Newspaper Page Text
306 THE
The Family
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AT THE DOOR.
I thought myself indeed secure.
So fast the door, so firm the lock;
But, lo! ho toddling comes to lure
My parent ear with timorous knock.
My heart were stone could it withstand
The sweetness of my baby's plea,
That timorous, baby knocking, and,
"Please let me in, it's only me."
I threw aside the unfinished book,
Regardless of its tempting charms;
And, opening wide the door, I took
My laughing darling in my arms.
Who knows but in eternity
I, like a truant child, shall wait?
The glories of a life to be,
Beyond the heavenly Father's gate?
And will that heavenly Father heed
The truant's supplicating cry,
As at the outer door I plead,
"'Tis I, O Father, only I?"
?Eugene Field.
TRUE STORY OF A FOOTLESS BOY.
By Belle V. Chrisholm.
Sandy was a bright little newsboy who
lost both his feet in a street car accident.
He bore his pain and misfortune
bravely while in the hospital?but after
he went home, it fretted him greatly to
see his poor mother bending over the
washtub day after day to buy him food
and shelter.
One day when Snap and Chubby, two
of his newsy friends, came to see him,
they found him in tears, because the
aeent had thrpafonpH t/-> turn thom n.,*
on the street if the rent for the two poor
little rooms was not paid by Saturday.
"He dassent," said Chubby, shaking
his fist determinedly. "He'd have to answer
to the newsies if he tried such a
game."
"What'd he care for the newsies?" retorted
Sandy. "He's got the law on his
side."
I"And the cops," put in Snap.
"And the use of his two feet," added
Sandy, glancing at his empty trouser
legs. "If I only had a wheel chair like
blind Jimmy, the fiddler, I'd get me a corner
somewhere and sell papers enough
to Keep mammy and myself, too. But of
course I can never get one, for they cost
a heap of money."
"Well, don't fret about It, sonny," comforted
Snap. "Me and Chubby'll help out
about the rent."
"No, you won't," exclaimed Sandy.
"Think I'm going to be a hanger-on to
you'ns or anybody?"
"Hold on, sonny," argued Chubby.
"Hain't we all newsies, and hain't we a
right to help one another? You can borrow
of us at nny rate, and we're goln'
to find you a first-class corner, where you
can sell all the papers you're a-mind
to."
.
: PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SOI
"And we'll get you to it. sure," put
in Snap, "on our shoulders if no other
way"
"I've got an idea, Snappy," said Chubby
as they hurried off to deliver their
evening papers. "The President's train
is to pass through town Friday night,
you know. What's the matter with
gettin' all our money changed into pennies
and puttin' 'em on the rails just be
lore the train is due, and havin' 'em
mashed into Presidential souvenirs to sell
for Sandy's chair?"
"Bully!" exclaimed Snap. "We'll have
a fine chance of sellin' 'em at the football
game Saturday, in time to pay Sanday's
rent."
"We'll get uncle Billy, the tollgate man,
to help us punch holes and put the
strings in em," confided Chubby.
"He'll do it all right," agreed Snap,
"because he knows what it is to go hobblin'
through life on one leg."
They had two dollars and fifty cents
between them saved up, and by extra
work Thursday and Friday increased the
amount to five dollars?five hundred pennies?all
of which were crushed into
Presidential souvenirs, punched, corded
and sold at ten cents each, during the
ball game, thus realizing them fifty dollars.
Striking a bargain of a second-hand
wheel chair, for ten dollars, they surprised
Sandy with the gift, and after paying
the rent gave the remainder of the
money to his mother for him.
Sandy protested against taking so
much, but Snap insisted it would be getting
money on false pretenses if they
kept it, since people bought the souvenirs
with the understanding that the money
raised was for the use of the fnntiooo
boj', and could not be diverted to any
other purpose.
A good corner was selected for Sandy,
and not only his chums, Snap and Chubby,
but all the newsboys in the locality
were loyal to him and refused to sell papers
in his section without turning the
money over to him.
The "cops," too, guarded his corner
faithfully, and when the stormy weather
set in, he was provided with a warm
nook on the first floor of a many storied
office building, where, from a little window,
he could dispose of his papers without
exposing himself.
This autumn the office men in the
building clubbed together to set him ?n
in business, and the result is, Sandy has
a little "news depot" of his own, where
all the late magazines and popular weeklies
have been added to his supply of
dailies, while his income has been increased
to figures that promise new
wooden legs in the near future.?Ex.
There is no heroic way to heaven?
none but the old prosaic road of faithful
effort and unwearied diligence. That is
the road our Leader trod before us; and
it is only while we trace the narrow pathway
where his feet have been that we
can see the splendor of the unseen world
through which our journey lies.
JTH March 9, 1910.
BILLY.
One day Billy was a stranger; at the
end of a week he was as much at home
as any boy on tho street.
"We are glad he came," Teddy Farr
said. "We like him."
And the other boys said pretty much
the same thing.
"Why is this Billy such a favorite?"
Mr. Farr asked Mrs. Farr.
"l don't know yet," said Mrs. Farr. "1
am watching to find out."
When three more weeks had passed,
she thought she knew.
A group of boys were out in front of
her gate one afternoon, and she heard
one of them say: "Pshaw! What can we
play? I wish the snow hadn't all gone into
mud."
"We had just finished our fort," said
another, "and were ready to begin, but it
washed down in the night."
"Anyway, we had fun making it," said
Billy. "Let's not waste the whole afternoon.
Let's start and play something that
doesn't need snow."
When Mrs. Farr looked again, they
were sailing ships down the gutter and
discovered the Mississippi with great ex
citement.
Another time Teddy had to go on an
errand, and asked the others to keep
him company.
"O, we can't!" objected somebody;
"we've got it all planned to walk out in
the other direction and see the place
where the fire was last night."
"Why wouldn't it do," said Billy, "to go
with Teddy first? We needn't come all the
way back, need we? There ought to be
some short cuts, I should think."
Well, when they had put their heads
together, they remembered that there
were.
Then there was the day when Joe Hall
lost his arithmetic. Joe and Billy were
the best in the school in arithmetic. Joe
hated to miss any of his lessons.
"Never mind," said Billy. "My book
will do for both until yours turns up. We
are pretty quick at it, you know. We
can manage."
When the mud froze hard and the snow
came again, and the boys brought out
their sleds to go coasting, Billy appeared
with the funniest home made one that
was ever seen. "It isn't very pretty," he
said cheerfully when the others were trying
to be polite and look as if they saw
nothing different in it, "but it will do.
When you go scudding downhill on it, the
feeling is just the same."
"If," said Teddy during a rainy recess,
"Will Pritchard had only come to school
today, we could try that new game he
was telling us about."
"T.pt'e if" * * * *
_j ii mi.vway, said Hilly. "We
can play all we remember and make up
the rest. That will do until we can get
the real thing."
On one sad afternoon, when they were
having a game of ball in the school yard.
Hilly broke a cellar window. After a
crash there was a pause of dismay.
"We must have kept getting nearer to
the house without noticing it," said Billy,