You who do not live in a cellar, and do not get shoved about and slapped as Biddy did, can hardly imagine how glad she was that no one happened to take notice of her.
She hid Dolly under the straw where she was to sleep at night, and then hurried out to pick over as many more ash cans and barrels as she could, in hopes of finding something this time which would please Mrs. Brown, so that she could dare to show her doll, and perhaps be allowed to sit up and play with it a little.
Mrs. Brown was the cross old woman who kept the cellar, and the children on the street called her "Grumpy."
Biddy did not find anything in particular, and got fewer pennies than usual for errands and for showing people the way to places, so that old Mrs. Brown was very cross indeed, and Biddy went to bed without daring to pull Dolly out where she could see her. She lay awake, with her hand on it, waiting for Charley.
Charley was a newsboy, but he was not a lucky little boy. He had the large and beautiful deep blue eyes you may often see in the children of Irish immigrants. But he was weak in body, and very shy. He lived as Biddy did, among rough people, who were all the more rough because they were so poor and miserable. So he got knocked about a great deal, and stood no chance at all among other newsboys, who shoved him aside, and called their papers so loud that Charley's thin voice could not be heard. Some newsboys make money selling papers—make so much that they can start in other kinds of business for themselves, and get on very well in the world among other successful men. I have seen this kind of newsboy. They have bright, sharp, old-looking faces. They have wiry, strong bodies, good health, and seem to be afraid of nothing.
Charley wasn't this sort of boy at all. He got poked, and pushed, and cuffed, and tripped up, and laughed at. The girls called him "fraid-cat," because they thought he was a coward. The boys said he was just like a girl, and shouted, "Hallo, Polly!" when they saw him. Charley did not say much to all this. He went with his papers every day, and managed to sell a few; and, besides, he did errands quickly and well. In these ways he earned enough to pay for his straw in Mrs. Brown's cellar, and to buy enough to eat to keep life in him.
Charley's straw was next to Biddy's straw, and when he came in that night Biddy whispered to him all about her doll, telling him especially how one of its arms was broken off at the elbow. Charley put out his hand in the dark, and asked her to let him take the doll a moment. He felt it over carefully, and gave it back without saying anything. Biddy whispered a little more, and then they went to sleep.
One day Biddy happened to come in a little after noon. She was going right out again; but first she stooped, and felt under her straw—the doll was gone! Biddy sat down, quite faint for a moment; then she sprang to her feet, darted up the cellar steps, and around the corner where old Mrs. Brown sat behind her apple and candy stand. Biddy reached over and put both hands in the knot of gray hair in the old woman's neck, pulling as if she would carry her off, stand and all.
Biddy's face was pale, and her eyes were like white-hot coals, as she gasped out:
"Give it me! Give it me! I'll never leave go till ye give it me!"