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Show essm a.apsi aeast sbbwbbbb Jw? bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbcw J I ae bYj IllVBtBsflHBHBlllHCsilBEsilllKSSB&JiHJ 4ssWH BBBBBBBBBBBBBBMGaBBBttlBBBBBBBBBBBaOM SBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB9B1 . bbbbbbbbbbVIwSbbbbbbbBK BBBV9BtV2Vfll9H BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBlVaBBBBBBBBBBZBBBBnTvSt I BSnaCjaBBBBBBBB ANY MAN TO ANY MAN I By GERALD STANLEY LEE I DO not know how other men feel about it, but I find it hard, with all that is happening to the world today, to look a small boy in the face. When a small boy looks trustingly up to me and I see his world the world he thinks he is going to have, in his eyes, I am afraid. The look in his eyes of the world he thinks he is going to have cuts me to the quick. I have always felt I had an understanding with a small boy before. But the last foui years when he looks at me in that old way and I think of his world the one I see in his eyes the one I had myself the one every small boy has a right to, 1 see suddenly instead the one that is being left over for him by me, by all of us, the one he will have to try to put up with, have to live in, have to be a man in, when you and I have stopped trying. Then when I face the small boy I want to go off in a wide high place alone and think and ask God. I want to go down into the city and fight fight with my money and with my hope, go over the top with my religion and then come back and face the small boy. -. There are days during this struggle when my soul is spent and all the world seems made of iron and glass and all these crowds of people flocking through the streets who do not seem to care. It seems as if I would not turn over my head to save a world to live in myself. ... It does not matter about me and some days the people I see go by almost make me think it does not matter about them. . . . Then suddenly I go by troops of school children at four o'clock pouring out into the streets, . . . pouring like fire, pouring like sunshine outinto the streets ! It is as the roll of drums for the Liberty Loan ! I want to ring great church, bells to call people to the Red Cross :!$ "' My rule for a man's finding but just how much he should subscribe to the Red Cross is this : Put down your name and address on the blank and leave the amount open to think. Then try going past a schoolhouse about four o'clock when the children are pouring out Or in the evening when the house is quiet put down your name and the best figure you dare on the white paper. Then go upstairs a minute and look in the crib. Then look at your blank when you come down oncemore. |