16 
House & Garden 
THE AMBULANCE THAT WENT TO BETHLEHEM 
RAPPER HIGGINS of the Middlesex Fusi- 
O liers, operator for the night, dozes over 
his switchboard, a fag hanging listless from 
the corner of his mouth. 
The wires are quiet for once, and the night 
wind drifting in through the window brings 
little sound. Ten days ago the line drove north, and the chorus of the 
guns has died down to an intermittent thudding. Occasionally a 
motorcycle darts past the hospital, its cut-out sputtering furiously. A 
sentry, pacing along the cobbled pavement, stops now and then to 
challenge a late passerby and make him take the other side of the 
road. Sick and wounded men must be quiet. 
Higgins walks dreamily to the window and looks up at the silent 
stars. From the horizon behind the lines streams a great light, that 
momentarily grows brighter. 
“Can’t be a fire. Too ’igh fer a fire. Must be Northern Lights 
or somethin’.” 
Suddenly the bell jangles. He steps back to the switchboard. A 
raw-voiced lieutenant is on the wire. “Ambulance to Post No. 7. 
Case at the inn.” 
W ires flick and flash. Higgins repeats the message, then leans back 
in his chair. 
Outside, the hum of a motor rises and dies again as the ambulance 
shoots through the gate and is lost in the plunge down the shell-pitted 
road toward Post No. 7. 
An hour later it creeps back. Higgins watches it sway into the 
yard. The sentry at the gate turns to see what poor devil is bein<* 
brought in. A sister comes out to the car, 
her white veil fluttering in the night wind. 
On the front seat by the driver sits an old 
man. The driver helps him down, while 
the sister looks in at the bleese. Finally 
they bring out—walking, and radiantly 
beautiful—a young girl and in her arms "a 
new-born babe. A light dances about them. 
It throws a rosy glow over the white-habited 
nurse and fills the hospital close with an 
unearthly beauty. 
They pass indoors. 
The light settles in arc within arc of filmy 
incandescence about the hospital. A soli¬ 
tary palm that bends above the low roofs is 
bathed in it; the very sparkle of the stars 
dwindles behind its resplendent aura. 
From his vantage in the window Higgins 
calls down. “I sy, Bill, wot abaht it?” 
W ot abaht wot ? Thus the ambulance 
driver. 
“That there.” 
“Aw nothin'. Jist a baby bom in a stable 
down the line. Rotten place fer ’em. So 
we oists im and ’er aboard and runs ’em 
up ’ere where they’ll be at home and com¬ 
fortable like.” 
“Who’s the old un in the front seat?” 
“ ’im with the beard?” 
“Yer.” 
“Says ’is nime’s Joseph. Didn't arsk ’is last nime.” 
Higgins strikes a match to light his fag. It is swallowed in the 
effulgence that surrounds the hospital. 
“That’s funny!” He glances up at the sky. “Can’t be a fire. Too 
’igh fer a fire. Must be Northern Lights or somethin’.. . . ” 
^T^HERE is a subtle relationship between the Wisemen who padded 
X lowly across the desert and the ambulance driving furiously down 
the dark road. The Magi pursued their way until the object was at- 
CHRISTMAS EVE 
Our hearts to-night are open wide, 
The grudge, the grief, are laid aside: 
The path and porch are swept of snow, 
The doors unlatched; the hearthstones 
glow —- 
No visitor can be denied. 
All tender human homes must hide 
Some wistfulness beneath their pride: 
Compassionate and humble grow 
Our hearts to-night. 
Let empty chair and cup abide! 
Who knows? Some well-remembered 
stride 
May come as once so long ago — 
Then welcome, be it friend or foe! 
There is no anger can divide 
Our hearts to-night. 
tained. They came there in the face of foes. 
They brought rare gifts of devotion. 
So, in these days, does the ambulance—and 
its gifts are equally a tribute of a great devotion. 
The frankincense it brings is the cleansing 
spirit of mercy to friend and foe alike, a rare 
odor of unbelievable loveliness that arises from the reeking pit of this 
war whenever tenderness is shown to those sorely stricken, homeless 
and in great anguish. 
The myrrh it brings is the stern exertion—bitter to endure—with 
w’hich men are snatched away from annihilation and given the will to 
live, the weary rested and made joyful, the desolate made strong to go 
on with their burdens when, to most of them, death would be a wel¬ 
comed release. 
The gold? That gold comes from your purses, American people. 
It signifies that you, who enjoy nights of silence and safety, count no 
sacrifice too great so long as it maintains those agencies of mercy that 
cluster beneath the Red Cross—nurses who worked fearlessly amid 
clamorous suffering, doctors who rarely knew the refreshment of 
sleep, drivers who took their ambulances where Hell was and through 
bestial darkness. 
ALL ambulances go to Bethlehem, and all carry these same gifts. 
Some ambulances are trucks with food and clothes and medi¬ 
cines for refugees. Some carry bricks and timber for new houses. 
Some bring dentists and shower baths and soap and soft things for 
little children to be wrapped in. Some ambulances enter plague dis¬ 
tricts. Others ride fearlessly into the face 
of earthquake. Still others cluster about the 
mine mouth, the burning factory and the 
piled-up wreckage of trains. 
But all of them go to Bethlehem, for all 
the roads to mercy end in that Inn, above 
whose door you can read: “Inasmuch as 
you have done it unto the least of these, you 
have done it unto me.” 
Christopher Morley. 
W ITH these whose ambulances go to 
Bethlehem we must share our gifts. 
They know what gifts are sorely needed. 
They will show the tenderness, if we give 
the fabric of tenderness. They will apply 
the bitter myrrh of medicine, if we supply 
the medicine. To us they leave entire the 
gift of gold without which the others are 
impossible. 
ii T TEY! Ho!” Sapper Higgins yawns 
H and slides from the chair as his 
relief comes in. “Bloody long night. Guess 
I’ll look abaht the ward ’fore I turn in.” 
And stepping through the door he beholds 
a strange sight. 
From the other end of the ward comes 
a girl of unearthly beauty; in her arms a 
babe that sparkles like a great jewel. On 
either side, in serried rows, range the cots with huddled figures there¬ 
on. As they pass, the maiden and her child, the figures move, stretch, 
sit up. Pale faces turn to the light and take on its color. Weak arms 
draw from it strength. A heavy perfume drowns the stench of ether 
that creeps in from the operating room, and fills the ward with the 
scent of many flowers. Sweat of suffering fades from brows. Cries of 
pain hush, and those in anguish smile content. There is a soft rustling 
as of many wings and the faint echoes of a song. 
“Gawd!” exclaims Sapper Higgins. 
It was merely the nurse walking up the ward. 
