“And he did it, sir—trudging through rain and cold,
Nor stopped till the last of his sheets was sold;
But he’s dead—he’s dead! and we miss him so!
And mother—she thought you might like to know!”
In the paper, next morning, as “leader,” ran
A paragraph thus: “The newsboy Dan,
One of God’s little heroes, who
Did nobly the duty he had to do—
For mother and sister earning bread,
By patient endurance and toil—is dead.”