The evening world. Newspaper, July 22, 1922, Page 14

teem eer ee 14 THE EVENING WORLD, SATURDAY, JULY 22, 1922, The Faet-Story Russian amine HIS 4a @ semi-ofictal, unvarnished. truthful story of the famine conditions in Russta—first September of last year to & effort to feeding the star vin, hand—toritten by a@ man who from fay of this gave hia entire time and ug children of the district of Samara, ea supervisor for the Americun Keltey Administration, What he writes in the series of ectually saw or what came to him ty era. From the bare record of oannidali Spon official facts. The writer of the articles ts an American. Gov Shafroth of Colorado, a gradu and California, He served during Be was a member of the American starvation m that in sume places followed in tts train, the story is based articles beginning to-day is what he reports from his fellow relie/ work- to the shocking reports of He ta the son of the late ate of the Universities of Michigan e war wit’ the 78th Field Artillery, Relief Administration tn Poland and was chosen to head the work in the Samara di, rict. . Article VI. STARVATION, SQUALOR, FILTH, DISEASE LED TO CANNIBALISM. By Will Shafroth District Supervisor American Relief Administration in the District of Samara from Sept. 15, 1981, to May 15, 1928. 1922 (New York Evening World), Frese Publishing Company DM tiscoureees found me very Oopyrignt, discouraged with our organ- {zation feeding only about 20,000 children two weeks after our first food had arrived. A Govern- ment representative through whom eur dealings with any official agency had to be trans- acted had been appointed and all work previous to hi nomination, including even the selection of kitchéns in the City of Samara, had be done over In a highly or- Ranized R0% ment, where ac- on could be se- cured by the pressing of a button, such a representative would lave been ideal, as he would have saved us much red tape. With the Soviet, how- ever, the result was contrary, simply lengthening the endless routine. Moreover, this particular represen- tative thought it his duty not merely to see my requests were fulfilled but to control the manner in which show was run. Though disabused of this idea twice weekly, he. always came back with ft at the next meeting. His obstinacy was almost as great as my own, so much time was lost in writing official letters and drawing ‘up protocols, The protocol ts the chief indoor sport of Soviet officialdom, and con- sists of a Secretary's written re- port of what any two or more people sald, might have sald, or ought to have said, when they had a confer- ence. When drawn up ft ts signed by the parties to the conference and con- sttutes an admission that they did say what the Secretary says they did. If all the protocols written in Rus- ‘ia in the last year were piled to- kether and turned into food, there would soon be more deaths from gout than from starvation. ACTION AFTER THE FOURTH LETTER. Our letters always received a prompt answer from the Government tepresentative, and nearly always to the same effect, |, ©, that the matter Wo referred to was being taken up be to m- ILL SHARROTH the TWELFTH INSTALMENT, GERRY GIVES WAY. EDDIE, as she swung into the open road and headed for the blue hills of Forgetfulness, which receded as she ap- proached them, remembered fhat she was at least misttess of hat ever-responsive piece of ma- thinery on which she sat poised like stormy petrel on the crest of a tomber. It was hers to hasten and retard, control and direct as she wished. \ was hers to curb into submission ind harry nto dust-trailing violation 1) the State road laws. \nd as she went careening along © open highway, crouched frown- ‘ely over her mahogany wheel, she Jught to ease the tumult in her per- exed young body by drinking up jstanos very much as disheartened ten drink alcohol, * She @id her best to drug herself ith speed, letting the air whip hrough the opened windshield and ting her clouded and untaléumed oung faoe. When she caught sight of Luddy | Brien, the traffic cop at the Valley lromsimg, she dropped an eye to her peedometer and automatically slowod wm Quite automatically, too, she ‘costed that officer, after the long- ttablighed “manner so disapproved { by ber family, by raising her left and to the level of her ear, holding he palm outward, and wigwagging cr bunched fingers nervously up and wa, very much as if she were inging the strings of an invisible harp. day grinned briefly but fraternal - (, saluted, and declined to commit or would sogn receive attention ter the fourth letter the subject, we elther got action or were told It was impossible, For us at the time the situation had no elemént of humor in it. Children were dying every day, and we were desperately worried. 