Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1905-12-02
Neiqhbors.

The first snowflake was waited iii up
on the north wind today. L stood IN my
study door and watched it fall and dis,
appear; but 1 knew that many would
come after and hide my garden from
sight ere long. What will the winter
bring us? When they wake once more.
the flowers that now sleep snusly under
their blanket of dead leaves, what shall
we have to tell?
The postman had just brought me
letter. and with it lying open before me.
my thoughts wandered back to the 'hard
winter of u half-score seasons ago
which none of us has forgotten, when
women and children starved in cold gar
rets, while men roamed, quaint and hol-
low-eycd, vainly seeking work / saw the
poor tenement in Rivington street where
a cobbler and his boy were fighting star
vatiGn all alone save for an occasional
visit from one of Miss Wald nurses
who kept a watchful eye on them as on
so many another tottering near the edge
in that perilous time, ready with the
life that brought back hope when all
things seemed at an end. One day she
found a stranger in the fiat, man with
closely-cropred hair and hard look that
told their own story me ne. coDo ont e io
lowed her out and made excuses. Yes!
he was just out of prison and had come to
him for shelter. He used to know him in
other days and Jim was not
She interrupted him and shook her head;
Was it good for the boy to have that KIND
of Il man in the house?
The cobbler looked at her thoughtfully
and touched her arm gently.
This" he said. amt no winter to let
Teller from Sing Sing be on the street
The letter the postmap brought made
me see all this and more in the Snow
fake that fell and melted in my garden.
1t came from friend in the Far West 4
gentle, high-bred lady. and told me this
story: Her sister who devoteS her life
to helping he neighbor. had Just been
on visit to her home. One day my
friend noticed her wearing an odd knitted
sha vi and spoke of it.
Yes" said she. that is the shawl the
cook gave me"
THE COOKE" with lifted eyebrows l
suppose. And then she heard how.
One day. going through the kitchen of
the institution where she teaches. she
had seen the cook in tears and inquired
the cause. The poor woman sobbed out
that her daughter had come home to die.
The doctors had said that she might
live perhaps ten days, no longer, and
early and late she cried for her mother
to be with her. But she had vainly
tried every way to get a cook to take her
placc-therc was none, and her child was
dying in the hospital.
"And 1 told her to go to her right
away. 1 would see to that. that was all
concluded my friends sister; land she
gave me this shawl when she came back:
ana took it, of course She had worked
it for the daughter that died.
But it was not all. For during ten days
of sweltering July heat that gentle deli
cate woman herself superintendent the
kitchen, did the cooking, and took the
place of the mother who was soothing her
dying child's brow, and no one knew it.
Not here. that is No doubt it is known,
with a hundred such daily happenings
that make the real story Of human life.
where that record is kept and cherished.
And, clear across the continent it comes
to solve riddle that had puzzled me.
Recently 1 had long arguments with Il
friend about religion and dogmaS that
didn't help either of us. At the end of
three weeks We were further apart than
when We began, and the arguments had
+ grown into controversy that made us
both unhappy. We had to have q regular
treaty of peace to get over it. l know
why now. The snowflake and my friend $
and the woman were real Christians.
They had the secret. They knew the
neighbOr. if neither had ever heard of
dogma or creed. Our arguments were
worse than wasted, though we both
meant well, for we were nearer neighbors
when we began than when We left off.
l am not learned in such things. Per-
haps l am wrong. No doubt dogmas are
useful-to wrap things in-but even then
would not tuck in the ends. lest we hide
the neighbor so that we cannot see him.
After all, it is what Is in the package that
counts. To me 1t is the evidence of such
as these that God lives in human hearts
that we are nodded in his image despite
flaws and failures in the caSting-that
keeps alive the belief that we shall wake
with the flowers to fairer spring. Is it
. not 80 with all of us?-Jacob A. Riis. in
/ the Outlook.