A Boy from the Streets
Minute by minute. Hour by hour. Day by day. Fighting to survive and struggling to live. That was how he lived his life. Spending nights in a dark and damp alley and days pick- pocketing, stealing fruits and vegetables from nearby stands, and begging. He couldn't stand the begging. He had to force his eyes to look subservient, to humble himself in front of these proud people too puffed up with their own importance to even look at the small dirty boy, standing with an outstretched hand on the corner.
In time the boy grew taller and the hand larger. So much so that not as many people would put pennies and nickels into the boys hand. It was okay that way, though. Because the boy had made himself an expert at pick-pocketing. He had no remorse for his life of crime either. He had never known any ethics or moral standards. So he became what people up in the high and clean apartment buildings called, a creature of the streets.
That was until he got into a fight. He hadn't been looking for it either. Just picked the wrong pocket and two hours later found himself in a dingy old hospital with shards of glass stuck in his eye. So he lost his left eye and with it, what he thought was his life. It was back to corners and begging for the boy. Left with only one-dimensional sight he couldn't pick pockets or steal anymore.
He felt empty from lack of food and depressed from his pathetic life. He left his begging corner and wandered through the city, with his simple plea "Please sir", and his outstretched arm.
One night, dark and cold, he searched in need of shelter from the biting cold and winds. He couldn't find anything, not even an abandoned cardboard box in some alley. He knew he would die if he didn't get food into him. So he tried stealing again, like he used to, and failed, miserably. He wound up in a place called the Refuge. It was a horrible place, governed by a horrible man named Snyder. To the boy, though, it was a bed and a mildly warm room.
He counted himself lucky, at first. That was until he regained enough sense and strength to look around him. Even with one eye he could see the corruption of Warden Snyder, how they received only the most meager of rations while Snyder feasted on delicacies. In this horrible dreaded place he saw Snyder steal food from the mouths of hungry orphans and runaways. From then on he made a solemn vow never to steal again. Out of this dungeon came a changed boy. Not only that, but he formed a kinship with the boys there. They allied themselves together to protest Snyder's injustices.
One boy in particular he looked up to. His name was Jack. Jack Kelley. When he talked about busting out of the refuge he talked like someone who knew he could do it. So the boy listened to him and he listened well.
Then the time came. Jack was leaving. In the midst of a grand visit from Theodore Roosevelt, Jack made his escape. So did the boy. He followed Jack's example and then he was free. Free to fulfill his solemn vows that he had made in the refuge. Only it wasn't so easy. He had forgotten how much an empty stomach and cold body could influence a person. Several times he was tempted. He saw easy prey. Even with his patch he probably could have done it, but he stayed away. He made himself strong and didn't succumb. Then one day he was rewarded.
"Hey kid!"
The boy turned around.
"Yeah you kid. Don't I know you?" the same person said. It was Jack. A smile of happiness spread over the boy's face.
"Yeah, from the refuge," Jack continued,"I knew you looked familyah." After spitting in his hand, he offered it to the boy. "Good to see ya again. Patrick, right?"
"Yeah," Patrick said, following Jack's example. A thrill ran through him that he had made enough of a mark in the world to have his name remembered.
"What are ya doin hangin around heah?" Jack asked.
Patrick face turned red. The pennies clenched in his hand grew sweaty. "Um..Uh."
"Hey listen, I got some friends I want ya tah meet," Jack said, realizing his mistake. "But first I gotta finish sellin me papes. Wanna help?"
So Patrick helped Jack sell his papes and was introduced to his friends. Sometime during that night he became a newsie. He learned how to sell papes from Jack, how to play poker from Racetrack, how to spit, and walk and talk like you owned the world from various newsies.
Even with that he still felt separate from the newsies. Something held him back from their daily brawls and kept him quiet when they bickered or fought. He hardly noticed it and certainly none of the others did.
It showed up one day when he and Boots were sitting on the corner and someone flung a nickel at them. It was the same graceful throwing that Patrick had seen so many times before from an arm that belonged to a member of higher society. A person with the careful upturned nose and dainty white gloves that Patrick remembered so well.
