Page Four SPEOPLE "ADVOCATE _ skuUSUSt < HE lifted her eyes from the head that was bent under the basket and scanned the hills again. From the liquescent shades of her remembrance the form of her child emerged, soft and tender and fresh, with his father’s smell about his little limbs ivine beneath the pupils of her eves, while the hard. bare earth blazed in a cruei fire before her faze, glowing like the live coal in her earthen oven among the cinders, covered with a coating of ash. She could not yet see a Sign of man or beast and she felt the panic of a smould- ering rage and resentment rising in her bosom. For Shamus had been away-a year now, as the Ramzan fasts bad just ended before he went. And he had been caught by the Sarkar and imprisoned, she didn’t know for how long. Oh, if only she Knew, she said to the rocks; if only she knew, she said to the silence; if oniy she knew that he wasn’t dead, she said to the heavens in a trance. If only she knew, she said to her- self, that he was alive, she would go on working day and night for the angrezi Sarkar, breaking stones on the read that the white men were taking into Waziristan. But she brushed the delicate skin of her forehead which was covered with sweat and shaking her colorful stmps of rags as a hen shakes her feathers, to ease her body from the clammminess of perspiration, she thought Shamus wouldn't like it if he knew that she had been working for a living, breaking stones for the white men. For it was rumored they were building this road in order to bring their soldiers to shoot the sons of Adam. But what could she have done. She had to live and Keep the child. F The tiers of land on the moun- fain side which Shamus had ploughed for maize and millet were difficult for a woman to till, and the harvest of the year before had heen exhausted before the spring. - And, she had taken this job, which Was precarious, because the white men paid an anna a day for work- ing from dawn to midday and an anna and a half for working from dawn till night, besides which she and the other women who toiled thus had got a bad name and the Mullah was threatening to de- clare them heretics. But she had a clear conscience before the Prophet of Allah, be- cause when one of the soldiers had whistled to her and given her a sly wink, she had flashed her scythe at him, and he had turned red and moyed away, and since then all the soldiers said she was like a tigress, and never came neal her. “~The father of Rahmat will ‘ind me exactly as he left me,” she said, ‘‘and I shall feed his child by any means I can whatever the people say. How big a boy he is already, and mischievous like his father. Surely he will be lke Shamus in strength, with the black eyes and eagle nose of his father. Now, he might have awakened in my absence, and fi am still wandering. - .” HE stood for a moment again at the edge of a rock and scanned the depths of a waterless ravine in which the particles of sand glistened like the sparks of lizhtning which sometimes flashed from the stones under her ham- mer. There was a pool of water somewhere here, she remembered, where the cattle came to drink. The rock on which she stood was hot, like the burning iron in the smith’s shop, and she shifted her feet and glanced all around her impatiently. Perhaps the pool was pehind that huge boulder, which looked grey and white. She would step down into the ravine and see if there was any dry dung there. There was a bush of berry trees, too, on a side of the ravine, and the goats—‘Ah, by the grace of Allah,’ there were the droppings of a whole herd undemeath the shadow of a rock. She jumped down from the of the precipice on which . GAINST the transparent haze of the even sky where the sunrays trembled like the smoke of a furnace, droves of steel birds were wheeling like the ominous white eagles before the coming of a famine, and were excreting: solid vessels of dung on the Steppe. Before she had breathed another breath, one of the vessels struck the edge of a plateau near the house of Din Gul, the blacksmith, and burst with a terrific explo- sion, raising a cloud of dust into the sky. 5 The loud purr of the machines now became the reverberatiny sweep of an* endless thunder, erackine up the heavens with such a sharp lightning that the Judgement Day promised by the Ioran seemed to have come. Another vessel fell with a mighty bang louder than the breaking of a hundred pitchers, and tore up heavy mounds from the side of the naked earth into a spray like the spurt of water oo0z- ing from a broken fountain. And another, another and another. ..- .- ‘My child, my child!’ she eried in a voice that wouldn’t rise above her throat. And she ran toward the village. The steel birds had multiplied, and now dived from one end of the horizon to the other with a metallic, monotonous whine, lke the hosts of the devil in the hell of a torn sky and an upturned earth, and the universe seemed to be engulfed in that lons-drawn- out agony promised by the Prophet on the breaking up of the ele- ments. But she could yet feel the earth under her feet, through the deafening roar and the clouds of dust before her dizzying vision. She ran and ran till the taking of each step was an unendurable ache in her stiffening loins. She jumped over ditches and skipped over the desert of stones and boulders. She could not see the hundred yards that separated her from the mud huts. But she must set there, though her body be tom into tatters through heat and ex- haustion; though her bones break: she must get there. JE only she could tuke the distance in one long jump; if only she could roll down a hillock and cover the vast, un- ending distance! Onlr, if only: . -. She tried to put determination into her failing less by slowing down, but the bursting of another bag of pitchers held her heart, and the colossal shaking of the earth arrested her feet. And as she saw a rent as deep as a wall before her, She stood stunned. Then she capered aside and rallied her trembling body into a furious rush, and went half-moaning, half sighing: “Ob, my child; oh, my chilid®’ And as she ran the bot- tom of hope was falling from the pit of her stomach. A sudden resurgence of her will, and she stopped to breath a few breaths. But the noise of erack- inf= earth was frightening, and she lifted her head to the aeroplanes with an appeal in her terror- stricken eyes, with an abject wish they should spare her and her child. * UT before her now the mud huts were burning, smoulder- ing, while here and there on the outer fringes they were in ruins. And men and women were run- ning out, startled and terrified, stumbing and falling, seeking shel- ter behind huge stones and boul- ders, and dragging their wailing children behind them. The steel birds came whining ever the village again and swept the dark clouds of the rising smoke aside with the terrific detonation of more vessels of lead. She stopped once more against her will and looked up to the planes with a hatred that churned the bitter taste in her mouth into a white froth; she lifted he: -Tists up to the sky with a wild movement of revenge, and then waited as if to see whether the force of her hatred had destroyed them. But the steel birds purred across the valley from side to side, rain- ing bomb after bomb on the neighborhood. She moaned a ter rible, helpless moan, that was half- sob and half-shriek, and ran fran- tically forward, erying: “My child- @h, my child! Oh, save my child!” “Stop there, the mother of Rahmat,” shouted Abdul Mejid, the brother of the Mullah, who was shooting his powder gun at the steel birds under cover of the pot- ter’s wheel. But she rushed along as if She were drawn by the fear that a sudden darkness would envelop her eyes. “Stop, you foolish woman,” Mejid ‘said, extending his arm to bar her way. But she struggled against the stiff muscles of his hand with all the resistance of her body, weeping without tears in her eyes, and cery— ing a shrill wail: “My child! Let me go! Oh, let me go and save my child!” “The village is burning. Don’t you see, mad woman,” Mejid shouted. ‘‘Those sons of the devil have annihilated it.” “Tet me go, let me go,” she walied and bit his hand with her teeth. He withdrew his arm as if he had been stung by a scorpion, and was left standing with an impotent rage that Seemed to quench the enersy of his flesh and congeal the blood in his eyes: “By Allah,” he erowled, “‘they will not wipe out all the sons of Adam who are free. x SS had darted past Abdul Mejid into the smouldering ruins of the eulley, only to find that the burning beams of the mud huts over the debris of ruined walls barred her way. For the Sriefest moment she stood afraid of jumping across the fire. Then she ground her teeth, closed her eyes, murmured Bismil- lah, and shot through the leaping flames. She almost fell on a mound of the other side, but recoyered her balance and ran, gathering her elothes about her and hissing hysterically. 5 A bomb burst ahead of her in the courtyard of the mosque; the flames of fire swept aimlessly in places with a frightening’ violence; and the constellations in the sky seemed to hurl themselves on the earth in the final throes of a uni- verse doomed to live in darkness after the angel Gabriel had fin- ished his werk of destruction. But her feet were still firm on the earth through the lashings of the burning, scalding, suffocatine heat. And as she capered from one bare mound of crumbling wall to another, she was trying to see how her child would be lying among the ruins, From the searred, jagged edges of all the broken houses it \ curtains to our bus, and we had been drenched several times, so we rolled back our hood and thawed gratefully in the strong pure sun- shine of the foothills, while I watched the needle of the speedo- meter creep up to sixty mph and stay there, trembling. Speed, like time, has quite a different signi- ficance for the Russian to that which it has for us. * WW entered Mtskhet late in the afternoon. Every garden was robed with purple iris, and apple orchards were in their full glory of blossom ana@ shrill green leaf. ‘This mellow, lovely old