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,i»i*a4&3SjWa| -'.->VX xx Sff'St'Sa ISBS pg|gp i ss#S PS Igpppplp •;x: - - y / -s V V ; 'r . ■ ,' -! " ^ "" " : .-' ; -VfcX- ' S& ■ ' 'r -SV^V" - V ':;|^f.. Z OF THE LORD'S HOSTS y --By Edith Brown Kirkwood ?-■ ROM the rumble. soft 5, <* K'f E :■; & v > r- *» L- distance came a The figure of a woman woman rose from among the lilacs ai>d syringas of a garden and stood listening, Fairfield, a village of spring glory, lay before her. The knoll, beyond, - was sending up its vivid shoots of grass; young vines,-nestling among the violets,. had begun their summer wanderings. The wood,, in the near distance, beckoning the journeyman into the .shadow of its unfolding unfolding buds, was filled with promise. Fairfield lived. Again she heard the soft rumble and turned her head, bending forward intently. intently. Distant thunder? No. The sky was too blue. Drums ? She lifted lifted her head high to catch the' sound Ôpgpps of Engjfjui ' - from . b^sdsh khaki. 'They in the training Thr- had . stepped suits into Jfcarfh had. left weU-c§red4qr hpmes for. tent and barracks. They had-gone as boys; they wrote as men. "Hat's off to you, Mother," penned Bob, "and to all the other ^mother? who have been trying to rear' men instead instead of just feeding boys. I never knew before what you had done.--I tell you this is no place for a good-for- nothing,. This is work." * Though they labored, they were no better soldiers, fired with no higher patriotism, than the women, who having having given them to their^ceuntry, knelt daily among the rows of growing things. Then came France and the trenches. more "clearly. Yes, that was what it Jamie gent back word of their first was! It was'the drums coming as if in echo of that fierce struggle which had leaped the seas to demand fresh effort from the new continent. She caught, more closely, the flowers. jt with. jtffigmentand : wite. justice '"'♦'from henceforth even forevef.' The zeal tÉèLord dif HOsts w^„pen^orro this.' , / _ . - : "Isaiah- said that long b'efore ' the 'coming of the Prince of Peace,;* K«|th. - erinè. He came but He came-.T/efthstlte sword and He bad to fight: and die, f ghting, for the/rigjit. He,-i»>the rince of Peace, Katherine, - but' His is the peace that comes when evil is conquered.' The zeal of His hosts -will do, sometime, what - Isaiah ■prophesied. To-morrow is Christmas Day. Can't we--you and. I--rejoice that our boys are of that host?" For a long time Katherine ..did not speak. When shè lifted.:her head a new'-light shone in her eyes. The dark night of .resentrpent_was breaking breaking away. - * . When Katherine looked from her window the next morning a'soft snoW x.as falling. It was âs many other Christmas-Days had Been but it bore an added sacredness. /To Katherine, encounter with the enemy. Katherine dull-eyed, brought the news to Mrs. Benson. The asters and the dahlias now bloomed beside the ripened pro^ duce of the garden and the fields of S! ^. d ^!!l?, athering ' and pressed yellow had changed \o fields of stub ble. They were battlefields shorn of her'lips together. "Mother Benson! Mother Benson!' of all but their glory. The hills She started as if a sacred moment j waved in their yellow goldenrod; the had been interrupted and raised her eyes to greet a young girl who ran down the garden's pebbled .walk. If the sun glints in her rumpled hair, if the whiteness of throat and temple, if the flowing lines of her slender figure meant youth, she was young; but from her eyes shone a terrified, appealing appealing light, a mingling of the understanding understanding of age with tHe hope of youth ; wopds, still beckoning and promising, ! changed to their scarlet dressings. Here and there a tint of yellow shot into the crimson but this was merely some merry trees' choide of sunnier costuming. Fairfield still lived, i Mrs. . Benson and Katherine, canning, canning, drying, preserving, talked but little. Their thoughts were tooufilled j with memories of the boys for whose ! enjoyment, in other years, the can- "Mother Benson!" she cried, half in ning and drying and preserving had whisper. "Do you hear the drums?" been done. Mrs. Benson's silence was "Well, Katherine ?" the older woman reverent; Katherine's, resentful questioned. "This time it takes Jamie?" The girl drew in her breath and laid her right hand .unconsciously over her left where her fingers touched with caresses a ring, glittering happily. "Yes," she answered simply. "He Hard lines that had no right to creep. in upon a fair young countenance, countenance, had formed about the girl's meuth. Mrs. Benson watched their, come and understood the .tumult that raged within the girl. She sought the papers eagerly, reading, of the left last night. Ail the boys from drives and counter-drive^ thé attacks the district leave tbis morning from and countyrrattacks and wondered Dover. I said.goodrby lqst night, silently. Somehow