Prologue
In 1897, Alonzo Liguori a.k.a. 'Skittery' escaped for a second time from the House of Refuge located on Randall's Island alongside his close friends Liam 'Spot' Conlon and Jack Kelly. He hid with this fellow escapees in a carriage belonging to a highly-esteemed character in New York's government, Theodore Roosevelt, and rode it undetected to the Harlem River. There they waited until nightfall before stowing away on a small rowboat which Jack had borrowed from a fisherman while the fisherman wasn't looking, and they found themselves back on the Manhattan streets they'd become so fond of.
This was Skittery's first escape from the House of Refuge in almost three years, and he hoped it would be more successful than the previous attempt. It was Jack's third.
Between 1897 and 1900, Skittery and his comrades including Jack and Spot, as newsboys, made their way in life through the toughest means possible. During the hot summer month of July in 1899, Jack co-organized and led a newsboy strike, outraged by the unfairness of the men they worked for, namely the great Joseph Pulitzer of The World and William Hearst of The Journal. More than 5,000 newsboys shut down New York, clogging the Brooklyn Bridge to gain attention for their cause and stalling city traffic for hours. Within days, distribution of The World and Journal plummeted and ground to a halt.
The aim of the strike was greater than the original goal of the newsies. It created a broad movement of particularly young workers to unionize and demand better working conditions, reasonable hours, and suitable pay. It gave the younger generation of the lower class something to believe in and fight for to ensure a better future for themselves and ultimately for the rest of society.
...
I was born Marie-Celestine-Madeleine-Fournier. I am only 19-years-old, and while most people I know think of me as a young girl, I consider myself an old woman. Though I feel this way, folks often mistake me for much younger than I am. Maybe it is because I look more like a 16-year-old instead of one near 20, all thanks to the baby-face I possess. Or perhaps it is because I lack the confidence and security of a grown, modern woman, especially in the way I sound. I speak softly and intimately, sometimes in a whisper if I let my nerves get the better of me.
Most girls my age turn their attentions toward pursuing men, if they have not already begun to do so. My two older sisters were both married by the time they were my age. But that was a different time, I remind myself, but only by a few years. These young women like my older sisters that I grew up around all look for perfection. They have high expectations, specific standards. They want a man who asks the world from them, and one that they would throw away everything for in order to be with. But typically, that doesn't involve a huge sacrifice nor do they have to give up much, and in the end, he isn't very ideal either.
I suppose I am different from those girls. I wouldn't mind settling for someone as long as I wouldn't have to sacrifice a great deal. . .