CHILDREN'S PAGE.
SHOEBLACK JIM.
In a small, crowded room in one of the rear tenement houses of our great city, where the sun's rays were never known to shine, or the fresh air allowed to penetrate, our little Jim lay dying.
Months before, I one morning saw him standing on a street corner, with his shoe box strapped to his back, calling out in tremulous tones, "Shine, sir?" But the hurrying business men paid little or no attention to the pleading voice or frail form which was swayed to and fro by the bitter, biting December wind. As I handed him a picture paper, I asked, "Are you hungry, my boy?" I noticed the pale, pinched cheeks and the large brown eyes fast filling with tears as he replied, "Yes, miss. I've had nothing to eat since yesterday morning; but granny is worse than me; fur she's had nothing but a cold tater since day 'fore yesterday."
"And who is granny?"
"She lives in the rear alley on Mott; me own mother died over on the island, so granny says, and I guess I never had any father."
"Did you ever go to a Sunday-school or Band of Hope meeting?"
"Laws, no, miss! I've no time. I has to stan' around all day, and then sometimes gits only a couple of shines. Them Italian fellers, with the chairs, takes all the profit of us chaps. Granny says 'tis a hard world."