Mary Heaton Vorse

“ They go south to Uskub and north over the mountainous paths of the Great Retreat. Here come the Albanians from the hills in their white homespun clothes, braided boldly in black with the slash of their red sashes around their waists, while the soldiers of France and England meet those of Serbia in all the streets. Some come to Mitrovitza and see in it a great and wicked city and drink of its wickedness; and some see in it a lost and vicious little hole, a town part Turkish, part Albanian, and part Serb. ”

“ The city wore the livid face of dawn, when coming life and the approach of death have so close a resemblance. The same damp wind cut our faces that had greeted us when we arrived. The weary men and women who trickled down the street walked like somnambulists. Some drove animals which staggered as though laden with fatigue. Rain fell in a light drizzle.
We drew up to the station, and from the dusk came Milorad's swift figure. ”

“ Turkish women, black even to their veils, hurried past me in hasty stealth. A cart drawn by water-buffalo waggled by. I stopped at the bread-shop, where the old Turk, in a well-wound turban, white stockings on his feet, sat cross-legged beside his piles of round, flat loaves.
A coal-black "madagash"—a French Colonial—his red fez on his black head, asked, in Serbian, "How much the bread, Turko?"
At a little distance a little boy stood watching me. He was dressed in rags, but so is half of Serbia. ”

“ His pain welled over in tears, his sobs racked him and left him gasping. I have never seen a child feel such grief as that which bankrupted Milorad of hope. He had not believed I could go. He came to me and pleaded with me, his words rushing out in the torrent of his tears. I did not need to know what he said; he was emptying his heart. He threw the treasure of his love before me, and his belief and his pain. People came up to comfort him. Then among the crowd came the woman from Mladnavo.
"Has his soldier not come?" she asked. "Then as I come up next week from Salonika he may come with me. ”

“ The floor of the car became littered with people lying in the awkward abandon of sleep, as though slain on the battle-field of fatigue. The hoarse shouting of the guards brought us startled to our feet. We had arrived. We reeled out under our burdens on our unsteady feet, walking along like people hypnotized, sleep-walkers. My soldier in horizon blue carried my things.
"How shall the boy find you?" I asked.
"We'll find each other," he said, with his easy assurance. "We'll meet on the streets. Every one goes up and down the main street in Uskub." ”

“ MILORAD
BY MARY HEATON VORSE
THE rain fell in Mitrovitza and thinned the streets of women and little girls, and it was as though it washed the color from the world, for the women of Mitrovitza wear trousers of orange and vests of green, while their head-dresses are saffron and pale yellow. No women in all Serbia are as brilliantly dressed as the Jewish women of Mitrovitza. They look equivocally at the men from their long eyes, for the town is a sink where the races and tribes of the Balkans meet. ”

“ Some soldiers drank too much and sang monotonously and noisily.
Milorad sat there, a hunched, grotesque figure, bobbing with fatigue; his shadow waggled about with monstrous levity in the candle-light. Suddenly I had to know what would become of Milorad Bachinin.
"Is it true?" I asked the soldier, softly, for Gospodja Draga slept. "Will you really take him?"
"If I could bring him back," he assured me. From Mitrovitza there is no railway. The back of Serbia is broken and no railway joins the north and south, so those going to Belgrade must walk or get taken by chance camions. ”

“ Not a very good mother—not watchful enough, not patient enough; Milorad a boy on whom adversity had put its cramping hand, with no high courage, nor with the promise of much high endeavor—but to him the love of my heart flowed out, and in my heart were the things Milorad had found in none of the compassionate women of his own land. ”

“ At the soldier's question, the boy turned to me.
"Milorad Bachinin," he told me.
We straggled slowly to the train. The troops entrained in the carriage. We got into a box-car—the little group of soldiers and civilians who had made of one another the friends of an hour. We disposed ourselves on the floor; we pulled our blankets over us.
"Sestra, sit here. So you shall be out of the draft."
"Sestra, let me arrange your things. Are you comfortable so?"
"Gospodja Draga, draw up, draw up. Do not leave us for strangers!" ”

“ There was no protest and no hope in his voice.
"He is an orphan. He has no one—he has no one at all," they reported.
The women clucked sympathetically: "Poor mali, poor boy!"
"He was going to Uskub to look for work, and now he has not money enough, he finds. He can get nothing to do, no place to stay in Mitrovitza."
The women rested kind eyes on him, hands went to pockets, soldiers brought out money.
"Here, mali—"
The boy stood looking out over the railway. He was twelve or thirteen; his grotesque rags once had been men's clothes. ”

“ I called to one of our English-speaking soldiers.
"Explain this paper to him," I said. "There is a letter to the English military at Mitrovitza and one to the Americans. He is to go in the first camion of ours that comes through with his voynik."
Milorad nodded, folded the paper, and hid it carefully among his rags.
"He is to watch continually for his soldier." He nodded again. "This afternoon he is to come here and go with me for fresh clothes, to the Red Cross store-house, and he is to go with me now to town." ”

“ Then he worked for a farmer for nearly three years. He was a poor man. When his son came back he could keep the boy no longer. He paid him and told him to find work in some other place. That was soon after New-Year's. He has been looking for work for nearly two and a half months—they do not want such little boys. ”