I could not go to*%3over to I Autumn came. Spring holds its see--him--march .away. I. had not promise and therefore brings hope; --dreamed--we could hear--" summer its fruition and therefore the She stopped. A fainter echo of the realization of hope; but autumn is the drums rumbled across the fields. Then, acid test of man. The asters and the with the abandon of confidential youth dahlias have passed, the'goldenrod de- she threw herself, sobbing, into the parts, the woodland droops into faded arms of the silent woman before her. brown and the spirits of human be- "I can't let him go, Mother Benson! I can't! I can't! He's all I have--he's --he's--0 Mother Benson, I love him Mother Benson's eyes closed as if in closing they turned a precious key upon the world. She bent to lay her lips against the head pressing for sympathy against her shoulder. She had no daughters. Her two sons, among the first to respond to their country's call for help, had been i both sons and daughters. Katherine ' dier that is a soldier. She'd better be Churchill, motherless daughter of her proud of him." girlhood friend, had crept into her own : It was a boy's jollity--merriment at nook in Mrs. Benson's heart, there to the <loor of probable death but it was give back, in devotion, full payment. Their bond had been more than love for the dear-woman who had belonged to them both. They were as the time- beaten wall to whom the ivy clings for support but to whom it gives fresh beauty in its clinging. In Katherine, Mrs. Benson had relivéd her,own girl- bo ocT. Suddenly the girl stood erect. "Mother Benson, this is a cruel, wickedly cruel war. If I were a man --oh, if only I were a man!;--I'd kill the men who made it possible!" Her eyes glowed. She had not stopped to wipe from them tBeir unshed tears. "How God must hate this universe he has created!" She clenched her hands and shut her teeth defiantly. "How Satan must gloat, how he must laugh at all this twaddle of 'peace on earth,- quietly and without preface one day, good will ings sag. ' Then came winter and dull December days. From across the seas came rumors and more rumors. Mrs. Benson, Katherine, Katherine, the other women who had remained remained behind, were playing the war game of woman--waiting and suspense. suspense. The letters from the boys had been full of the activity of their pew life. John's last letter to his mother mother said: "Tell Katherine that Jamie is a sol- "Katherine!" Mrs. Benson's voice, raised above the girl's growing anger, was soft. "God has ordered the universe universe a very long time. We had best not set our wisdom above His." T know, Mother Benson," she answered, answered, quieted. "I know. It's wrong, it's dreadful of me to talk in this way. But Jamie's all I havel" she bi^jke out written with thought only of victory. Katherine heard it with whitening lips. ^ "A soldier?" she remarked cynical- fy. "A man who kills other men ? Can you think of it, Mother Benson? Our boys--your boys, my Jamie, anxious to get into the trenches to kill other men--" "No, no, Katharine!'" interrupted Mrs. Benson. "You" forget--not anxious to kill men but to save nations nations . " "Perhaps," answered Katherine. Then the letters stopped. Mrs. Ben- son, her heart sore, forgot her own anxiety in her effort to divert Katherine's Katherine's mind. "If only I "could have borne his name,' Mother Benson," she x said somehow,* came the interpretation" of «protectors, old' women knelt as we the snow's falling as if it'meant to hide the sordid things and wrap the world in a mantle of its intended purity. ---- Down the village -street she saw fresh tracks Reading up Mother Benson's Benson's front steps. She. hurried into" her clothes and ran - down the walk, She saw no one "except Captain Douglas, crippled veteran of the Boer war, who long had served Fairfield as its "postmaster. He smiled reassuringly reassuringly in response to her "Good morning, morning, Captain Douglas. " "Caller? Already?" she questioned, bursting into Mother Benson's room^ "Mother Beqson, what is it?" You've some news?" x Mrs. Benson's face was wreathed in joy-proclaiming smiles as she drew a letter" from the folds of her waist. x "It came just now, Katherine. It's from Bob. Captain Douglas brought it. The office isn't open tenday but he knew it was from the boys,ar.d he could not make me wait until to-morrow. to-morrow. Didn't I- tell you the Lord's hosts were all about? Hear what Bob says: " 'Mother, weYe all right. I ddn't. know when this letter will reach you but St should be along about-GhristmaS time, __ Weil be thinking of taxleey of othfcr days and the good titties weNre had back home, y Thank Goibyou've sons to give. We're fighting Hie cause, Mother^-His pause which means the peace and&feQÉÜffid Q&lth» world . Maybe youxican't, get/ that angle of it, waiting ^ack home'-therd «VW k 7;. ' "O Bob!" broke in Katherine. "You don't even know your own--" - " '--bufcrthat's what we see,' " Mrs. Benson read on. ".'You 1 used to read ug something about "the zeal- of the Lord of hosts." ' it comes to me again apd again;--and that old Battle Hymn about Chrises being born across the ,sçàs. . I wonder if it didn't mean "borne," too ? We're fighting for the right, Mother, and we're going to win the right sometime. " 'Ï vrish you could have seen v .what we havé seen oyer here. ' Soldiers, worn with battle, -greeted us, with shouts of comradeship. Children ran to welcome us as if we were -their >«M t If/hi '•ï. "//i !