Pago '0
AS A XMAS PRE-
SENT HERE IS SOMETHING
MORE THAN
MERE GIFT!
IT ENTERTAINS
IT EDUCATES
IT REMINDS YOUR
FRIENDS OF YOU
FOR YOUR OWN ENJOYMENT CONSTANTLY
YOU CAN TRADE IN YOUR
(11,D RADIO
AS PART
SICS RADIO
碩士牌
PAYMENT FOR THE LATEST
UKITISH SECS
Model
U. 60 MX
110-250 Volts
50-100 Cycles
AC/DC
Model
A.W. 80 MX
110-250 Volts
30-100 Cycles
A.C. only
Guaranteed
THE CHINA MAIL CHRISTMAS SUPPLEMENT, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1947.
SPECIAL SALE $700
Cabinet
Measurement
2134" x 10" x 131⁄4”
one year
Free Service
CONTROLLED PRICE
SPECIAL BALE
PRICE
baris repaired.
SPECIAL SALE $750
$475
$360
COME EARLY FOR A DEMONSTRATION AT
YEUNG KWONG RADIO CO.
182 NATHAN RD., K'LOON.
陽光無綫電行
TELEPHONE 50044.
JOHNNIE WALKER
WHISKY
BORN
1920
STILL GOING
STRONG
Limited in Quantity
BUT
Supreme in Quality
Sole Agents:
CALDBECK MACGREGOR & CO., LTD.
CHATER ROAD.
WINE AND SPIRIT MERCHANTS
EPHONE 20075
Short Xmas Story
-Bending over the ramshackle bug- gy, the had salvaged from a rubbish heap, Ea Mae put the cover over her, doll and tucked in the ragged edges. The cover was a dingy grayish pink and in the centre of it was = brown scorched place, shaped like an iron. Beneath it, the doll's cation- stuffed stocking body made a
a barely hummock. The faded painted features on the grub by, ribbed-linle face were completely devoid of expression. The pale, pals
1
eyes stared up at nothing at
the The real vague mouth was neither happy nor ad. The doll had no chin, no neck. The end of the stock- ing had been pulled down about ite nonrxistent ears, stitched, turned up. stitched again, and embellished will pompon from a bedroom slipper Although it was the only doll Mae had ever possessed, she had never really liked it. Not even when it was new. The Christmas week she had learned she was going to receive A doll she had been aglow wil anticipation. She had found her mother's Christmas list and after her own name had been the magical word, dell.
She had spent the remainder uf the week trying to settle upon an appropriate name. The day before Christmas it had come to her, out of the petals of flower, dissolving her unfolding within her like
other tentative selections into dust.
Drusilla. It had a beautiful JOIT
པ
singing sound. Just right!
She had sung it to herself, secret-
ly, over and over, during the sex of
the dragging day, and her heart had
Drusilla
repeated it-Drusilla Drusille didn't know that and, instantaneous Drusilla-while she finished stringingly, the coiliers of their quarrel were
By
Jane Rice
shades from pinky red to a soft yel- low. Same old. Some new. All with wide deep lawns the colour of Easter- "If I was somebody I know", the basket grass. into
All with dips, and
the popcorn and pasted the Tast rekindled.
cisored bits of coloured
oured paper
and
a chain of rings to festoon the tree, sald, tossing her head, "I wouldn't
She had gone to bet, warm with come hanging around where 1 an daffodils, and purple flags, and curs the sweet hollow happiness of ca anked 1"
ing driveways, and pillars, pectation, the delicious drowsy know
Cita Mar flushed. "I guess anying half-glimpses of spacious back
verandas, and suinparches, and tea ledge that, when she awakened, hody wants to, that's going some yards with more trees and grass and Drusilla would be waiting for her where, can walk here without your Howers and hedges. under the tree. An exquisite, curly permission!" haired Drusilla with
A moving van was being unload- dainty manners, Nellie arose and, experimentally, ed beside an
and dimples, and mayr an organd, felt her muddy posterior, "Yuw know of a house Bird birthday cake |
dress. With a pocket in it. And bonnet and a coat, extra.
