Every Month, a Picture

“Thief! Catch him... thief!”

And dozens of legs shot off after the young boy; the policeman on the corner sprang up, brandishing his whip and threatening... longing to crush him with that whip the moment his hands should fall upon him... In the street the passersby gathered in a crowd, all eyes fixed in one direction — where the little one had fled...

It happened that I was one of those passersby, so I stood looking, as they looked, at the fleeing boy... He was no more than twelve years old; bright of face, clean of dress, with nothing in his appearance to suggest thievery... He cowered in a corner, looking at the policeman and his pursuers with looks of pain and bitterness... and mockery... Within moments the little one's innocence came to light: it had been a painful prank, played on him by some of the young men loitering at the street corner. The passersby had followed them, shouting “Thief!” without knowing; and the policeman heard them — and so, in an instant, the joke turned into a social tragedy. I saw it in the boy's shudder, as it showed too in the helpless laugh he gave as he panted with fatigue... Some idlers had wanted to amuse themselves; the joke succeeded, and they gathered the passersby around them — but it succeeded still more in destroying a person and creating a social tragedy... So what can this little one do to take his revenge?.. Will he follow the path those heavy-handed jokers wished on him?.. and become a thief tomorrow?.. Or shrink into himself in shame?.. Or trample these trifles underfoot and walk on?.. I do not know what his stand will be; but I do know that merely branding a person with some label may lead him to make it come true.

If you say to a small boy, for instance: “You are a hero,” you will see him strive and struggle to become one by the shortest road; and you break that same little one's resolve the moment you call him a coward... feeble of strength... The adolescent is deeply affected by what is said of him, all the more because he is in a period of transition, of intellectual and emotional unsettlement. How many social tragedies such pranks create...

Shall we not, then, be mindful of the consequences of small things?..