"Hey we don't want your money!" Patrick yelled flinging the nickel hard at the passing lady. She hardly turned around. Patrick's eyes were's burning. His mind was consumed with the hatred he felt for his past lowly position. He turned back to his friend's startled gaze. Quickly he lowered his eyes to the ground.
Later he found Jack waiting for him by his bunk at the Newsboys lodging house.
"Hey Kid Blink!" Jack yelled, as Kid entered the door.
"Huh?"
"Kid Blink!"
The name Kid Blink soon became synonymous throughout New York with the tall, blond, one eyed boy from the Manhattan newsies. Through it all Kid Blink still retained his hatred of begging. When he went to buy his papers one day and found that they had jacked up the price he smelled trouble. He didn't know what would happen. Would they just take it or would they resort to more violent actions? Most of all he wondered what would happen if they all quit. "They can't quit," Kid though, "how will they live?" They didn't know a starving stomach like Kid did and they definitely didn't realize the desperate levels a person can stoop to when they're hungry.
Kid didn't know what to do. He could feel the energy in the air around him. He didn't want to just "take it", but what else could he do? He had backed himself into a corner. Letting Pulitzer get the best of the newsies would just go back to the same principal of why he hated begging, but standing up and letting the world know might force him to beg, or worse. So what could he do it was one of those positions where there are no right answers.
Kid chose to help, but only with half a heart. He acted on the outside like he fully supported the strike, but on the inside he was in turmoil. When Jack called for help he offered to be embassador to Harlem, but in the back of his mind he was thinking of how that would help him gouge the resistance of the other newsies. When he came back with bad news he wasn't all sorry.
Still something made him hope and believe that the strike could go on. When they all beat up the scabbers that were trying to sell papes it was a momentary lapse. He forgot the dangers that could come of the strike and let himself go.
Kid Blink may have been poor in money, but as far as friends went, he was rich. Jack could tell something was wrong. He was the one Kid Blink could talk to. He had saved Kid Blink from the orphanage, when he taught him how to escape. He saved him from hunger, stealing and begging, when he invited him to be a newsie. Now came the hardest test he had to save Kid from himself. Kid had made a tactful error. He had made promises not realizing that the world isn't perfect. He had never thought about compromises about how sometimes you have to do things you don't like because the alternative is worse. So Jack had to teach that to Kid and it wasn't promising to be an easy lesson.
"Hey Kid!" Jack called from across the square.
Kid Blink crossed over to where he stood.
"You know, ya haven't been acting like your self lately. So I just wanted tah know if dere was something wrong witcha," Jack said.
"What he's got stomach problems?!" Racetrack called loudly.
"Hey shut up!" Jack said.
Kid Blink looked around at the newsies and then at the ground.
"Hey listen," Jack said, trying a different approach, " we all gotta do things we don't like sometimes. You think I enjoy bein thrown out of buildings and laughed at."
Kid looked up. It was true he wasn't the only one with problems. It probably was pretty embarrassing to Jack when the office boy threw him out and then he had to tell the story over to everyone to explain it.
"Look I don't know anything about where you come from. But I know one thing. You got the newsies now. Whatever it is that's botherin ya it don't matter no more. We stick together," Jack said.
Kid was still silent.
"You know, maybe you should tell me what we's doin heah dat you find so wrong," Jack said, growing angry. "What?! You tink it's bettah if we just let Pulitzer steal from us? Cause you know dat's what he's doing. I know you don't like humbling yourself, but neither does anyone else heah, and dat's what we's gonna be doin if we don't fight!"
Kid looked up at Jack. He was right. He disliked begging, but even more than that he disliked being taken advantage of. He would stop this right now and get rid of his anger so he could join his friends with a whole heart.
"Now if you'll excuse me I gotta go get ready for dah rally at which I'll probably be laughed at some more," Jack said, walking away.
Kid never voiced an answer in words. He only showed it through his whole hearted support of Jack. When Jack turned scabber, he felt inwardly sick, like the person who had preached friendship had given up on it. But just as deep as the sorrow so shall be the joy. When Jack realized his mistake, the impossibility of him being a scabber, and they won the strike Kid was even more ecstatic than the people who had been in it from the beginning.
