Sunlight filtered throughout the train car as Cristian Davids opened his eyes.

He yawned and stretched as the train hit the last stop: New York City.
He grabbed his bag, which was full of his only stuff; his bits of money and his ragged blanket.
He put his plain gray and brown cap on over his black hair and adjusted the straps on his red suspenders.

Cristian jumped the train and headed out to the Newsboy's Lodging House.
It was a hard walk and Cristian was real tired by the time he finally got there.

Cristian was a poor kid who had no place in the world.
Even his own parents didn't want or liked him.

His parents were right nasty and had hit him daily when he was just a kid and now he was setting out from a starving place in Iowa to New York.
He had hopes of gaining some cash by becoming a newsie.

He was making his way down Bronx when a kid bumped into him. He was carrying a big stack of papes.
"Aw! Make sure ya watch where ya goin', you beaney!"
Cristian turned and scowled at him. Beaney, Chink...it was all the same. People making fun of his own ethnics wherever he went.

The kid who had bumped him was a newsie, with a raggy white shirt, dark blue suspenders and a black cap.

He had yellowy hair and gray-blue eyes and a cool, heart-shaped face, not like Cristian, who had black hair and slender greenish brown eyes and a sort of nice oval for a face.
Not that he cared much about what he looked like.
He was Cristian Davids, and that was right fine by him.
The other boy was real tall, not like Cristian, who was shorter and skinny and shrimpier and the other boy was also white while Cristian had real tan skin and freckles.
Cristian was a part Chinese and a part Mexican or maybe white but he wasn't real sure.

Cristian tried straightening up. "I ain't no beaney, and we both bumped into each'oer!"
He thought the kid was gonna laugh at him or something, but the kid just grinned at him.
"Maybe you ain't. And maybe we did. I was jus' annoyed about droppin' me papes. Me name's Victor Snipeshooter Jillan, but everybody's calls me Snipey. Wha's yours?"

Cristian grinned right back.

"Cristian Davids, but I go with Cricket."
"Nice name, pal. Say, you a newsie?"
"Not yet, but I wanna be. I mean, I ain't got nowhere else to go."

Snipey picked up his papes and patted Cricket on the back.

"Well, ya came to the right place. Here, where all the orphans an' runaways an' poor kids come to stay. And earn a few bucks or two."

He started to walk away. "Now, c'mon, before we both get in trouble fer bein' late."

And with that, Cricket followed his new friend, not sure of what would be waiting for him at the end of the journey.
But it was worth a dang shot.