«««>« %» passed by and men bowed with age let, the tears run down their cheeks. "/And we're jiot fighting for personal personal gain, Mother! Think of being' able to fight just to wave the banner of peace and freedom over all the world! I wonder---are we of the Lord's hosts? Mother, it's great to be. a man'!"', , - Katherine, now peering intently over Mrs. Benson's shoulders to read Bob's, lines with her, slipped her arms aroùnd the older woman. "Or the mother of men!" she added. "Katherine," said Mrs. Benson, "it's Christmas Day." ' "And it's snowing!" cried the girl. "Remember how Bob and John and I always waited for the first; snow so we could make pattern tracks over the garden? Look at it now, Mother Mother Bepson! Isn't it too lovely for words ? Everything snowy white and peaceful, after the hard work, of the summer. Yet it looks"just alive!".. They pushed aside the curtain, and watched the white covering spread over the ravâges of winter. Mrs. Benson's eyes wandered to the flake- laden lilac bush where once (she had knelt, and let them rest there holding her secret. lx / >7 The sands that count 'the year are low within thé upper glass, They slip away, these little years, so swiftly t do they pass; They flit like shadows to and fro the longer we may live-- "But, ah, they take no more from us than they may freely give! They take the song, mayhap, but leave the echoes sweet that hum -- The year is dying, but there is another year to come. \ AT THE POST OFFICE PARCEL COUNTER Though the # Gifts May Be Packed to the Accompaniment of a Woman's Sighs, They Bring Happy Memories to the Boys in the Trenches and on the -Stormy Seas. parcel on'the back of her baby's car- s TRING is booming. . Brown-paper is at a permium. And every candy shop and grocer's in Canada hefs echoed for weeks past 'with the x same inquiry: "Have _you got a box to spare ?" Grubby'youngsters have asked the question* and have either - received à curt "No!" or have gone rushing home with a shallow cardboard affair that could not possibly brave its proposed journey on land and sea; girls have willingly passed copper and silver over the counter for the box that is more important to them than chocolates, chocolates, and wise housewives have smilingly smilingly drawn forth their ideal boxes from some safe retreat. For Canada is packing. What the Women Learn Thousands of women in thousands of homes "have been surveying the store of Christmas goodies- that - they have selected for their fighting-men, nage. The woman vzith the baby carriage knit her brows as she walked along. She mentally checked the various packages in her parcel, and could not find where she had misjudged the .weight. . ; "Too heavy!" she explained to her eldest born, a sturdy youngster of eleven, when she reached home. She was too pre-occupied to notice the red flush that commenced to creep up his neck, or the quick look he gave her; she only mildly wondered at a surprising willingness in the offer he made to go and "clean the chickens X Then why gaze at the trickling sand with heavy sigh and frown ? Turn it down! Turn it down! There are smiles and laughter waiting where the other joys came from. Turn it down! Turn it down! There*s another year to come* . v, Another year is coming--now its hailing call we hear-- With golden smiles to pay us for each jewel of a tear, With clover nodding in the rain and dew upon the rose, With silver store of moonlight, and with ivory of snows, With lilting laughter for the lips that long time have been dumb-- The y ear.is dying, hut there is another year ' to come* Why hold the glass and Watch the sand with gloomy sigh and frown? Turn it down! Turn it down! The melodies of joys to be already throb and thrum-- Turn it down! Turn it down! There*s another year to corns* up. __ When the back "dour had slammed behind him she unfastened the parcel and carefully took out the top packages. packages. The white envelope on top she laid-aside--it would not have interested interested you; it only contained a soft, dark little curl, cut from' the heal of the and have been puzzling how best to j whose father had never yet seen pack the lot in such a small space-- j it> ghe took out the box of dates, the how to get it just that ounce under tobacco,, the woolly scarf that bore the "Bob and John--were was not yet--" yours, Jamie "I know, dear," Mrs. Benson