Argosy: The Short Story Magazine — page 42: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ay es oe Ez. “BATES SE tot oe Oa When the baby was born, she wrapped it in a warm blankeea ae and succoured it like the early chickens she had once wrapped in flannel, in a basket, under the stove. “And I can have him?” she said. “ You haven't changed _ your mind? You won’t change your mind, will you?” j “No,” the girl said. ‘‘ You can have him. I don’t want the _ bother. You can look after him.” “We'll love him,” she said. “‘ We'll look after him.” ta Ona day in late April she took the baby and carried him down ~ z 4 through the yard, in the sunshine, to where the fields began. 5 alia were breaking everywhere into bright new leaf. — _ Primroses lay in thick pale drifts under the shelter of them and i | under clumps of ash and hornbeam. In every turn of wind there a ; was a whitening of anemones, with cowslips trembling gold about ce _ the pasture. ti She lifted the baby up, in the sunshine, against the blue spring _ sky, and laughed and shook him gently, showing him the core of leaf and flower and corn. ee . “Look at all the flowers!” she said. ‘‘ Look at the corn! © _ The corn looks good, doesn’t it? It’s going to be good this © year, isn’t it? Look at it all! Isn’t the corn beautiful? ” | High above her, on the hill, there was a sound of endless lark song, and in the fields the young curved lines of corn were wonder- _ fully fresh and trembling in the sun. : —_— IN NEXT MONTHS ARGOSY EXCITING STORIES BY * JOHN MASTERS * VICTOR CANNING * JOHN COLLIER * MARK DERBY Order your copy now!