THE DORMITORY.
Look in at the long tiers of beds one above another, like berths in a steam-boat. In number 69 you will find Joe sleeping the sleep of the innocent and weary.
Would not the young people like to hear how Joe happens to be in the Newsboys' Home? I'll tell you. It all came about through Lenny Williams, who is a "call-boy" at one of the small theatres up town, and lives at the Duane Street Lodging-House.
Very late one stormy night in midwinter, as he was coming home from his work, he fancied he heard a child sobbing, and stopping, he discovered by the feeble flickering light of a gas lamp a small figure crouching in the low doorway of one of the old-fashioned shops of that quarter.
His heart gave a great bound of pity and sympathy for the poor homeless little creature so tattered and forlorn. His own jacket was wet without, but within it was dry and warm. To pull it off and place it around the shoulders of the shivering child was but the work of an instant.
"Get up on your pins, little 'un, an' come along with me," said Lenny, assisting him, and buttoning the jacket close under his throat.
With difficulty the poor child, whom you must have guessed before this was Joe Brown, rose and limped along, for he was stiff with cold and weak with hunger.
Before they reached the Lodging-House, Lenny won from him his pitiful story—how, driven from home by the cruelty of his drunken father and step-mother, he had wandered the streets from day to day, managing by dint of begging and running errands, and sleeping in dark corners known only to the wretched and homeless, to keep soul and body together while the fine weather lasted.
A kind old apple woman only yesterday had given him a basket, and some matches to sell; but then came the cold, pitiless rain, and nobody wanted to buy anything; so he had strayed from street to street, until he had lost his way in the dark, and sat down, utterly worn out and famished, where Lenny found him.