city is actually the cradle of Georgian culture. Until the fifth century it was the capital of Georgia, and there remain many ancient puild- ings and archeological remains dating back to before the Christian era. In striking contrast to this age- mellowed dreamy city, the Zemo- Avchalian Hydro station and dam greet one on the far side of Mtskhet, presided over by. a great A Woman’s Diary 7JEX\HE coming _ winter is a very black one for Canada generally, and particularly for the prairie people who have no means whatsoever of obtaining food A Terrible Situation. and shelter unless the government _ does something for them. Mriven by conditions from their homes, they will naturally trek to the nearest industrial centre in the hope of getting work to tide them over the winter. In the meantime, unemploy- ment inereases and with it the general tightening up of relief regulations, so that many people are being cut off relief and left to starve. As the year gets older, the situation will become worse unless something is done about it. In addition to their own unem- ployed who need food and clothing and roofs over their heads, the in- dustrial areas will find themselves flooded with drought - stricken farmers from the prairie who have no other recourse but to come to where they can at least try to get work, or relief. This is the situation which is coming before us, and it is a ter- rible one. In Ganada—the Jand of wheat and untold wealth in nat- ural resources—thousands of peo- ple are facing starvation. What are we going to do about it? Are we going to sit down and say, “Well, thank goodness my husband is working, anyway. Im sorry for all these people, but £ can’t help it-’ — Or are we going to organize ourselves into militant bands of women and demand, with the starving people, that they be given a fair deal—food to eat, houses to live in, clothes to wear? After all, we are not demanding impossible luxuries, but the bare necessities of life. © the group of Mother Vancouver who Bloor. recently sent her a brooch shaped in the form of a hammer and sickle on the occasion of her 75th birthday, Mother Bloor has sent the follow- ing reply: : Bush Hotel, Quakertown, Penn., USA. Dear Comrades: ~ *7oman’s Commission, BC District, CP of C. Your letter and gift came to me in time to wear the beautiful pin at the Siaten Island festival. I am very proud of it, and of the loving comrades who sent it. I remember you all at the memor- able event in Seattle. I believe SE can keep to my promise to see you all in Canada about next spring. Am very well and happy- Such an outpouring of love and comrade- ship everywhere. Give my com- figure of Lenin pointing down at the vast sliver mirror of the reser- voir. It is the first power station of Georgia, and it supplies Tiflis and its industria] district with electric power. As Thad arrived at Omljonikidze the previous evening with my arms full of flowers, so I ap- proached Tiflis early that evening: with great bunches of flowers given me by the peasants, shep- herds, and one city worker with whom Il had made my journey over the highway. Russians simply Co by radely love to your district mem- bership. Yours always, ELLA REEVE BLOOR. LLEN WiL- Women And KINSON, British Labor The Ballot. Rie See ee recent article: What do the women of today want? She says votes were used by women years ago as a means of acquiring status. Now that we have votes, we don’t use them to our advantage. Quite a lot of us still vote for eandidates pecause they are good looking, or good speakers, regardless of whether they really have the in- terests of the people at heart. Thus we have the situation as it is at present. Ti we women do not take ad- yantage of the opportunities that are given to us, they will be taken away and then we shall have no cannot resist flowers. Men and women carry them, and wear them, and present them to one as freely and naturally as they re- turn one’s smile in passing. Tiflis was bathed in the gold of the setting sun. Turks, Tartars, Georgians, Armenians, Gossacks, Persians, and Greeks erowded the streets. I was in the present capital of Georgia, in the noisiest, most colorful and stimulating city imaginable. Behind me lay a vivid experience; before me beckoned another. Victoria Post choice but to spend our lives being terribly dumb on the question of public welfare. By using our votes, I don’t speci- fically mean at election time, most of us belong to organizations Gf you dont, you should), we con use our vyoice and vote in that organization to promote pro- gressive measures for the welfare of our people. * F you still A Tip For have jam to Jam-Making- make, use this tip, or if not, then remember it for next year. Epsom salts can be used with great success in place of Certo. This is obviously much cheaper and does not give any bad flavor to the jam. It also makes the jam set beautifully. Use it in propor- tion of one good teaspoonful to five pounds of jam. seemed certain that he must have been buried beneath the debris, and she involuntarily gave a pierc- ing shriek as if