She
in.
by a tall, for
much, if you're going somewhere bidding iron fence. Etta Mas, en-cobwebby, fatticed-in recess beneath whyn't you go on and gol” And then, Christmas moming and
I am," Esta Mae said, "Right this Krossed in the van, bumped squarely the porch, the doll in her lap. the dreadful unbelieving instant very minute. So there!"
into a doll carriage of maroon leather "I christen thee Drusilla," she an- when she had raceit into the front "Well, go on, why don't you" She eyed it with breathless wonder, ever, world withour end, amen."
and chrome angled against the fence.nounced solemnly. "For now and for- room and had come 10 a stricken balt Nellie gave mirthless little good. rinking it 10 gaze, appalled, at the stocking ing laugh. "If you're really going. Such
The church was suffused with: doll propped underneath the
doll tree anmewhere, Miss Smarty,"
pram there never was! hazy, bluegray daylight. The altar branches. The slow realization well- "I am," Etta Mae said. "I am, tool beside it and puiting her hands be lights flickered redly at the plaster She parked her derelict vehicle thone with candles, and the voive ing up in her throat. The sinking And wouldn't you like
in know hind her, peeked into the mated in the saints on the staled-glass win- emptiness.
where"
feet of Saint Joseph. The statues and She had called the doll Louella. Wouldn't
erlor. Asleep beneath Now, standing by the lilac bush in derisively. She stayed where she was, res or curls, and an adorable pinched timelessness.
I ju" Nellie jibed coverlet was a doll with golden ring-dows seemed rooted in a rapt, husk the front yard in the early afternoon and Etta Mae realized that Nellie had of a nose, and a dimpled chin."
A tinkly bell runlight, her skimpy dress futtering her trapped. She couldn't backtrack
ponded, three dimes and a winged in a capricious May breeze, she now. She had to go somewhere. All able to cuddle it, and rock it, and of the
O, to own a doll like that! To be rustling swept over the bowed heads peered in at Louella for a long right, She would go around the cor-sing it to sleep. Just to be able to moment. She snatched her up and ner, past the church, cut catawise hold it
It wasn't scary there, exactly, fr gave her a shake.
through Lanahan's coal lut, and come
was more-more-more of doomed "You better mind your p' and back up Feighan's alley.
She flung a searching glance of re-feeling. It was like it was q's" she said. "Or you're going to
connaissance at She tilted her nose at Nellie, and, house. Her hands unclasped, crept the vaulted ceiling. Like maybe God the birthday cake Bye suck up there in the dimness of eatch it!".
She plopped her doll under its the end of the black, she sent a slaat carriage. She eased the doll
pasting the buggy, flounced off. At from behind her and inte the had draggled
poked through the roof and had cover and wheeled it off to-ing glance, over her shoulder. Nelle,
fres, His Eye glued to the hole, watching. wards the vacant house that at well had disappeared,
so as not to waken it, the knowing. And what made it so awful and was big, and blue, and cold, and back from the sidewalk in a porch.
it in her hungry art high tangle of wheat grase and though.
about-face, snuggled her cheek against its silky was that it wouldn't let go of you. neglected shrubbery.
through the lace curtains, Pecking taliny. When he ate uncless your head, and everything you'd ever
might be hair, crooned little
You could feel it
the top of ed, she fluffed the cunning, lace-edged dane kept
It
wouldn't do to
She was afraid of the vacant thing. house. Still, it held a pulling autres
congregation.
God's
tion. She was fascinated by the blank, preparing to enter it when she spied to its rightful place. Faintly, it asid, to be snow-white, lay exposed: sinful
Reaching the cou? yard, the way pillow and stopped, to resurs tied and bet churning around in you...
your soul, which was supposed blind windows, the neep, sloping a strange man rummaging through roof, and the way
Ma.....ma." Etta appeared, some cosi-dusty potato sack. Hastily she dropped it. Its syes
Mac "almost and shrivelled and black as far. times, in the dying sun-as if it were altered her course and almost rats closed, and then opened by slow blue everlasting fire.
winked blue,
Depart from me, ye accursed, inta abloze. She lacked the courage to shto the end of the block. Here, on the degrees as Eus Mae gently stood it
Etta Mae buried her face In her hands. She tried, to concentrate It
оп
ter it and envied the fearless-few point of turning, she saw Nellie Jean-up on a tiny when blithe ata praying, but no matter how often she
who, during its first
tenantless ing months, had explored
ntlessing nonchalantly against thoroughy. ferce.
