liness that winter. Though the
officers and soldiers were most kind, he did not speak Italian and none
of the officers in the mess to which he was assigned spoke English. At
first he could not ask for a piece of bread; but the service was
excellent and his wants were anticipated. Bearing in mind their example
and kindness, he made up his mind always to be kind to any foreigner he
might meet when he returned home.

He longed for someone to talk with; and when his work was done he would
walk out upon the mountain side in the bright winter sunlight of those
great heights and hold an imaginary conversation with his wife or little
son, and come home whistling and happy.

There were no books to read. He was left alone with his thoughts which,
though sometimes sad and lonely, were never unhappy ones. These six
months of silence and thought changed his disposition. He grew older in
spirit. He acquired a habit of silence he never outgrew; of
introspective reflection, such as the old have who sit silently in the
chimney corner.

In early March, he received word of the death of his mother. He was not
surprised, and, though he loved her very much, was not overly grieved by
it. She had led a useful, unselfish, happy life; she was old and for
several years had been losing her vitality without apparent pain. Her
life had been a peaceful one; she expected the peace of the righteous
after death; she believed those of her family she left behind would be
happy. John looked upon her going as a vanishing from sight merely. She
seemed in an adjoining room or near place; a little too far away to see
or hear, but near enough to feel her presence and love.

Just when it seemed that winter was the perpetual season, when his
fingers were swollen and discolored by the cold and he had forgotten how
it felt to be warm unless in bed or shoveling snow, the valley below
took on emerald tints and the snow line crept up the mountain.

Then John thought, "the hill country will be fine this summer;" but he
was told to come out of his dolomite burrow and dwell in a tent with the
Arabs in Tripolitania for the summer. A place so near the equator that
his shadow at noon was hid by a none too prominent stomach; where the
thermometer feels comfortable and perfectly at home at 130 in the shade
and where the snow dogs of his winter home were replaced by the camel,
the only reliable conveyance in the summer.

The Bedouin, the Tuaregs and some of the blacks, r