THE END
Minute by minute. Hour by hour. Day by day. Fighting to survive and struggling to live. That was how he lived his life. Spending nights in a dark and damp alley and days pick- pocketing, stealing fruits and vegetables from nearby stands, and begging. He couldn't stand the begging. He had to force his eyes to look subservient, to humble himself in front of these proud people too puffed up with their own importance to even look at the small dirty boy, standing with an outstretched hand on the corner.
In time the boy grew taller and the hand larger. So much so that not as many people would put pennies and nickels into the boys hand. It was okay that way, though. Because the boy had made himself an expert at pick-pocketing. He had no remorse for his life of crime either. He had never known any ethics or moral standards. So he became what people up in the high and clean apartment buildings called, a creature of the streets.
That was until he got into a fight. He hadn't been looking for it either. Just picked the wrong pocket and two hours later found himself in a dingy old hospital with shards of glass stuck in his eye. So he lost his left eye and with it, what he thought was his life. It was back to corners and begging for the boy. Left with only one-dimensional sight he couldn't pick pockets or steal anymore.
He felt empty from lack of food and depressed from his pathetic life. He left his begging corner and wandered through the city, with his simple plea "Please sir", and his outstretched arm.
One night, dark and cold, he searched in need of shelter from the biting cold and winds. He couldn't find anything, not even an abandoned cardboard box in some alley. He knew he would die if he didn't get food into him. So he tried stealing again, like he used to, and failed, miserably. He wound up in a place called the Refuge. It was a horrible place, governed by a horrible man named Snyder. To the boy, though, it was a bed and a mildly warm room.
He counted himself lucky, at first. That was until he regained enough sense and strength to look around him. Even with one eye he could see the corruption of Warden Snyder, how they received only the most meager of rations while Snyder feasted on delicacies. In this horrible dreaded place he saw Snyder steal food from the mouths of hungry orphans and runaways. From then on he made a solemn vow never to steal again. Out of this dungeon came a changed boy. Not only that, but he formed a kinship with the boys there. They allied themselves together to protest Snyder's injustices.
One boy in particular he looked up to. His name was Jack. Jack Kelley. When he talked about busting out of the refuge he talked like someone who knew he could do it. So the boy listened to him and he listened well.
Then the time came. Jack was leaving. In the midst of a grand visit from Theodore Roosevelt, Jack made his escape. So did the boy. He followed Jack's example and then he was free. Free to fulfill his solemn vows that he had made in the refuge. Only it wasn't so easy. He had forgotten how much an empty stomach and cold body could influence a person. Several times he was tempted. He saw easy prey. Even with his patch he probably could have done it, but he stayed away. He made himself strong and didn't succumb. Then one day he was rewarded.
"Hey kid!"
The boy turned around.
"Yeah you kid. Don't I know you?" the same person said. It was Jack. A smile of happiness spread over the boy's face.
"Yeah, from the refuge," Jack continued,"I knew you looked familyah." After spitting in his hand, he offered it to the boy. "Good to see ya again. Patrick, right?"
"Yeah," Patrick said, following Jack's example. A thrill ran through him that he had made enough of a mark in the world to have his name remembered.
"What are ya doin hangin around heah?" Jack asked.
Patrick face turned red. The pennies clenched in his hand grew sweaty. "Um..Uh."
"Hey listen, I got some friends I want ya tah meet," Jack said, realizing his mistake. "But first I gotta finish sellin me papes. Wanna help?"
So Patrick helped Jack sell his papes and was introduced to his friends. Sometime during that night he became a newsie. He learned how to sell papes from Jack, how to play poker from Racetrack, how to spit, and walk and talk like you owned the world from various newsies.
Even with that he still felt separate from the newsies. Something held him back from their daily brawls and kept him quiet when they bickered or fought. He hardly noticed it and certainly none of the others did.
It showed up one day when he and Boots were sitting on the corner and someone flung a nickel at them. It was the same graceful throwing that Patrick had seen so many times before from an arm that belonged to a member of higher society. A person with the careful upturned nose and dainty white gloves that Patrick remembered so well.