Basset's regarded Etta Mae steadily, and One biowy March day she had
Mac, her heart drumming against her tore her thoughts from the guilty ered a short distance up the walk where," Nellie jeered.
VCA-
"I thought you was going some elbs, swallowed a huge mouthful of secret, hidden beneath the porch of but had fled precipitonily
when,
air and, suddenly grabbing the dall the vacant house, they circled and somewhere,
An emotion akin to hate suffured from its nest of lace and linen and a loose shutter had Eta Mae's checks with color.
returned. banged. Bolting, she had known it lips narrowed into a tight purposeful Louella's sailed pink blanket. Turn ber knees and she knelt as hard as Her satin, she thrust it out of sight under The wooden kneeling-bench bit inte to be a lutter, but she hadn't check-line. ed her headlong fight. Nor had she
quickly about, she hastened off to she could, endeavouring to get away essayed another visit. In fact, no one
"What makes you think I'm not wards the "Hey!"
street-car tracks, and from the watching Eye: went there any more. Having heen
safety,
Her mother nudged her. Tery, "Hoo, yourself!" Once more chong- exhaustively investigated, its appealing her route, she marched resolute. If anything, the block where
"Stop Safety, however, had ceased to be. wiggling." had worn off and it had yet to reach ly to the street intersection. There lived was more perilous than those Mercilessly the Eye bored into her.
Eita 19 Elta Mac held herself rigid, the stage where it could radiate an she waited for a truck to rumble by, she had recently quitted. It felt as aura of being "baunted."
Thou shalt not steal. Nearing it, Etta Mae slackened her to the opposite side, Only then did was nowhere to go.
looked both ways, and crossed over it were full pl eyes. And there
The bell tinkled again and, once Brink Race, but her gaze, traveling she stop, and merely long enough to
more.
invisible wings fanned the air over the familias grounds, was both shout at a frankly amazed but still or somebody, dashed out and snatch notes trembled and quivered. They
Suppose Mike Gilhooley, or Dodge, as the bowed heads lifted.
Organ absent and preoccupied as the deba: dubious Nellie:"
vibrated in Etta Mac's ears; a vaica clemless
ed whether or not to make up with
Nellie Haggerty, her best friend, who "I see Germany; I see France, lived three doors farther on. Sho Having (rady's underpants!"
tried to remember what it was
{delivered this
св
fact
Eye scrutinized her naked soul, which was
no larger then' an *** THOU SHALT NOT STEAL "Will you stop wiggling," her
rd Louella's blanket? Or upset the Suppose the should buggy
while the meet of Judgment, pacified Nellie who probing crushing was
was willing to let bygones be bygones had fallen our about. It is they gambit at the sop of her lungs, she and play house. Suppose her mother ink blot and was shrinking rapidly. do with the purple feather plume uneiled wheels growing falmer and suppose big Ike, the policeman, should mother repeated in an exasperated,
trudged on, the protesting creak of found out. Her father! they shared between them when they fainter til, finally,
glory played dress-up, but the details off away altogether,
it dwindled chance; along. the dispute eluded her. Whatever it
whisper. was, the bad vowed healedly never somewhat aghast at her own daring, passing the church, it was all she her eyes on Mrs. O'Toole's plaid
Suppose supposeuppose In the beginning, Etta Mae was She lengthened her stride to speak to Nellie gain, and Nellier Heretofore the street-car line bad could do to restrain bee anal feet shoulder-blades. Her lips moved in and Etta Mac set ber teeth against the pounding in her ears. She fastened equally as furious, had responded in been a boundary as welldefined as a fram breaking kind..
wall!.
into full-fledgedalent, fervent supplication.
But it wasn't much fun to play by the tracks hou keep this aide of gallop. Turning the corner, she nar yourself, Etta Mae thought glumly
her mother had told her You ran out of what to do, And sides, she wasn't allowed even.
since the could remember" ever Nellie's packing-box made an excal-
lent playhouse, even if they
in it only one at a time.
