Show PASSING JUDGMENT on others can often get getus us Into hot water when we wedo wedo wedo do not know now all the tha circum stances I D By WINIFRED WIHIFRED WILLARD MAN fAN AN orange and bunch of boys boyson on the lower East Side of New NewYork York The man tossed the orange to see the boys boy scramble for it One chap about 10 10 fought like a ayoung ayoung ayoung young tiger tooth and nail eyes flashing face grim fists hitting furiously fu fu- all all for an orange The Theman Theman Theman man who had tossed it told his wife at home I saw the m meanest anest boy in the world this morning Didn't care for anybody or anything except to hog an orange himself Business took that man later the same day to a pitifully poor room On a cot in the corner a little girls girl's cheeks flamed with fever and her body was wasted with suffering The Thedoor Thedoor Thedoor door flew open In bolted that little chap the meanest boy In the world Breathless with running he tiptoed up to his sisters sister's bed and whispered excitedly Heres lIere an orange ornge or or- ange I ye Sis fought for it cause cause I thought like it it How her eyes sparkled Tiny hands reached eagerly for It Parched little tile lips craved the refreshment it offered The man went home sat at long slumped lumped in his chair Then he called his ils wife and with shame and regret struggling in his voice blurted out Youve You've married the meanest man manhat that hat ever lived That little shaver I told you about the one I said was wasie the ie meanest boy in the world fought for or my orange to take to his sick sister Ister and Im I'm lookin for somebody to o kick me round the block He lie I didn't know the whole story before he b sat at In Judgment that's all Flimsy Evidence A big bishop spoke rather caustically caustically caus caus- and disparagingly about a woman in public life who traveled the he nation and who had an exceptional lonal salary Why doesn't she wear better clothes he asked same old things season in and out that hat certainly's certainly been on the road winter and summer two solid years It had She knew it better than ban the bishop But he just didn't know mow that her money was spent instead instead in in- stead for nurses and comforts comfort for forner her ner sick 1 father whom she adored I What did a new hat matter if father needed what the cost of a hat could provide Just judging on flimsy evidence I IFor For months two people dodged each other Each knew the other was haughty unapproachable cold and undesirable Finally they met Didn't want to tried to avoid it and couldn't Almost at once barriers began to fall From the dislike of ot misunderstanding they got proper appraisals of each other to their surprised satisfaction each began to enjoy then to admire the other For the first time they saw behind the scenes and found only what was good Nearly always so sol i Case of the Railroad Man ManIt It seemed strange that the man who lived in Washington breakfasted breakfast breakfast- ed ungodly early walked four long blocks took a street car across city then rode the tiresome train every everyday everyday everyday day to his hi Baltimore office We could all have told him how much shorter simpler and more sensible for him to step Into the bus in hi front of his house and out at his office once most anybody would know enough to do it this easier easler quicker way Then we learned that he is of the railroad staff and it is his professional professional responsibility to take the train Buses weren't his hi line Trains were We sat in judgment without knowing what we were talking talk ing trig about So easy to turn our imaginations loose on any pretext or person so easy to see what isn't there to misunderstand and misinterpret to see the little lad fighting for an or or- ange for his sick sister as meanest boy in the world so easy to be critical instead of kind to tangle human threads that need straightening straightening straight straight- ening not snarling and thus to spoil many a lovely pattern of life A world of saving wisdom abides in the old philosophy that reveals theres so much nuch go good d in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us that it scarcely behooves any of ot us to say things against the rest of us Just another way of sug aug suggesting gesting that its it's better all around to judge not It keeps things from boomeranging on us Copyright S Service |