1 roally think it was only the short visit paid us at that time by our chief of Rus- sian operations, Col. William N. Haskell, which kept our morale from going to pieces. His advice and en- couragement, bin appreciation of work done, and his insight Into the AMculties we had been encountering, gave us new heart and energy carry on. By the middle of November, the number of children fed in Samara province had leaped to 90,000, and on Dec. 10 we were feeding our full allocation of 200,000 portions a day ir some °0-odd kitchens, Meanwhile the situation In the prov- ince had become much worse. With the coming of the snow the destitu- tion of even the most prosperous re- gions was terrible. Even the food sub- stitutes were now not easily found, The death rate mounted in the vil- lages, and a large per cent. of the peasants had swollen ‘hunger bel- lies,"" due to eating grass and wood, An Inspection trip I made early in December of the territory directly south of Samara showed Af about on same to there was practically no food, not even substl- tutes left. But while the death rate in the worst places averaged then about 3% per cent. a month—twenty-five times the normal rate—the miracle was that any of these peasants lived at all, In many places the transportation situation was critical and tt was doubtful if tho villages would be ablo to bring the January supplies for thelr kitchens. For instance, in one village of 3,000 people there remained but nine camels and eight horses; of cows which could also be used for wagon transport there were 160, but these were being killed at the rate of ten a day for food. There was no fodder for the animals which still lived, and without remuneration their owners refused to allow them to be used. NEARLY HALF THE HOMES DESERTED. Of 400 homes in this village 175 had been deserted by their inhab- tants, who had gone away tn search of food. Tho weariness and the hopeless resignation of the peasants were very depressing. Seeing the weaker membera of the community dying, they sald in thelr fatalistic way: ‘There ‘s no more food. We must die too. Only our children who eat at the American kitchens will be A curious thing was that himself, as an officer of the law, by turning to observe her as she swept past him and mounted the next hill— at @ rate, be It recorded, not strictly in accordance with traffic regulations. Teddie, in fact, was already dis- covering how brief and deluding can be the sense of release born of four flying wheels with nowhere in partio- ular to fly to. She almost wished that she might hear the put-put of Luddy's motoreycle as it rode her down. She almost wished that Luddy would arrest her and have her com- mitted to @ jail-yard with high walls where she couldn't possibly get out and where she could spend what re- mained of her blighted life breaking them by thumping them until the: went to pieces, the same as she'd like to thump a few heads! Then her thoughts went back to her car. From the crest of the hill which it had mounted like a swallow, Teddie could see the familar gray rib- bon of the road where it twined through the woodlanded valley below her. It was a very Inviting road. It was more than inviting, in Teddie's present mood—it was challenging, And she breathed deeper as she saw that she couldn't even afford to keep an eye on her speedometer dial She was more than half-way down the long slope when she first caught sight of the motor-truck loaded with a double tier of cement blocks, That failed to trouble her, however, for she had ample room to slither by What did trouble her, for a moment, was something coming down the op- posite slope, It was a pigeon-gray roadster stripped of Its top, a homely and heayy-bodied roadster which trailed rolling cumali of road-duat tn the men died more rapidly than the probably due to the fact that they did more physical labor. And then Into the pervading gloom of this situation, like a shaft of light, came the message from Mr ‘At a time when we ourselves as a result of the American people have unmindful of the ring of famine-stricken Rus- women Christmas much war yet the not been Congress was to give $20,000,000. This would buy twenty million bush- els of grain, We could feed five million adults. Although !t was known that this food could not reach the Volga be- fore Mai the announcement put heart Into the peasants who had al- ready learned to