She threw out an arm. "No! No! I see! My old mother--my old mother--all her life a nobody--she helped--she gave it to them--my mother--a poor little widow nobody--she bought with her blood that freedom--she--" "God, 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 God--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. "Shila--that's left for us to do. You and me, Shila--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--Shila." "I'll--" "_We'll_ take them back for her--Shila." "_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 Publishing Company. Copyright, 1918, by Fanny Kemble Johnson.] BY FANNY 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 shell-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.