"Hey we don't want your money!" Patrick yelled flinging the nickel hard at the passing lady. She hardly turned around. Patrick's eyes were's burning. His mind was consumed with the hatred he felt for his past lowly position. He turned back to his friend's startled gaze. Quickly he lowered his eyes to the ground.
Later he found Jack waiting for him by his bunk at the Newsboys lodging house.
"Hey Kid Blink!" Jack yelled, as Kid entered the door.
"Huh?"
"Kid Blink!"
The name Kid Blink soon became synonymous throughout New York with the tall, blond, one eyed boy from the Manhattan newsies. Through it all Kid Blink still retained his hatred of begging. When he went to buy his papers one day and found that they had jacked up the price he smelled trouble. He didn't know what would happen. Would they just take it or would they resort to more violent actions? Most of all he wondered what would happen if they all quit. "They can't quit," Kid though, "how will they live?" They didn't know a starving stomach like Kid did and they definitely didn't realize the desperate levels a person can stoop to when they're hungry.
Kid didn't know what to do. He could feel the energy in the air around him. He didn't want to just "take it", but what else could he do? He had backed himself into a corner. Letting Pulitzer get the best of the newsies would just go back to the same principal of why he hated begging, but standing up and letting the world know might force him to beg, or worse. So what could he do it was one of those positions where there are no right answers.
Kid chose to help, but only with half a heart. He acted on the outside like he fully supported the strike, but on the inside he was in turmoil. When Jack called for help he offered to be embassador to Harlem, but in the back of his mind he was thinking of how that would help him gouge the resistance of the other newsies. When he came back with bad news he wasn't all sorry.
Still something made him hope and believe that the strike could go on. When they all beat up the scabbers that were trying to sell papes it was a momentary lapse. He forgot the dangers that could come of the strike and let himself go.
Kid Blink may have been poor in money, but as far as friends went, he was rich. Jack could tell something was wrong. He was the one Kid Blink could talk to. He had saved Kid Blink from the orphanage, when he taught him how to escape. He saved him from hunger, stealing and begging, when he invited him to be a newsie. Now came the hardest test he had to save Kid from himself. Kid had made a tactful error. He had made promises not realizing that the world isn't perfect. He had never thought about compromises about how sometimes you have to do things you don't like because the alternative is worse. So Jack had to teach that to Kid and it wasn't promising to be an easy lesson.
"Hey Kid!" Jack called from across the square.
Kid Blink crossed over to where he stood.
"You know, ya haven't been acting like your self lately. So I just wanted tah know if dere was something wrong witcha," Jack said.
"What he's got stomach problems?!" Racetrack called loudly.
"Hey shut up!" Jack said.
Kid Blink looked around at the newsies and then at the ground.
"Hey listen," Jack said, trying a different approach, " we all gotta do things we don't like sometimes. You think I enjoy bein thrown out of buildings and laughed at."
Kid looked up. It was true he wasn't the only one with problems. It probably was pretty embarrassing to Jack when the office boy threw him out and then he had to tell the story over to everyone to explain it.
"Look I don't know anything about where you come from. But I know one thing. You got the newsies now. Whatever it is that's botherin ya it don't matter no more. We stick together," Jack said.
Kid was still silent.
"You know, maybe you should tell me what we's doin heah dat you find so wrong," Jack said, growing angry. "What?! You tink it's bettah if we just let Pulitzer steal from us? Cause you know dat's what he's doing. I know you don't like humbling yourself, but neither does anyone else heah, and dat's what we's gonna be doin if we don't fight!"
Kid looked up at Jack. He was right. He disliked begging, but even more than that he disliked being taken advantage of. He would stop this right now and get rid of his anger so he could join his friends with a whole heart.
"Now if you'll excuse me I gotta go get ready for dah rally at which I'll probably be laughed at some more," Jack said, walking away.
Kid never voiced an answer in words. He only showed it through his whole hearted support of Jack. When Jack turned scabber, he felt inwardly sick, like the person who had preached friendship had given up on it. But just as deep as the sorrow so shall be the joy. When Jack realized his mistake, the impossibility of him being a scabber, and they won the strike Kid was even more ecstatic than the people who had been in it from the beginning.
THE END