trust our word. Also in January, the allocation of chil- dren's portions for our province was increased to three hundred and fifty thousand, thus enabling us to succor the most needy children !n all parts of the Government with the excep ton of the Buzuluk district, where the American and English friends were feeding, and of about five cantons near Samara covered by the Swedish Red Cross FIRST RUMORS OF CANNIBALISM But despite this, the general situa- tion in January, February and the first part of March was horrible be- yond words. Rumors of canniballam, which {a December had been only vague whispers, now became definite and authentic. Cases of the eating of human flesh were frequent In the Ouyezds of Buz- uluk and Pugatchof and were reported from all parts of the province. One of our Russian employees, « man of about thirty-five, set out from Samara for the town of Bolshail Glu- shitsa, one hundred versts south, to Inspect our sub-warehouse there, He went by sledge, taking three days for the trip and sleeping in peasant houses along the way. A week later he developed spotted typhus. In five days he died. Most of the dead were thrown Into a common pit, but he was buried separately, The night after his burial, as reported to us by members of our committee, his body was taken from the ground and carried away, There could only be one purpose for this. It was to be used for food. In December in a village L had seen a large pit being dug by weary peas- ants who rested often in their work. They said they were digging a vit for the dead to come. “Woe are afraid we won't have the strength to do it later, so we are try- ing now to make a place to put the future corpses.’* BURIED IN ONE GREAT PIT. As I looked at them I wondered if any of those men thought he might be digging his own grave. In most villages the bodies were buried in a common pit. I have seen piles of the corpses stark naked and frozen into the most, grotesque positions, with the signs of having been preyed upon by wandering dogs. I have seen these bodies—and it 1s a sight that I can never forget—taken by two men and tossed Ike sticks of cordwood into a yawning hole. Mm some places deaths were #0 many that the bodies could not be buried, but were simply piled in ware- houses to rot and corrupt. Horrible stories of people going to these places in the night and cutting off limbs to edt were told and often verified. In the town of Matvelewka, in the south of Buzuluk Ouyezd, a Government representative sent down to inspect the region reported that this pro- cedure went on regularly and the authorities could not stop it. Fifty ‘Teddie's quick eye told her that as the different factors now revealed themselves the pigeon-gray roadster would pass the motor-truck before she could, This meant that she would have to give way and slow down and humbly wait for the autocrat piloting the pigeon-gray roadster, And this Teddie had neither the de- sire nor the intention of doing. Because she knew who owned that roadster. She knew it even before she saw the bareheaded driver alone in the high-backed seat, the tanned and goggled face with the oll-stained old putty colored motor coat but- toned close up under the bony young Caesar-Augustus chin, It was Gerry West's oar. And Gerry West was in it, imperially 4 manding his right-of-way as he pounded man-like down a road which he regarded as entirely and alto- gether his own. But it was not Teddie's tntention, that afternoon, to play second fiddle to any one. Teddie’s heart tightened a little, for she knew it would take promptness to swing out to the left and back to the right again before the lordly road- ster pounded opposite the motor lorry. If he had to slow up, at the last moment, 80 much the better, for he seemed, at the moment, to stand typical of those steam rollers of life which she had always so actively re- sented, It was a bigger car than hers, a dis- tinctly male car, and as such it owed her consideration. The burden of courtesy naturally must rest upon tt Subliminally her practised eye was measuring the distances, appraising the speed of the rival car, evaluating ' per cent of the population of the vil lage had died or left and the rest we lying T have often been asked: “Did you any of your Americans actual see any cannibalism?’ No, I have not nor have I seen any murders T have seen In the jails of cannibals, men and women wi been found eating or cooking human flesh, some of whom admitted kil! their own children for food. 1 know that ten butchers’ shops in the city f Samara were closed for elling human flesh It {s & curious reflection on human credulity that papers refusing to print the actual facts about cannibal ism at this time, for the reason tliat they considered them unbelievable, yet gave full display to ridiculous rumors For example, it was ver) widely circulated that the A. R. A supervisor in Samara—presumably myself—had been devowred during food riots that never occurred, while not a “‘stick'’ was given to actual oc currences such as I relate here. One of my lady inspectors after « trip through Pugatchof Ouyezd in the last part of February brought me a report of several places where canni- halism was an acknowledged fact The report of one particular « which she cited has remained In my mind. It was that of @ woman wit! four children whom our inspectress found in a miserable Uttle one-room hut, the children looking down thelr bed on top of the great Russian oven, while the mother slowly and monotonously pounded something in stone mortar. from she had killed her youngest a baby .of two years. Why ‘ause all the other children were crying from hunger. She couldn't stand {t. She almost went mad ‘Then the {dea came to her. it aWhy at first. She wouldn’t thin! of it, But it kept coming back. So finally she had‘done tt, A neighbor hud come in wiile she was cooking the flesh, She had told. But the children had all vomited when they ate {t. She hadn't eaten any herself. And the little eleven-year-old boy had stayed in the corner and cried. He had sald he wouldn't eat his little brother. ‘That was all, told in an un- broken, monotonous tone, as from under the load of great weariness. ALL OTHER FOODS EXHAUSTED. The bark of trees, the dung of cat- tle, certain kinds of clay and roots She put were the chief substitutes used at this time—all flour had gone. The were mixed with the meal of the ground-up benes of animals, and baked into a Kind of unrecognizahic bread. That was the food of the peasants with a tea made of leaves and water. Across the river from Samara !n the province of Simbirsk was a large forest. Many of the trees had been stripped of bark to tho height of a man’s hend by the peas- ants of the neighborhood. ‘The clty of Samara Itself, however, was not a picture of death. Mamine does not parade the thoroughfares of a large city. Starvation does not claim its prey dramatically on a crowded street. The victim of hunger crawls back to bis corner and dies quietly, unnoticed. In those times the pano- rama of the clty was one.of activity. Street cars, electric Mghts, modern buildings, restaurants and confection- ery shops, theatres and picture shows were In full swing. It was in the homes chiefly that one could know a famine really existed. Then, too, there were many peasants so weak that they tottered, who went begging from house to house; and on the street corners were little children, covered only by rags, who chanted in a weary monotone thelr prayer to be saved from starvation, Although I never saw a corpse on the streets of Sa- mara, on my trips going outside the city in this period T often saw two or three people beside the road lying dead in the snow where they had sunk down too weak to go further. the advance of the motor truck. Her palm punched the horn at the same time that her foot pushed down on the accelerator. Then she careened ahead, claiming her fairway by right of conquest! She pushed the horn again, for the dust was troubling her more than she had expected. She swung out to the left to clear the thundering motor truck, rocked up to it, was abreast of it, and saw the pigeon-gray roadster opposing her, dancing down on her, with no visible decrease of speed. He was not giving way an inch— and she knew what it meant. The truck still hemmed her in on the right, cluttering briskly forward, im- perturbable and indifferent. It was too late to swing ahead and over; it was too late to slow down and drop back, Gerald Rhindelander West was re- fusing to give in to her. But Gerry, at that moment, must have seen her He must have seen her for the first time, just as he saw for the first time what was going to happen if they thundered together And he gave way He gave way in the only manner passible, by throwing over his wheel and taking the ditch There was & thump and scrape of mud-guards, a shout from the startled truck-driver, and an involuntary soprano scream from Teddie as she stiffened at her wheel, With a grinding of rubber and gravel she brought her car to a stop. When Teddle looked back with her heart in her mouth she saw no sign of a roadster and no sign of Gerry along the road, This both puzzled