finished. finished. ' "I wish I had your eyes, Mother Benson," the girl went on, still quietly. quietly. % "I wish I had. I wish I had the faith to see that all of this means more than cruelty, passion^, wickedness. wickedness. That's what it is to me. It is again impetuously. An* instant later she pressed her hands against her lips as If in fear that other words might escape. "Forgive me," she pleaded. "Bob and John are all you have, too. -You .gave them. I don't understand. Hotv can you be calm ?" She. turned and walked swiftly from the garden. Mrs, Benson watched the young âgure, bowed : suddenly beneath the weight of heartache, and drew a long sigh. Then she lifted her eyes to the heavens and while her ears resounded " to the distant roll of the drums she prayed: .- ^ : "O God, keep me calm! Let me not waver in this .hour x of Thy need, of me. Give me the bravery-of these sons who have gone to fight Thy battles. Grant peace to those to whom the vision has not come. Guide Youth along ^ the pathway to undei standing." With a sob »she dropped to her knees, her altar the budding hist bush whose crigp \young branches closed above her in ^1 easing. . Beyond the lilacs and the syringas in Mrs. Benson's garden were rows which had been sown with prayer. Thé knoll, where the vines and the viblete had been wont to' grow, sprang into being as sprouting corn. Beyond the woodarwaved Utiles of growing grain, 1 of sileçt soldiers of the fields. From -Bob and John Benson Macdonald came word of labor and the pushing aside of all that-ls good. If that is what it means then Christianity, Christianity, this civilization of which we have boasted, has failed. We call Christ the Prince of Peace. Is this peace ? Mother Benson," She rose to her feet, "if Jamie or Bob or John are killed, if our. brave .boys who have gone to fight do net come back, there is no Guiding Right!" "Katherine!" Mrs. Benson gripped the arm of her chair. "0 Mother Benson," she cried wear-, ily, "tell me! Give me the vision of righteousness in this cruel war 1 Malta me see that it is for Good that our boys have been taken from us." She .clutched the older- woman's hands. "Don't let me get hard, Mother Benson, Benson, don't let me---help me to keep on believing," she. pleaded; "I don't want to forget. I--want--to--believe." I--want--to--believe." ' For some moments Mrs. Benson sat as if in prayer. z "Katherine," she whispered. "You want me to- tell you ? You really ,want 'it? -This is what, I see : 'For unto n a Ohild is born,-unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His ehotildersi atid His name shall be'called be'called Wonderful, Counsellor, Thy mighty God, The everlasting /Father,- The- Prince of Peace. - " 'Of \the increase, of His govera- menfand peaeé therë-shall be no end, upon the threna. of Dtavid and. upon His kingdoMpso order it and to. estab-' weight. For over three years the women have packed parcels; for three Christmas Days have they sent afar their tokens of Christmas cheer. They have become experts in the art of packing. The women who stood at the counter of one post-office on Saturday morning morning showed typical results of the new art that we have learnt. Round, square, oblong, of all shapes and sizes, skillfully knotted, labelled and finished, the parcels for the fighting-men fighting-men waited their turn in the arms, of the mothers, wives, sweethearts, -sisters, and daughters. , The queue of waiting women watched watched with interest the assistant behind the counter 7 as she . weighed up the parcels. . \ Trouble,m the Post Office "Something loose imiidëj" she remarked, remarked, slinking one parcel. "Only nuts," explained thé owner, anxiously. "Put the list of contents. outside," was the instruction -giveri' to another. "Write on name and address of the sender," yet another parcel-holder was told. "Over weight 1" w Heads craned forward in the waiting waiting tine, and looked with compassion at the woman who was given this damping ^information. "But it ' can't be," remarked the' owner . "I checked the weight of everything so carefully." "There's the scales!" somewhat sarcastically remarked the assistant* as she turned to.the .next cbmér. "Over weight I" . Again the heads moved ^as the next parcel was; also condemned. A tinge of anxiety crept into the faces of the aitiàg queue as they-noted that two parcels in succession were handed byk, while the two unfortunate-packers unfortunate-packers gazed af each othér commiserat- faigly. Tom's Gift "We are both unlucky this morning," morning," smiled the fair girl in the'fur cçat, as She held oped the door for the woman, who was placing her rejep^éd ' labored inscription: "A Happy Christmas Christmas to My Daddy! I knitted it dll.by myself." And then she gave an exclamation. . Her fingers clpsed over something that she had never packed--a weighty scout's knife. Wedged between the blades was a grimy piece of paper, bearing the words: "Thought , this might be useful.