had a pull and Jim Stanton had an older brother--excuses came.
But the boy checked them.

"That's not the point; I didn't make it; I didn't deserve it;
I've been easy on myself; I've got to change; so some day my
people won't be ashamed of me--maybe." Slowly, painfully,
he fought his way to a tentative self-respect. He might not
ever be anything big, a power as his father was, but he could
be a hard worker, he could make a place. A few days before a
famous speaker had given an address on an ethical subject at
Yale. A sentence of it came to the boy's struggling mind.
"The courage of the commonplace is greater than the courage
of the crisis," the orator had said. That was his chance--
"the courage of the commonplace." No fireworks for him, perhaps,
ever, but, by Jove, work and will could do a lot, and he could
prove himself worthy.

"I'm not through yet, but ginger," he said out loud. "I can do
my best anyhow and I'll show if I'm not fit"--the energetic tone
trailed off--he was only a boy of twenty--"not fit to be looked
at," he finished brokenly.

It came to him in a vague, comforting way that probably the best
game a man could play with his life would be to use it as a tool
to do work with; to keep it at its brightest, cleanest, most
efficient for the sake of the work. This boy, of no phenomenal
sort, had one marked quality--when he had made a decision he
acted on it. Tonight through the soreness of a bitter
disappointment he put his finger on the highest note of his
character and resolved. All unknown to himself it was a crisis.