El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1913-07-12
\ Woman Next Door
Tot What You Used to Be, but What
You Are Row That Counts,
Says This Writer.
by Wfnifred Black
By Winifred Black

r READ a brilliant story by a bril-
liant writer the other day. It was
- about a woman who lived down be
hind the tracks" in a country town.
She was a woman who Haunted the
streets in a gorgeous hat and expensive
gowns. She wore bangle bracelets that
Jingled and rings that sparkled, and
high-heeled slippers and "open-wOrked"
stockings. and the men grinned sheep
ishly when she passed, and nudged each
other. and the women looked the other
way and pretended they didn't even see
one day the woman from behind
the tracks bought a house uptown
and moved into ia neat. pretty little
house. with garden and trees. and
she dug in the flower beds and Watered
the lawn and put out hanging baskets,
and she went TO market in a little
checked Bingham, and she looked visit
fully over the fence when the neigh
bors went by, but nobody ever spoke
To her at all.
What Did She Expect
wonder what the woman from be
bought the pretty little house and the
garden, and went to live among decent
people2
You choose your friends because YOU
like them, and like their kind-not be-
cause somebody else thinks you ought
TO like them.
If the woman from behind the
tracks had come to the village from
somewhere else and nobody knew a
thing about her, do you think the neigh
bon women would have liked her any
how? / don't
never could be She belonged to a diff
feIent world; no woman Of any fine
ness Of perception could have been mis-
taken in her for minute.
No. I don't mean what she had been.
woman who was trying to decide
whether she wanted her for a neighbOr
or not / mean what she is. A Bingham
dress doesn't change the beat of a
woman's heart; a garden hoe doesn't
turn her from a coarse, easy going,
blunt-hearted person to a gentle, deli
cate lovely woman, does it? I don't be-
lieTe it.
A Lesson From Home.
Once I had a MAZDA strange, silent
stubborn girl with blue eyes. so hard
that they were like flint. She had a
strange, measured walk and a strange,
controlled voice, and she always acted
as If she thought some one was watch
ing her.
one day saw her in a blue print
dress, Of peculiar cut and shade, and I
knew-she was reformatOry girl
/ didn't say word. I treated her
exactly as / had always treated her.
but one day she was gone and she left
a letter for me In IL she said many
thought I could be different but
can't You've been good to me- but I
amt happy here. I amt comfortable
so I'm going" and gone she was. back
To the people with whom she was
"cOmfcrta BILE" poor thing. Back to
the people who were like her and
who had her ways and her point Of
view.
What You Really Are.
The poor thing from behind the
tracks dldn belong in the neat little
street uptown. She was no more in
place there with her loud laugh and
her oleached hair than the timid little
woman who lived beside her would be
in place in the ranks of a marching
army. I don't blame the neighbor
women for looking the other way. Hon
estly. now. I don't
After all. though. It isn't what you
used to be that counts; but what you
really are, and no change in dress or in
housing or anything else viii change
that I wish ii would. How pitifuIIy
I wish it would