Evening star., 1942-04-29

Henry McLemore. 1aCC that her
children went to a private school
next door to the public school. which
the neighbor's children attended.
She put the chill on the woman
next door whenever she could and
she put the heat on her whenever
she had the chance. She was either
hot or cold toward her neighbor,
never warm.
Then, 10 and behold One day
the papers announced that there
was a gasoline shortage and that
pretty soon the good fairies in
Washington were going to ration
gasoline and that no one was going
to get more than five or six gallons
a week.
The naughty woman got to think
ing about this and it bothered her,
The more she thought the more she
wondered how she was going to get
her children the miles to their
private school and back each day.
She wondered how she was going
to do her marketing and how she
was going to get into town once or
twice a week to attend her ad-
vanced flrst-aid classes, to get her
hair done and to see ner friends
who lived right in the heart of
town.
She got busy on the telephone
and asked friends in other parts Of
town how they were going to solve
the transportation problem when
the gasoline rationing began. They
told her they had worked it out with
their next-door neighbors, so that
one day they and their neighbors
would use their car and the next
day they and the neighbors would
use the neighbor's car to take their
husoands to work, deliver the chill
dren to school, do the marketing
and run all the other errands.
Suddenly the bad queen of our
story had a change of heart toward
her next-door neighbor. It was as
II magic wand had been waved.
She heard that her neighbor was
sick and sent over a bowl of calf's-
foot jelly.
She invited Rover. who was plow-
ing under her rose bushes as usual
to come into the kitchen for a bone.
The more she thought about the
gasoline rationing. the more she
knew she had misunderstood her
neighbor all along.
Now that Aesop McLemore has
spun his fable, what he really wants
to say is that out of this war. and
the privations that we all Will suffer,
will come a genuine revival Of
friendliness and understanding
which we seemed to have grown
away from since the days when our
forebears depended on one another
for help.
There were sewing bees and corn
huskings and harvesting parties.
Neighbors served as doctor, nurse
and servant In time Of trouble. In
the early days of our country, neigh
bors banded together In time of
trouble and fought side by side. In
the lush and soft years of this coun-
try we seemed to have pretty well
gotten away from this. 1t was every
man for himself, and the devil take
the hindmost.
The little fable with which I
started this column isn't a fable at
all. 1t Is based on fact. I know
both the neighbors involved, and
these two women have grown gen.
timely to like one another after 10
years Of living next door. You un-
doubtedly could write your own true
fable.
War is a high price to pay for
anything, but this country can't help
being better country when it's
over. We were getting soft, SNUG.
complacent and all mighty too big
headed. We of the lush years are
going to learn Americanism not
from history books or tales of what
our great-grandfathers did, but
through being Americans in q tough
spot, Americans who are learning to
live not as individuals, but as united
Americans.
distributed by McNaught Syndicate. Incl