The Ghost of the Good Samaritan The spirit of brotherly hve
still walks the earth for those whose eyes, and hearts, are open
By WAINWRIGHT EVANS
IT was the middle of the terrible winter of 1917
18; the first World War still had 10 months to
run; thousands were dying of the flu; there was a
coal shortage. Trains were crowded, and they
didn't always run on time.
1 arrived in Philadelphia from Washington, D. C,
at 1 in the morning. The hotels were full.
1 walked the snow-clogged, wind-swept streets
for an hour before I found one where the night
clerk let me .stretch out on a sofa in a corner of
the poorly heated lobby. Wrapped in my overcoat,
I managed to fall into a chilly sleep.
1 woke with the light of dawn coming in faintly.
But suddenly 1 realized that, however cold the
place. 1 was warm and comfortable. I moved my
head sleepily; something rough and woolly
brushed against my face and brought me fully
awake. I raised my head for
a look.
Somebody had thought
fully brought a blanket, laid
it over me softly so as not to
awaken me, and had even
tucked me in!
That blanket did more
than warm my body: it
warmed my heart: it still
does whenever 1 think of it.
Here was one of those tre
mendous trilles that every
body can remember in his
life, trilles that grow in
meaning as you think of
them. Here was one of those
acts of good will that feels,
in this harsh world, like the
brush of an angel's wing.
Who did it, I'll never
know, but, something good
had come there while I
slept. That is why I am tell
ing about it here; I want
to share my blanket with
someone else who may be
feeling chilly.
Since that far-off day I
have many times sensed
the same spirit of kindness,
so unmistakably abroad in
this world of ours, like a
whiff of faint perfume. Only
the other day I felt it like
a presence, and yet all 1
could see with my eyes was
an ordinary-looking man,
standing in front of me as
I waited to pay my check
in" a restaurant.
Near the edge of the cash
ier's desk lay a letter,
addressed but unstamped.
Somebody, paying the cash
ier, had evidently laid it
down and forgotten it. The
man ahead of me picked it
up. Over his shoulder I
could see that it was ad
dressed to someone in San
Juan, Puerto Rico.
. a family Wevfcli). May IS. IM(I
He fumbled in his pocket, came up with some
stamps: then, for good measure, he wrote "Air
Mail" on the envelope in an emphatic hand. A
moment later I saw him post the letter.
It had cost him the price of an air-mail stamp,
but who can measure the power of such an act?
As the stranger vanished in the crowd, my mind
returned to the glow of warmth I had experienced
in the lobby of that Philadelphia hotel.
I like to collect memories like these; they revive
one's faith in people. Once I left my overcoat in
the caboose of a cattle train, in which I had ridden
from Montana to Chicago on my way east to col
lege a common way Western boys traveled then.
There happened to be a letter in one of the pockets.
A week later, just as I was on the point of buy
ing a new coat, the old one arrived by mail. There
was no return address on it, though I searched
every inch of the wrapping for a clue.
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Things like that happen to other people, loo.
The late Clifford Beers, whose, book, "The Mind
That Found Itself," worked something of a revo
lution in the treatment of the insane, told how,
when confined in an institution in Connecticut long
after he had recovered from manic-depressive psy
chosis, he wrote the governor of the state a long
account of the appalling abuses that he and other
patients had been subjected to. His problem was
to mail that letter without its being discovered and
confiscated by the institution authorities. He had to
guess the postage, and fairly covered the envelope
with two-cent stamps.
Then, one day, when he was taken for a walk
by one of the attendants, he managed to slip the
letter under a pile of newspapers in a drugstore,
on the chance that somebody would find it and
mail it. Somebody did!
The governor got the letter: Beers was released.
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He wrote his book, founded the American Society
for Mental Hygiene, and what he accomplished
became a .landmark in the history of psychiatry.
"I wish I knew who mailed that letter for me,"
he said when I interviewed him years later.
One evening as I was having dinner in New
York, I had another of what I call my res
taurant adventures. I noticed a girl sitting at a
table next to mine. There was a substantial meal
in front of her, but she wasn't eating. She simply
sat, staring straight ahead. Suddenly she just
toppled over.
I reached out and caught her before she struck
the floor. In her handbag the manager and I found
a card bearing the words, "My Mother!" and then
the mother's name and address in Georgia. There
was also an almost -empty bottle of barbiturate
pills but not a cent.
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A plain case of a young girl from the country,
up against it in the big city. In fleeing from mis
eries and fears, she had taken too many pills.
"She asked for a meal," the manager explained.
"I let her order on the house, the poor kid!"
When the ambulance came and they took her
out, I saw the manager quietly slip a five-dollar
bill into her handbag. He didn't know I saw him.
These are trivial examples, if you like, of stories
almost anyone could tell stories of the good
things people do merely because they like to do
them; stories of
". . . that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love."
You don't have to turn to the Gospel of St. Luke
to find the Good Samaritan. He is still journeying
up and down the highways of the world. That
stranger crossing your path may be he!
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