The boy had just passed fourteen. He had no time to waste in fighting, for his father was sick at home and the support of the mother and three younger brothers was upon his frail shoulders. That was fifteen years ago, and he still sticks to the corner that is his by right now. And this is how he met his responsibility, for the father died without ever earning another dollar: one brother is a capable engineer connected with one of the great electric companies, another is in the employ of an express company; the third is a stenographer. Fred’s earnings brought them all up and gave them their start. One of the brothers helped him sell papers when not in school. The family have left the tenement where the father died, and live in a nice home. Fred, as I said, sticks to his corner. It is the key-note of the man, as it was of the boy—to stick it out. He has seen the tide of little Italians succeeded by a flood of Jews, big and little, but through it all has held his own serenely. Best of all, he no longer walks with a crutch, though he still limps. Open air plus his dogged grit has triumphed also over this obstacle and made him whole.
A good many years ago word came to the office of the “Sun” that there had been an accident in which a newsboy was hurt. I went out and asked the old news-woman at the bridge entrance who it was. I remember, as though it were yesterday, her answer:
“Little Maher it was.”
“Well, where does he live? Who looks after him?”
“Oh, no one but God; and I guess He is too busy with other folks’ boys to mind him much.”
The little Mahers of that day are happily no more. Society has taken over the duty of looking after them, and attends to it. Their successors follow business principles, but that they have not lost either their wit or their spirits in the change you will discover before you have kept their company long. Last autumn I went to New Haven to lecture and, stepping off the train at dusk, had a paper poked at me by one of the tribe. On the front page was my picture.
“Who is that?” I asked the boy, pointing to it. He took one look at it and at me.
“Oh,” he said, “some old duffer. There’s lots of ’em here.”
“WUXTRY!”