City and town life -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
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.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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