she were looking at his dead body. But the dome of the mosque stood intact and she would not believe her vision. After all, the roof of her hut might have escaped, and he might still be alive, though he would be cry- ing. There beyond the alleyway. ... She would donate sweet sugar on the shrines of all the Pirs if he were safe. She saw, however, that the roof of her hut was burning, and one of the walls had halffallen in, while some of the woodwork was crackling. She hesitated to look around, beckoning the courage of her will beyond the despair of her fright- ened body and mind. Then she rushed into the courtyard, her nos- trils filled swith the smell of smoulderine cloth, her eves smoked into blindness. She swung her- arms forward to open the door, and was met with an avalanche of fumes. But she dived into the hovel and groped towards the child. The cot on which he lay was burning, and the child was red with whining, its fists raised into the air in the last struggle to clutch at something. “My child, my son!’ she sobbed, and fell upon him with a wild flourish of her arms, both out of love and with the desire to smother the fire if it had singed any part of his body. Then she lifted him and turned, her head bent forward, her rumps lageing behind. The straw roof of the hut fell and barred the doorway. She picked up an earthen jar which steod on the floor and hurled it at the debris of the fallen roof. But beyound fanning the flames, the jar fell, extinguishing: only a bare patch of fire, while the water flowed down singing. There was nothing for it but to crawl through the hole made by the crumbling of the wall on the side. : She hugged the weeping bundle of her child's flesh next to her preast, and said as if it would listen: ‘‘Don’t ery, my babe, don’t ery.” And then, covering it with her apron, she rushed forward. Her feet caught the red-hot coal of a wooden pillar, and she shrieked. But she was already on the other side of the rent in the wall with the child safe in her arms. She tottered as if she would give in, paled, but then she pressed the boy deep to her chest again, giving it a weak smile, as if to put courage into him and herself, and pushed forward through the courtyard. But she felt her apron burning. She bent and tore it off her head- It burnt her hand and caught her tunic even as She cast it to the wind. She rubbed her arm over the skirt, and smothering the flame, ran through the lane. HE mud huts were crackling and falling, and the debris in the lane was aflame with flames which soared to the sky, breaking up into shining particles like shooting stars, which fell away extinguished. She looked back towards the mosque to see if she eould escape through the alley that lay under its shadow. But now the dome of the mosque had fallen athwart thr courtyard, and it was likely that the way there was barred com- pletely. “Abdul Mejid! Oh, Abdul Mejidt’ she cried, as she circled round and round in the trap. “Qh, save my child!" But there was no answer to her feeble voice among the voices of this hell, except the groaning of people in adjacent houses, among the roaring of the flames of fire which wrestled for mastery with the thundering demons overhead, who had been let loose by Allah in recompense for the evil deeds of this ill-fated city. With a shriek and a groan, she pressed her child fast to her bosom and rushed towards the end of the lane by which she had entered, thinking that she would jump across the only beam that seemed to be burning there above the debris... But when she got within ten yards of it, she saw that a whole roof had fallen across the mouth of the lane, and the burning straw beneath the mounds of clay was flaring up wildly. “Oh, Allah, where ars you?” she cried, striking her fist on her head. “Qh, Allah, hear my cry! On, Prophet of Allah, intercede on my behalf! Oh, Shamus?’ And she rocked with hysterical eries, alone, unhearing and un- heard. And then she stood, dazed by the fearful impenetrable cur- tain of fire that ridged her path, her body aching with the sting of the terrible, all-pervading heat, her head wheeling with the weak- ness that the breathing of volumes of odorous smoke had created. She looked down at her child and saw that it was fainting. She jumped desperately across the ramparts of the fire, her mind struggling against the twilight of a breath with the brittle dageer of her will. But she fell into the pit of the straw roof and lay across the flames, groaning with the torture of a heart that would not burn, weeping blood from the eyes that bulged out of their sockets, but would not close, sob-- bing, with the face of her ehild pressed to her cheeks, 2 sob that would not choke her. - “My ehild, my child, oh. my ehild.”” The agents of Eblis seemed to stand fixed on the western hori- zon, remote and distant, after their magnificent dance in the air, as if they were witnessing with serene satisfaction the fire, the carnase, and the destruction they had let Joose in the abyss of the nether worlds. ..- - Neat {) | : ey Ramrabeseoean 4 3 er eaneee Waar