Virginia free press. (Charlestown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1832-1916, 1915-10-07
The Neighbor.
b, BY DIR. FRANK CRANE.

There are few things SO conductive
to happiness as good Neighbor.
A neighbor is a neighbour, one
whose only claim upon you is living
near.
We have-one, whom | will describe.
She lives near. We never knew her
until we moved into our present quar-
tiers.
There are other families about whom
we do not know, probably will never
know. It may be their fault, perhaps
ours, probably both.
But this neighbor captured US at
once. forget how. It seems we had
always known her. +.
We haveno common ground to speak
of except that ,she is human to the
back bone and from head to foot.
It takes more skill to be neighbor
than to be friend or relative.
Friends you make for yourself; neigh
bors are the gifts of God To acquire
real neighbor shows that you have
some knowledge of how to adjust your
self to the inevitable. 1t is campll.
menI to you to say that yon have made
"a pleasant acquaintance of anRenforce-
ed intimacy -
How do you get along with your fell
low passengers on a two week ocean
voyage? What would you do cast away
on an island with dozen strangers?
Are you gifted in discovering the link
of common humanity?
Our neighbor knows the fine line be-
tween intimacy and Intrusion. She
seems never to call when we don't
want her. She has rare instinct that
nicely judges just when to approach us.
She knows how to receive. 1t is Joy
to give her things. She can take them
with just the right expression of APP
probation, not so much as to be over.
sweet, not so little as to leave bad
taste,
She knows how to give. It is done
with supreme tact. When we had
sickness she sent to US the most won
derful soup, not plain soup in bowl,
but soup all be napkined s.and with
flowers by it. and little note. TWAS
not soup; it was a sacrament of
neighborliness,
She borrows and brings back. She
lends just in the right spirit.
We have never made formal calls.
We have no convention equations to
maintain. We don't know who her
friends are. She doesn't know ours.
She never Inquiries into our family at
fairs nor tells her own. She is not a
friend, she is neighbor, which is
rarer.
When have nothing else to do Ego
over and talk with her. She respects
my little egotisms. obstinacles and
crazy conceits, regarding them not as q
friend anxious for my welfare, not as
as relative concerned aoout my soul"
salvation or my salary, but as an
amused and interested bystander; in a
word she has the neighborly mind.
When there was Grape on our door
she broke through her reserve and spent
much time at our house. But she was
unobtrusiveness itself she helped every
where. She aided the girl in the
kitchen she looked after matters of
hats and dresses, she swept, she run
arrands, and at precisely the right mo
ments she talked to us. Nothing was
too mental nor toouelicate for her 70
undertake, as one human spirit for
another. 800
Her habits of life and those of her
family are NOT ours. They do not go
to bed when we do, nor get up at our
ime. They do not play our kinds
of games, nor work at our kind of work.
But she never criticises us, nor even
appears to wonder. And she never
gives us an opening to criticise her.
She understands the high art of
minding her own business.
She is not beautiful, she Is charming.
She is not pretty. she is lovely. She
is not young bodied. but her mind is
smitten with incurable youth.
She is aeneighbor. She stands by
She. is human. and y yoh dig deep
enough into the human you viii find
the divine.