第2章

This is all abnormal and unintelligent, even the not being beautiful, and sometimes one finds oneself called upon passionately to resist a temptation to listen to an internal hint that the whole thing is aimless.Upon this tendency one may as well put one's foot firmly, as it leads nowhere.At such times it is supporting to call to mind a certain undeniable fact which ought to loom up much larger in our philosophical calculations.No one has ever made a collection of statistics regarding the enormous number of perfectly sane, kind, friendly, decent creatures who form a large proportion of any mass of human beings anywhere and everywhere--people who are not vicious or cruel or depraved, not as a result of continual self-control, but simply because they do not want to be, because it is more natural and agreeable to be exactly the opposite things; people who do not tell lies because they could not do it with any pleasure, and would, on the contrary, find the exertion an annoyance and a bore; people whose manners and morals are good because their natural preference lies in that direction.There are millions of them who in most essays on life and living are virtually ignored because they do none of the things which call forth eloquent condemnation or brilliant cynicism.It has not yet become the fashion to record them.When one reads a daily newspaper filled with dramatic elaborations of crimes and unpleasantness, one sometimes wishes attention might be called to them --to their numbers, to their decencies, to their normal lack of any desire to do violence and their equally normal disposition to lend a hand.One is inclined to feel that the majority of persons do not believe in their existence.But if an accident occurs in the street, there are always several of them who appear to spring out of the earth to give human sympathy and assistance; if a national calamity, physical or social, takes place, the world suddenly seems full of them.They are the thousands of Browns, Joneses, and Robinsons who, massed together, send food to famine-stricken countries, sustenance to earthquake-devastated regions, aid to wounded soldiers or miners or flood-swept homelessness.They are the ones who have happened naturally to continue to grow straight and carry out the First Intention.They really form the majority; if they did not, the people of the earth would have eaten one another alive centuries ago.But though this is surely true, a happy cynicism totally disbelieves in their existence.When a combination of circumstances sufficiently dramatic brings one of them into prominence, he is either called an angel or a fool.He is neither.He is only a human creature who is normal.

After this manner Tembarom was wholly normal.He liked work and rejoiced in good cheer, when he found it, however attenuated its form.

He was a good companion, and even at ten years old a practical person.He took his loose coppers from the old bureau drawer, and remembering that he had several times helped Jake Hutchins to sell his newspapers, he went forth into the world to find and consult him as to the investment of his capital.

"Where are you goin', Tem?" a woman who lived in the next room said when she met him on the stairs."What you goin' to do?""I'm goin' to sell newspapers if I can get some with this," he replied, opening his hand to show her the extent of his resources.

She was almost as poor as he was, but not quite.She looked him over curiously for a moment, and then fumbled in her pocket.She drew out two ten-cent pieces and considered them, hesitating.Then she looked again at him.That normal expression in his nice ten-year-old eyes had its suggestive effect.

"You take this," she said, handing him the two pieces."It'll help you to start.""I'll bring it back, ma'am," said Tem."Thank you, Mis' Hullingworth."In about two weeks' time he did bring it back.That was the beginning.

He lived through all the experiences a small boy waif and stray would be likely to come in contact with.The abnormal class treated him ill, and the normal class treated him well.He managed to get enough food to eat to keep him from starvation.Sometimes he slept under a roof and much oftener out-of-doors.He preferred to sleep out-of-doors more than half of the year, and the rest of the time he did what he could.He saw and learned many strange things, but was not undermined by vice because he unconsciously preferred decency.He sold newspapers and annexed any old job which appeared on the horizon.