The situation seemed hopeless.

From the first day he entered my junior-high classroom, Willard P. Frank- lin existed in his own world, shutting out his classmates and me, his teacher. My attempts at establishing a friendly relationship with him were met with complete indifference. Even a “Good Morning Willar” received only an inau- dible grunt. I could see that his class- mates fared no better. Willard was strict- ly a loner who seemed to have no desire or need to break his barrier of silence.

Shortly after the Thanksgiving holi- day, we received word of the annual Christmas collection of money for the less fortunate people in our school district.

“Christmas is a season of giving,” I told my students. “There are a few students in the school who might not have a happy holiday season. By contributing to our Christmas collection, you will help buy food, clothing and toys for these needy people. We start the collection tomorrow.”

When I called for the contributions the next day, I discovered that almost everyone had forgotten. Except for Willard P. Franklin. The boy dug deep into his pants pockets as he strolled up to my desk. Carefully, he dropped two quarters into the small container.

“I don’t need no milk for lunch,” he mumbled. For a moment, just a mo- ment, he smiled. Then he turned and walked back to his desk.

That night, after school, I took our meager contributions to the school principal. I couldn’t help sharing the incident that had taken place.

“I may be wrong, but I believe Willard might be getting might be getting ready to become a part of the world around him,” I told the principal.

“Yes, I believe it sounds hopeful,” he nodded. “And I have a hunch we might do well to have him share a bit of his world with us. I just received a list of the poor families in our school who most need help through the Christmas collection. Here, take a look at it.”

As I gazed down to read, I dis- covered Willard P. Franklin and his family were the top names on the list.

情況好像不可救藥了。

自從威拉德·P·富蘭克林進入我教的初中班的那天起，他就把自己封閉了起來，不與其他同學交往，也不與我――他的老師――打交道，完全生活在自己的世界里。我試圖和他建立起一種友好的關系，但卻遭遇冷漠。甚至你跟他說聲“早上好，威拉德”，他的回答也只是一聲幾乎聽不見的咕噥聲。我明白他的同學受到的待遇也好不到哪兒去，而他完全是一個獨行俠，好像不希望也不需要打破這種沉默似的。

感恩節后不久，我們得到一年一度圣誕節募捐的消息，這些錢將用來捐給我們學校所在社區里的窮人。

“圣誕節是個給予的季節，”我告訴學生們，“我們學校有些學生可能不能過一個快樂的節日。你們可以買些食物、衣服或玩具，通過圣誕節的募捐活動，去幫助那些貧困的人。我們明天開始募捐。”

第二天，當我要求募捐的時候，我發現除了威德拉之外，幾乎所有的人都把這件事給忘了。他一邊向我的桌子走來一邊伸手從褲子口袋里掏東西，然后小心翼翼地把兩枚25美分的硬幣丟進小箱子里。

“我午餐不需要喝牛奶，”他小聲說。在那一瞬間，就那一瞬間，他笑了。然后，他轉身回到了自己的座位上。

那天晚上，放學后，我把募捐的這一點錢交給了校長，并且忍不住把當天發生的事告訴了他。

“也許我想錯了，但我相信可能威德拉正在準備成為這個班集體的一份子，”我告訴校長。

“是的，我認為這聽起來有希望，”他點頭說道，“我有一種預感，我們或許可以做得好一點，讓他與我們分享他的世界。我剛收到一份名單，上面是我們學校里最需要通過圣誕節募捐獲得幫助的貧困人員名單。這個，你看一下。”

我低頭仔細一看，發現威德拉·P·富蘭克林和他的家庭排在名單的最前面。