The Lame Shall Enter First

The main character of this story is a man named Shepard. Now what is there to say about Shepard? Shepard is the kind of man that goes above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to helping complete and utter strangers. However, he is very slow to react when his own son is calling out for help. Shepard decides that it is his duty to take on a young boy named Rufus Johnson. Now Johnson has had quite the life. His mother is in jail, his grandfather beats him and he himself gets in trouble with the law. Shepard sees the boy has potential and decides that he should come and stay with him and his son Norton at his house. Johnson does anything he possibly can to get Shepard to hate him, but Shepard keeps on giving him eternal love. He treats him "better than his own son". Shepard cant even take two seconds to look around at his own life and see that there are other people in the world other than Johnson. Shepard says he is doing it to take his mind off of his wife's death. He wants his son to be just as generous as he his. He says it will help his son to forget his mother. Shepard actually tells his son to forget his mother and to move on with his life. Johnson takes full advantage of the situation in order to build Shepard's trust. He breaks into houses and because Shepard is so trusting Johnson gets away with it. This is just what Johnson wanted, but Shepard soon catches on and in the end Johnson gets what he deserves. Through all of this effort to help an ungrateful child, Norton only wishes his father would pay more attention to him. Norton tells his father that but Shepard is to busy to notice. In the end though it is too late. Shepard is too late to give the same eternal love to his own son. Everything he did was for nothing.