--Love from Tom." Her first feeling was indignation for the extra trouble to which she had been put, and she moved quickly and ominously towards the : . back door. „And then she ^paused. Sounds of a frantic'" clearing-up in the chicken- house reached her ears. She looked again at the scout's knife--his dearest possession; she read again his carefully-written carefully-written greeting; she divined something of the "shy affection with which he Jiad secreted .the gift; and witfi a queer little : smile, she moved back to the kitchen, removed some other article from the box, packed in the knife, and went with the re-corded re-corded parcel to the garden. "TomI" she cried. A flushed-face and a tousled head appeared at the door of ,th.e chicken's- run. # "Run up with this to. .the post-office," post-office," said his mother, quietly isury^y- ing him. "It'll be aii right this time."' x_ Love and Luxury With one swift upward glance of his grey eyes, he took the parcel and fled. The parcel young Tom handed* over the counter lay later tha-t .day with the one belonging to the.girl iu the fur coat. . I ;"\ ■ ! ' Tfye poat-gir! ..pushed them over separately to the ever-growing stack. Their wrappings' were not equally spick and span, and maybe the eon- tents of one were more luxurious than those of *the other. ..Yet afimehow they fell together. Maybe the rinjglet from the baby's head was whispering to thé other silky ringlet that also lay in an envelope in the 7 next parcel--a golden lock, scented by a few late rose It is the twilight of the year--the sands are almost gone; But turn the glass and waif to see the gloryl of the dawn, _ And wait to hear the mellow chord that pulses with each word That will build up the coming song--the song you*ve never heard. Why brood above the days.now gone, and seek to find the sum Of bitterness and happiness? Another year*s to come. So turn the-glass and start anew the current golden brown-- ™ " Turn it down! Turn it down! -There are light and laughter lurking where the other joys came from. Turn it down! Turn it down! There*», another year to come* X- leaves plucked from a Canadian gar den. With the closing of the post-office doors, the mounting of the cumbersome cumbersome mass " of Christmas parcels'ceased. parcels'ceased. The dark-brown heap w^s only lighted by the colored stamps that cast Ispots of red, white, and blue,-- "Just a mass of things to eat and wear,"one might have said, if one had not-known of the loving hands that packed the contents, of the sentiment that lurked beneath the string and paper, of the earnest hopes--ay, and of the prayers--that- weoçe inextricably mixed with the packages*. Samples of Sincerity These parcels that go from homès are different from those that nre sent out from the big stores. Scientific selection and packing, may make the latter welcome, but there is a wpmàn's touch, a home note, about, the former that will ever make them dearer "qyer there." x They say I tun sentimental. What of it? So is Tommy, so is jack. It i» a virtue I would proudly own with them» Of this much I am sure--that when the Christmas parcels reach the trenches and / the men-o'-war, some of the-loving words uttered whvii they were packed will wing their way to the hearts of the--recipients; somd of the loving thoughts that hovered over thqir packing will creep out and cast a sweetness through those mud-fouled, death-haunted burrows where stand the men who endûre for us--will create a fair mirage, for those watchdogs watchdogs of the sea. The snapping of the strings will luoserf the spirit of Christmas cheer and good-will, ^ of gratitude and confidence, confidence, that we women at Rome would .send to our fighting-men this Ôhrist- mastide. Our parcels will breathe to them of love and-home--of that x^hich shall com,e .ag$*in when t£e ; dark-^daÿs of war are pasta 0 thi God-speed to the . ships that carry our gifts! * They carry so much more with them thaji~mere parcels--they carry the hearts of the women.---H.L. JAW SIGN OF LOVELINESS. Eskimo' Girl 'Who Can Chew Most Popular With Men. The Eskimo husband requires that his wife shall possess two essential accomplishments. She must be able to trim a lamp, and she must be able to mend her husband's clothes. This mending is not the kind of thing common common in Southern Canada. The garments garments are heavy, and they must be manipulated with bone needles and leather thongs. The wife also mends hey husband's^boots. Before she begins, begins, she is obligéà to chew the-tough leather into comparative softness. Eskimo girls marry when they are twelve, and the girl with the strongest jaw has the most suitors, the Eskimo being an eminentiy practical person. ' -- ❖ ---- > x One of the most important features of the food conservation programme of Europen countries has been the unfc versai drying of fruits and vegetables* <■ i ',1 jsgSiSaSl 86 MSB£3s35ajR KfcMBS&i