Esia. Mae's countenance
could get
IV
Be.
the black without getting her "," Mrs, O'Toole said, smiling, don't make me urtech at the
J
"I'll take Druslife back, only what A avolded a collhion with Mr.
ver You do, please don't make me Hrp, please don't ma
make me
meurp, please we in a hurry!" permission. Except to go to
"Yea'm," Elka Mse said. "I mean elusion of the services was to Etta
Eroerging from school, But
Jay in the other no'm." She shifted uneasily from one Mas-like coming up for breath after con- brightened. It wouldn't hurt to
direction. In to walk Nellie's, she told herself, She could in the other direction.
pait ever had to, everything she's foot to the other. "I mean
get permission for was Taking your dolly for an airing, drowning. She drew to great clean. having been in imminent danger of sort of slow down and pretend to belicatessen.
The de-ice" looking at something interesting, or The picture show. The five-and-dime.
The
penny candy store.
Ing lungsful of the Sunday morning she could stop abd
fis Louella's blan And most of the time she'd
מ
"Yea'm" Euta Maz: said. "Well, well, and might I be in and expelled them untily.
the been quiring her name?,
manner of an ice we got horse, Something terrible was apt to hap
"Drusilla. menn Louella," m
"For pity rake, Bit Ming, her Mae stammered, cudgeling ber have! 1 declare! Look
moiber remonstrated, "Wil you be
Clatie
ket. Anyway, It wouldn't put her out with Nellie or somebody.
any just to walk
Pait.
Ane
Nelle Haggerty clapped et ber ball pen to inle girls who went, by them-wite for an excuse to escape Mrs. Olhooley, have nice the good rauen- iloties abstraction. She was bor- cives, where their mothers didn't O'Toole's amiable, beaming regard. Ing to you, Mrs. O'Toole, A ed, and, at the age of seven years, know about She had no idea what it laspiration salzed her, boredom is not deadly gnawing sickness but an itch, impossibly plac Pauline's mother had told Pauline, to get her home and give her some aid, She twinkled at
it was frightful. was, except
She's got summer complaint. I got "Indeed it is that," Mr O'Toole)","
day ed, Becoming aware of Eun Mae's and Clatie's approach, she began bouncing her and Nellie's, mother had told Nellle, generous
mother had told Clatie, pills" She ducked by Mr. O'Toole's "And how Is Drusille this morning?" Hall
Elts
Mar bulk, and, accelerating Etta Mae stared at Mrs, O'Toole
with
Bilin }"
great outward show and her mother had told her but lightly as she went past the flag as if he were rattlesnake. "Drus amacking it vigorously with neither Pauline, nor Clate, por Nellie, gerty's the scurried up the street. the fat of her palm paulog it un-nor ske, herself, could figure out what The vacant house have into view. ider first'ade leg and then the old Whatever way, though, was like Mae cast a raking look around.
was their to leto my fella's coZi” she
mothers had menut Drawing abreast of her goal, Ett she fully She's feeling better, s
"Your d Jonasceringly absorbed in her danger of hellfre?
"Iface many patches dder it. As she ambled along, a little fear Mr. Garrity was busy selling shing hother, can I go on ahead
Mods Most O'Toole was crossing Elm, yes, She's much better, thank "Oh," Etta Mar: paid. "Ob?
"Obi Oh, werd. One, two, three, fourful thrill trickled down Ets Marile on his roof. Mr. Carary was
Burreptitiously, the noted that Sita opine. Surpallogly, It
it-Way
All right. But no sammenfgans.
was fassing with her doll pleassot title fearful chrithaking rugi now she was going And change your dothes, finst thing.” blanket. Intent on Bits Mas, the
in. From the poles emanating from "You'n Bits Mad Sprinted away. missed count, fumbled, made rider Man locked about at her curtailing it. No one wis paying
No telling
Any second now It was Fels to to here!
t was Yelgban's alley, the low wagon wai
going through the
parate attempt to
• khu A DATI
dowa, with a plump og 'a FowZible roundings. Bhadéd” by mátely"", "tress) dutention.: No "ode*War"
and encircled, by clipped abrubbers Aniciclely, Jumplein
to church?"!
was playing Jack on the low were cool T
In front of Haggerty a Hello," she greeted Elta Mar affably
sizes. You bee
mud-pisa "dryles" on the bottom and flowers were the homes of the thronk she gulped it down, and, aume Beth Mae laughed, Shrakayama will-to-do Home after do Walt moning har nerve, the merved – la Huling Car Nella and borosies with green shuters and banks and Jogged by-the-walks funny laing and he was laughing ed-sbododendres parist the fannisers, But, fiüblid ivy, Erick
Béverat
Etta Mas noddedd value