, but, by the grace of Le Bon Dieu, it did not

Salluring loveliness all its own. Three explode."

years had passed since, on that autumn day, the last sharp crash and roar of battle had echoed over the fields of northern France. Everywhere in the shell-torn land homes had been rebuilt. Fields, replanted, bore rich, golden harvests of grain and pungent scented hay. Laughing, happy-hearted peasants went about the roads and toiled in the fields.

Beside a wood-a wood where young sprouts and leaves struggled valiantly to hide the shellshattered boles-two young men and a girl were raking and piling the purple vetch and loading it on wains. The young men were former poilus of the Iron Division, and had been comrades of the war.

Francois Fontaine was a big, genial. openhearted boy, and was good to look on. He had that appeal in his dark blue eyes that women, no matter of what estate, find it hard to resist.

On the other hand. Gaston Laboul was a restless, wiry individual who looked upon life through misanthropic glasses. He smoked much, kept his own council, and seemed to shrink from the facts of existence.

The girl was Heloise Lafleur. There never was any doubt in the minds of the simple folk who dwelt in the village of Bon-Sur-Meuse which man held the heart of the piquant daughter of Pere Lafleur. And Heloise of the adorable mouth and the shimmering hair, not insensible to the stir she had created in the hearts of more than these two young men, non-committally accepted their attention as her due. How ever, a close observer could have seen, had he peered deeply into her soft brown eyes, the tender glow that burned quietly there when she looked on the joyful Francois.

The three young people were laughing and jesting with each other. Francois told a story of the Great War. He told of how, one night, the boche were entrenched near the village, and the French lines cut through the woods here; of how the captain sent him, with two other men, to reconnoitre the enemy position. The night was black and closed them in like a wall. An intense silence seemed to fill the universe. Suddenly the stillness was shattered by the scream of a shell, hurled from somewhere beyond the enemy's line. "With my two companions," he said, "I was crawling along just where we are now standing, and the shell landed a few feet away in the edge of the wood,

The girl's face flushed, first with a sort of dread and then with relief.

"And did you recover the shell afterward?" she tried to ask casually, but the faintest hint of a tremor crept into her voice.

"Mais. non! The next day we were relieved by the Americans and we withdrew."

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The shell landed a few feet away. Then, with a laugh that was half leer, Gaston spoke.

"Maybe Francois will find it and give it to you for a souvenir."

Fontaine was slow in answering, looking long at the other youth, and then up at the girl, who stood upon the load of dry grasses, outlined against the evening sky.

"Perhaps I will," he said presently.

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The dusk was spreading a misty robe of quiet over the fields, when, after supper of the same day, Heloise tripped merrily across the meadow on her return from a neighbor's house. As she came near the spot where Francois had told of the unexploded shell, a dark form stepped out from the edge of the woods and walked to intercept her. The girl started to run and unconsciously gave a little scream; then, recognizing Gaston, stopped and waited for him.

"You're not afraid of me, are you?" asked the man.

"Non! But you startled me." And not liking his tones, and still timid, despite her words, she resumed her way toward the lights of the village.

With a sudden fierceness, Laboul seized her shoulders and turned her to him.

Do you

"Listen to me! You've got to! love Francois ?" "What is that to you?" The girl tossed her head indignantly.

Then in a

tense voice Laboul continued. "You always seemed to encourage me- -to like me as much as any of the other boys. I love you! You knew it before we went away-you know it now. You think you love Francois. But it makes no difference to me. I'll be good to you, Heloise. I'll do anything—anything—if you'll promise to marry me!"

She stared into his face, her fear turning to anger, then tried to struggle free. But the man's hard hands held her arms the tighter.

"Let me go! Let me go!" She screamed, disgust and fury so intense in her face and tone that Gaston shrank away, releasing her sulkily. His face shone pale in the dim afterglow pale and dogged; the girl was quivering with

anger.

Francois, walking on the road beyond the wood, had heard his sweetheart's scream; now, crashing through the undergrowth, he burst upon this tabuleau. Instantly he knew what had happened.

"You dog!" he snarled, as he advanced on the cringing Laboul and, with one blow of his clenched hand, knocked him to earth.

The action aroused Heloise from her trance of rage. With outstretched, restraining hands, she ran toward her lover. Tripping over an exposed root, she fell. Upon leaping to her feet she saw Laboul, who, in his blind fear, groped around for a weapon with which to defend himself, tugging at what appeared to be a

stone imbedded the earth. With quick intuition she knew at once what it was. With a wild leap, half scramble, the girl threw herself upon him, tearing his clutching hands from the cbject. As, panting and dusty, she rose to her feet, silence fell upon the group. With kindling horror they recognized the percussion cap of an unexploded shell.

"Don't touch it for your life!" gasped Fontaine.

Then, "Heloise!" he breathed.

Slowly he was beginning to grasp from what horrible fate the girl's quickness had saved them.

As Laboul rose shamefacedly to his feet, Heloise looked long at them both without stirring-looked at her strong and comely lover, her man then at Gaston Laboul, trembling yet with the terror of the narrow escape, appalled at what he might have done.

"Please, Francois and Gaston," she said, with forgiving earnestness, "you have been good friends, so let bygones be bygones; shake hands and forget all about it; won't you?"

Fontaine's face was dark with emotion.
"What? Forgive? Heloise!"
"But, Francois, for my sake?"

The tide of anger slowly receded from him. He thrust out his hand to the envious Laboul. But, with a gesture immutably sullen, the man

swore.

"Canaille! You think I am a fool, to be made sport of by you two! Dieu, non!" And, turning on his heel, he disappeared into the black shadow of the wood.

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There was great excitement, for not once in the memory of the oldest fisher man had a man got through that boiling surf alive.

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