and bewildered her And still again she stared back through the settling dust. e The Summer Hotel Game Is Something Like Pinochle and You Can’t Blame the Careful Proprietors. It's a Bit Strange, How- ever, That Other Businesses Fail to Encourage Educa- tional Ambitions. By Montague Glass. ES, Mawruss, if this here aljitbery which ambi- tious young shipping clerks gets fired for studying during office hours was all that was nec- essary to make a good waiter, \‘understand, then the service at the Punktucket Mountain House would have been A number one, un- derstand me, because all the help there was college stu- dents,’” Abe Pot- ash remarked to | his partner, ai ss Morris Perl- mutter, the day after his return from a week in the mountains. “You look good and sunburned anyways,” Morris Perlmutter re- marked. ixty per cent. of it comes from being out in the sun and the other forty is the result from eating too many eggs on account of the bill of fare being so terrible,” Abe re- plied. “Which if Gott soll huten | am obliged to eat summer hotel food again, Mawruss, | would just as lieve that the chef didn't.know enough Latin to read a registered trademark even, because when them third year college students got through cooking perfectly good meat out in that hotel kitchen, Mawruss, the only way you could tell the difference between the roast chicken and the roast beef was that the beef didn’t have no feathers on it, otherwise they both tasted like the smell you used to get in the old days when you passed a horseshoer’s and they were just putting the red hot shoes on the horse’s feet. “They should ought to have some wonderful scenery around that hotel to get away with cooking like that Abe," Morris observed, “From the front porch after dinner Mawruss, you could see six of the highest mountains east of the Rockies and at the same time hear four of the worst musicians from Eastport, Maine, to San Diego, California,’’ Abe replied. ‘The clerk sald they was trying to get money enough to see them through their third year at Co- lumbia that way, which, while I sup pose them young fellers deserves a good deal of credit getting the money that way, Mawruss, especially when there 1s 80 many unprotected pay- rolls betag taken from banks to fac- tories in New York City not two miles ergsstown from Columbia University, Mawruss, still the question comes up that so long as most of them fac- tories carries payroll insurance any- way, y'understand, wouldn't the gen- eral public suffer a whole lot less, or am I prejudiced?” WHY NOT RAILROADS AND HOs- PITALS? “Well, after all, it’s doing a big mitzvah that these here summer hotel Summer Hotels With Student Service “3, ee & i.) SUPPOSE them young fellows deserves a good deal of credit getting the money that way when there {s so many unprotected payrolls being taken from banks to factories not two miles cross town from Columbia University.” Cf “It will be doing also a big mitsvah if the New York Central order the Pennsylvania Railroad would give young college students a show to , tke their expenses for next fall by working locomotive engineers.” “It seems to be the rule that anybody who fs paying his money to he amused is supposed to he too good-natured to kick about it if he has a rotten time Instead.” “If you pay three dollars for a seat in a theayter and the proprietor throws you out because you hissed the show for being rotten, the proprietor can have you arrested and the Judge will fine you and not the proprietor.” “The summer hotel business {s a gamble for both the proprietor and the guests and between you and me I don't blame tho proprietor ff he plays ‘em close to his chest.” es proprietors gives young college stu- dents a show to make their expenses for next fall by working as walters, Abe,"' Morris sald “And tt would be doing also a big mitzvah if the New York Central oder the Pennsylvania Railroad would give young college students a show to make their expenses for next fall by working as locomotive engineers,’ Abe agreed, “and hospitals could give them a show to work as doctors, Mawruss, but railroad companies and hospitals don’t think the way summer hotel proprietors do. A railroad com- pany don't get collece students to run their trains in the summer time and then, when a wreck happens, tell the passengets: Mawruss, a summer hotel proprietor figures that the people which !s stay- ing at his hotel is there only to have & good time anyway, and It seems to be the rule, Mawruss, that anybody who 1s paying his money to be amused {s supposed to be too good natured to kick