"ONE TOUCH OF NATURE"

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LII, Issue 53, 2 March 1918, Page 6

"ONE TOUCH OF NATURE"

She was a -war widow

Th e fact was obvious from the crude, new iblack of her skirt, the cheap Japanese silk blouse, the common, straw ■hat, with its painful economy of trimming, the marriage ring on her finger, and the 'battalion badge at her neck, says the Sydney Daily Telegraph. She sat listlessly in the corner of the carriage, the Ted-gold of her baby's curls rioting over her arm. But she had "no eyes for external things. Her vision was turned inward; her mind harrowed' ■•oy memories, or seeing, as in a dream, ». battle-field in France with a fac e she loved staring vacantly up at the sky. Her face, pitifully young under a nimbus of exuberant red hair, was calm with the quiet of hopelessness. If she tad shed tears they were past. If ■she had' raved and revolted the paroxysm was over. She had reached the still, deep waters of tribulation, with neither storm nor sunshine in prospect. Once in a way she looked down «t the. babyi (a chubby girl of 2) on her arm, with an expression of almost unattached, or impersonal compassion ; but, like one in a trance, sh 6 seemed to be moving through a world of whose surroundings she was scarcely aware. Another woman sat opposite—young, too, with a fresh and care-free youthfulness, expressed in her becoming frock, neatly adjusted and daintily adorned. She also wore a marriaee ring on "her finger, and sh e knitted industriously from a bag decorated with a circle of flags surrounding battalion colours. She smiled as the needies flew. - ' She glimpsed pleasant pictures. A hero returning" joyously with honours bravely won." Happiness at the cosy fireside. TiOng years spent together with no mor© thought of separation. It was good l to "be alive £tnd young, and to look out" -expectantlv -at prosperous years ahead. Well, God was in His heaven, and all was "well with the world.

Suddenly the red-gold curls of the baby on the opposite bench attracted iher eye. She put her needles aside And leaned 1 over "to stroke the little hand. The young war-widow turned, and as their eves met, a<t if they h*d known each other all their lives, the two women smiled in fellowship. In another moment they were deep in conversation.' ponrincr out their hearts' secrets with the frankness of years of friendship. It wasi a touching scene, an illustration of^womanly feeline. which showed raor e olainlv than anything else could done how effectually the war has broken -down, the absurd old' barriers of convention which a few years aeo would have made such an event well-nigh,im-possible.. They were women -of different classes, these two, thrown together on- a chanae current, unlike in thought, t-pmuerament, upbringing. Yet the little touch o"f kindred feelincr had drawn them together and made of them friends elope as. sisters. Confidences were civ-en- and exchanged. •" The vouncr widow exhibited the pathetic mementoes of her Ibereavement; th« official cablegram announcing, the death in action of him whose tome-coming had been her happiest anticipation; the newspaper clipping showing the photograph of a boyish face beaming under a private's hat. (They were 'handled and read and fondled,-and placed back carefully, as a priest lays the relics of a saint- on a •shrine, in the littl e black bag. He was three-and-twenty, the young soldier whose wife and baby confronted the world alone, yet the widow's thou eh fc "was not of her own desolate future. S>ut of the bright voungr liife struck "down in its flower. The babyi had -his orowii eyes and crinkly locks, but its red-sold glory was her own. They left tie train together at the station, and walked from the platform with the baby toddling between them, clingnrr to a 'hand of each. At the tram thev parted. Not with' a formal band-shake. They had' gone further than that io the short couple of hours of their acquaintance. They put their Injrgage on the navement. the shalbby fibre - basket beside the trim little leather suit case, and' unaffectedly kissed.