“In His Steps”, Reading #9

Chapter Three, con’t

There were several other boys at the delivery room and they were all excited and disgusted. The amount of slangy remonstrance hurled at the clerk back of the long counter would have driven any one else to despair.

He was used to more or less of it all the time, and consequently hardened to it. Mr. Norman was just coming downstairs on his way home, and he paused as he went by the door of the delivery room and looked in.

“What’s the matter here, George?” he asked the clerk as he noted the unusual confusion.

“The boys say they can’t sell any copies of the NEWS tonight because the prize fight isn’t in it,” replied George, looking curiously at the editor as so many of the employees had done during the day. Mr. Norman hesitated a moment, then walked into the room and confronted the boys.

“How many papers are there here? Boys, count them out, and I’ll buy them tonight.”

There was a combined stare and a wild counting of papers on the part of the boys.

“Give them their money, George, and if any of the other boys come in with the same complaint buy their unsold copies. Is that fair?” he asked the boys who were smitten into unusual silence by the unheard of action on the part of the editor.

“Fair! Well, I should–But will you keep this up? Will dis be a continual performance for the benefit of de fraternity?”

Mr. Norman smiled slightly but he did not think it was necessary to answer the question.

He walked out of the office and went home. On the way he could not avoid that constant query, “Would Jesus have done it?” It was not so much with reference to this last transaction as to the entire motive that had urged him on since he had made the promise.

The newsboys were necessarily sufferers through the action he had taken. Why should they lose money by it? They were not to blame. He was a rich man and could afford to put a little brightness into their lives if he chose to do it. He believed, as he went on his way home, that Jesus would have done either what he did or something similar in order to be free from any possible feeling of injustice.

He was not deciding these questions for any one else but for his own conduct. He was not in a position to dogmatize, and he felt that he could answer only with his own judgment and conscience as to his interpretation of his Master’s probable action. The falling off in sales of the paper he had in a measure foreseen. But he was yet to realize the full extent of the loss to the paper, if such a policy should be continued.