about it if he haa a rotten time Instead. In other words, Mawruss, business {s business, but amusement {s amusement. For in- stance, {f you buy for $8 an article In a store and the pro- prietor throws you out because you kicked that the article was rotten, you can have the proprietor arrested and the Judge will fine him; whereas if you pay for $3 a seat In a@ theaytre and the proprietor throws you out be- cause you hissed the show for being “A RAILROAD COMPANY DON'T GET COLLEGE STUDENTS TO RUN THEIR TRAINS IN THE SUMMER TIME."" , “‘It's too bad {f, in the interests of giving some deserving young fellers a college education, you couldn't make a little sacrifice like getting your necks broke.’ And a hospital don't expect that on account of college students working there its patients should put up with such small inconveniences as having left In the incision after tt was sewn up a couple of forceps and the operating surgeon's extra pair of glasses, which he could have sworn he had with him when he entered the operating room and didn't know where could haye disappeared to until the patient's temperature started to go up three days later. “But a summer hotel proprietor ts absolutely something else again, Maw- russ,"’ Abe continued. ‘He feels aw- ful tender hearted toward college students who are working as waiters to pay their college expenses, because they work for half as much wages as @ waiter who Is working as a walter to pay his family’s expenses. Also, rotten, the proprietor can have you arrested and the Judge will fine you and not the proprietor.”* SOME REASONS FOR THE SHORTAGE OF FOOD, “Well, maybe the proprietor of that summer hotel figured that It's time people learned they shouldn't ought to make gods out ‘of their stomachs,'" Morris suggested. “Maybe he did,’ Abe agreed, “but if garment manufacturers did busi- ness to learn people that they shouldn't ought to put every cent they make onto their backs, y’under- stand, and {f automobile manufac- turers turned out a line of touring ars so as to prove to people that a man and his family should ought to stay at home and not go running «around the country all the time, un- derstand me, that wouldn't exactly make the garment trade and the au- tomobile business two of the leading industries of the country, Mawruss.”’ “It's a good thing that everybody ain't such a crank like you are Abe,"" Morris observed, ‘which | never heard the way you are knovk- ing lately, Abe. If it ain't summe: hotels, then {t's something else. Hon estly, Abe, such a rotten sport like you are I never seen the Itke of all."" ‘Is that sol Abe exclaimed “Then I suppose ff you was the pru prietor of a summer hotel, Mawrus«, you would advertise: THE PUNKTUCKET,. OSKAWOOTCHIE,.N. H. + Be a Sport. Life ain’t one oontin- uoue round of ploasure. stuok, you're stuck. uw If you're What's the of putting up @ holler? Sup- pose there are a few mosquitoes, that ain't going to injure you for life neither. It wouldn't do you a bit of harm to rough it a little onoe In @ while, Open June 15th. Send for booklet. ‘Also, Mawruss, if you was a me chant tallor you would say: ‘Suppos: my coats do fall away from my cus tomers’ necks, try to look on tl bright side of things.’ Or if you wo “& custom shoe maker you would think that the proper way to treat 9 customer who complained that rm) shoes was so short that they gave him buntons would be to hand him card with KEEP SMILING printed on it.” “Say! There ts always tw to every selling transaction, Abe, whether {t's shoes, clothing or commodations at summer hote Morris retorted, ‘which there are some people when they buy things who are so anxious moneysworth, understand, that 4s soon as they've placed thelr ord they practically hypnotize themsely into thinking they are going to get stuck. In fact, Abe, we ourselves have plenty of customers who write u that the goods ain't up to sample fore the truckman has got the pack- ing case onto the freight cle tor at all, and the chances 1s that you begun to suspect the cooking would be rot ten at the Punkatuck while you was still standing in line at the Grand Cen to get thelr tral Depot waiting to buy your rail road accommodatlons,"* “Certainly I suspected,’’ Abe ad mitted. “When you sit down to pla plnochle, Mawruss, you hope you would win and you suspect that you would lose, which the summer hotel business 1s a gamble for both the pro prietor and the guests, Mawruss, and between you and me, Mawruss, don't blame the proprietor if he pl: ‘em close to his chest. His guests sit in the game for a couple of weeks ut the most, and