Almost all heads of families ten years and under, become newsboys.
Twenty-five cents given him by an old woman who sold apples and peanuts, and who, by the way, was not much better off than he was himself, started him in business.
But the business, I am sorry to say, scarcely paid the rent, leaving nothing for clothing, food and fire, three very necessary things,—be a home ever so humble.
So every morning, almost as soon as the day dawned—and I can tell you day dawns very quickly in a room where the window hasn’t a scrap of shade or curtain—before he went down town for his stock of morning papers, Carl started out to bring home the family fuel.
This consisted of whatever sticks and bits of wood he could find lying about the streets, and whatever cinders and pieces of coal he could pick from the ash-barrels and boxes.
If the weather was at all mild, Tony, the eldest sister, and the housekeeper, went with him, and helped him fill the old pail.
She carried a forlorn-looking basket, that seemed ashamed of the old piece of rope that served for its handle, and stopped on her way home at several houses, where the servant girls had taken a fancy to the gray-eyed, shy little thing, to get the family marketing.
But alas! very very often the supply fell far short of the demand, for the winter had been a very severe one, and everybody had such a number of calls from all sorts of needy people, that they could afford to give but little to each one.
This particular March morning Carl went out alone, wondering as he went when “the fortune” was going to “turn up.”
For these poor children, shut out from dolls, fairy-books, and all things that make childhood merry and bright, used to while away many an hour, talking of “a fortune” which the brother had prophesied would one day be found in the ashes.