Evening star., 1925-09-17
THIS. AND THAT
= ~ -. :
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.
I'm color blind, mister" answere,

I'm color blind, mister" answered
the man.
'Oh, I'm sorry" leaped to Jones'
lips, but all the time he was thinking:
Now isn't that just my luck! For
the first time in my life hawl out
clerk. and, instead of finding him q
mean, Indifferent fellow, / discover
that the poor chap can't tell red from
black, blue or brown"
He looked at the clerk, who had
asked the proprietor to wait on the
gentleman.
why didn't you tell me?" Jones
| asked the clerk, gently.
Il didn't want you to know, that
was ALL" replied the clerk.
So Templeton Jones, with his pack
age Of redwrapped bell wire, left the
shop a wiser but a sadder man. The
| irony of fate, he thought, always work
ed things out after this grim manner.
Here, for years. he had passed up
countless opportunities to censure III
humored clerks, Indifferent clerks.
peevish clerks, clerks with hauteur,
clerks labcring under inferiority COM
plexes, pride in new neckties and
other maladies too numerous to NELL
ton.
Never once had he chirped. to a one
Of them, but had regarded them all as
hopeless cases which he neither had
the time nor inclination to try to
mend.
Then, when he had worked up his
courage to bawl one of them out, as
the popular phrase has 1t. he found
that the fellow was color blind!
Just my durn luck" grumbled
Jones, the mild-mannered man, hold
ing tight to his red-covered wire. pur-
chased at the expense of another fell
Nlslt t.1-.lS. Itis-
my durn luck
How many things there are. in.
deed. we do not know" Templeton
Jones wrote in his diary after he got
home.
+ Knowing this, how seldom ought
we to jump to conclusions, speak
harshly to Others when we do not
know the facts, acquire grudges and
hold resentments upon the say-so Of
others, without any investigation upon
our own parts.
ut is said. that men are creatures Of
impulse, things Of stimulation and re-
actions. but this is mostly applied to
physical man, whereas 1t might better
be applied to our mental life.
Words are what cause the trouble.
Words are passed, and we fly into q
| rage, much as If we were mere
WHICH,, once d CeTl tain
button is pressed, respond with a
great outpouring of angry words and
belligerent actions.
1t takes a man almost all his life
to learn that because a thing Is said
it does not necessarily have to be true;
or, because it was meanly intended. il
| may not at all apply to his own case;
| or, II IT does, it cannot hurt him
This was the way Woodrow Wilson
felt when he coined the phrase too
proud to fight: the way Jesus of
Nazareth felt when He refused to re-
ply to His accusers.
Words are great things. and words
can be contemplate things. for words
are but the reflection of mems minds,
which run the gamut from sublime to
hellish.
I'VE ought not, then. it seems TO
or to resent as much as we do, or to
allow our happiness to depend SO Ut.
terly on the pleasant words-or lack
of them-of others.
I'VE had better try to- think good
about others, when they displease US,
| than to imagine off hand they have it
| in for u.s. for, as far as we know,
they may be suffering from some men,
tai disease Of which their ugly words
are the only visible sign.
I'VE will be better off, all of us, II
we will put the soft pedal on our own
| Ill words. realizing that the other fell
| low may be
Color blind" concluded Templeton
| Jones. with a sigh.