Dan, the Newsboy

by Jr. Horatio Alger

CHAPTER II. DAN AT HOME.

While Dan was strong, sturdy, and the picture of health, his mother was evidently an invalid. She was pale, thin, and of delicate appearance. She was sitting in a cane-seated rocking-chair, which Dan had bought second-hand on one of his flush days at a small place on the Bowery. She looked up with a glad smile when Dan entered.

"I am so glad to see you, my dear boy," she said.

"Have you been lonely, mother?" asked Dan, kissing her affectionately.

"Yes, Dan, it is lonely sitting here hour after hour without you, but I have my work to think of."

"I wish you didn't have to work, mother," said Dan. "You are not strong enough. I ought to earn enough to support us both."

"Don't trouble yourself about that, my dear boy. I should feel more lonely if I had nothing to do."

"But you work all the time. I don't like to have you do that."

In truth the mother was very tired, and her feeble fingers were cramped with the stitch, stitch, stitch in endless repetition, but she put on a cheerful countenance.