they could quit when ever they want to, but the proprictor deals the first hand on June 15, and he couldn't quit till the last round ol rangs is played the days after Labor Day.” “Then how do you account for the fact that so many summer hotels con tinues to do business year after yea! under the same management and witli the same guests?" Morris asked “I don't know, Mawruss,"' Abe con cluded. ‘‘Maybe both the proprietors amé-the guests figure: “"Nul Better luck NEXT time. Copyright, 1928, by the Bell Byndicate, Inc ~ Then she saw and understood. She saw his heavy roadster half-way up the slope of the side-hill, with tts nose buried in a privet-hedge, oddly suggestive of a shoat rooting for tubers. And on the dust-powdered grass beside It she saw Gerry lying start- Ungly inert with a stain of red on the putty-colored motor coat She made incoherent small cries of protest as she left her car in the middle of fthe road and ran back to him, She bent over him, and unbut toned his coat, and saw the little stream of red running from a cut on hia wrist. “Oh, Gerry, I've killed you!” she wailed as she sat down beside him and with a handkerchief bound up the bleeding wrist. Gerry opened his eyes as she stooped over her work, and promptly closed them again “On, my love, my love, I've killed you!" she sald in helpless little moans as she struggled to knot the bandage tight over the wrapped wrist-bone She tried to tell herself to be calm and to remember what one should do in such cases. She even slipped hand over his heart, and found be beating, and summoned ue courage to study his face, to the On the left temple she noticed a lump, almost as big as @ shirred egé, and a subsidiary small pain shot through her as she remembered how much it looked like the lump Gunboat Dorgan had once brought out on Raoul Uhlan’s pallid forehead. , Yuh've kilt him, all right, lady! Yuh've kilt him, and I e'pose yuh're satisfled!"* “I haven't killed him," protested Teddie as she took Gerry's head in her lap. Yuh sure set out to kill some- thing,” announced the blue-denimed giant from the truck. “And this looks to me like yuh got what yuh \weas after!"* “Don't be silly," erted Teddie. “But get into my car and get back here with a doctor right away!"" It'd be more sensible to get the body into the truck,’ maintained the heartless one in hlue-denim “You get that doctor!'’ blazed Ted- die with a stare which drove the truck-driver off as naked steel might have done. And when he was gone she leaned over the still inert Gerry and wiped the dust from his face with her tiny mockery of a handkerchief and mur- mured ridiculous little Incoherencies which made him open one eye, iike a sleopy hound on a hearth-rug, and quite Inconsiderately close it again. “Oh, Gerry!"' she moaned as she put her hand once more in under his vest to make sure his heart was still beating, and fell to pondering the reason for a resultant small writhe of his body. She leaned closer over his face assuring herself that he was still breathing. Then she stooped etill lower, She slipped an arm in under his head and held his dusty cheek against hers. And then she kissed him, She kissed him with grimness, de- termination, abandon, crying ‘‘Oh, Gerry!" in foolish Ittle gasps and not bothering to wipe away the tear that was running down her nose. Then she sat back, with his head still in her arms, for his eyes were open and gazing up into her face. “How dare you do that?"? demand- ed Gerry, in a voice singularly steady fgr one #0 recently emerging from unconsciousness. “Oh, Gerry!" repeated Teddie hug- ging him tight And she kissed him again, out of sheer relief at finding him still an- chored to the muddled-up old world with her. “You'll have to marry me for this, remember!" announced Gerry, doing his best to 16% magisterial “I couldn't Hive without you, Gerry," she had the honesty to ac knowledge. ‘‘And they said I was going to lose you!" “Not if I know 1 captive. Teddie looked up for a moment at the sadly wrecked roadster. proclaimed her “But it wasn't sporting of me, Gerry!"* . “What wasn’t?’ ‘ “Bverything — everything I've done!" Gerry reached out with his one good arm. “No queen, Teddte, can possibly do But there's one thing, Belov- I want to know—I've got to “What ts t?"? “I've got to know just why you kissed me!" Teddie studied him with solemn eyes. Then she studied the shadows along the the blue hills beyond, “Because, Gerry, you're so different from other men," she finally acknow!- edged wrong. lengthening Wey slope and THE END. Copyright, 1022, by Whe Bell Byndicate, ine