One brisk winter morning, a grey feather and the breeze made love. After they were through the feather fluttered towards me. It was snowing and I couldn't remember how long I had been outside. I blinked but it appeared that my eyelashes were prey to too many snowflakes; thus I began to pay attention to the world beyond my eyelashes. Struggling to remember some nuance of how I had come to this chillly demise I wondered if perhaps I was dead. The crunching of snow hovered about me, under determined feet and I heard shouting. I squeezed my toes, clenched my fists, straightened my legs and sat up. It was surprising that I acheived this, as I had not known that I had been lying down.

I did not reckognize my location, except that I had been lying in a snowdrift, almost completely covered. I breathed deeply and stood, catching my balace by sheer luck. At last I placed my hands in my pockets and began to walk. It was then that thoughts began to race through my head; where was I? why was I here? was I running from someone? what was my story? I felt a paper in my pocket. Extracting it I found it was a train ticket stub, ripped in half reading only "Departure City: CHESAPEAKE" I had walked no more than ten feet when I began to feel faint. I searched my surroundings and my memory for lodging and safety. At last, fatigued and nearly frozen I fell to my knees. I could hear the cries of the newsboys as my world sifted into blackness.

**

Color seeped back into the world- it was warm and brown. A quilt was wrapped around me and I was lying on a bed. I tried to speak. Something around me stirred. A girl with flaming red hair stopped writing and examined me. Her voice was deafening, "She's moving!" There were more scrambling noises until I blinked and finally fully awoke.

"Whoa."

BR CH2

The crowd around me hovered in interest. I sat up and looked at them. "Where's Richard?" I asked, becoming aware of a few sore spots on my torso and face.

Blankness registered on each face. I sighed. "Where have I been?"

A short girl with auburn hair smiled and began her answer, "Giggles," she motioned to a girl with long brown hair and green eyes, "She found ya passed out an' preddy badly beaten in da snow and brought ya heah. Evah since we'se been takin' toins watchin' you ta see when ya wake up." She must have noticed my confusion deepen, "I'se Smalls, and you're in New York City, da bourough of Manhattan. Dis is da newsies lodgin' house."

Giggles... giggled. I could see why she had been so christened. She was not much taller than Smalls. "I'm from Chesapeake Beach, Maryland," I told her, "My father was employed by Chesapeake Beach Railway Company. I was traveling to New York with Richard... my boyfriend. We were eloping..." I spoke softly, almost wistfully.

"Well, welcome ta Manhattan. We'se gotta get down ta da distribution centah... Someone wanna stay wid' ouah new friend Chesapeake?" said a boy with a bright blonde dutch-boy.

"I'll do it," Giggles offered, "I'll show you around the joint, let you get comfortable. Maybe we'll even go to a few other bouroughs and see about Richard."

"But foist," said Smalls, "Dis is Dutchy," the blonde boy nodded; "Dis is Fiahcrackah," she said hey and tossed her hair over her shoulder; "Bittah," was blonde; "Mush," looked innocent; "Blaze" was quiet with curly blonde hair; and "Bumlets," was agile with black hair. I waved to them all and watched them file out the door before turning to Giggles, my tourguide, expectantly.

She smiled, "This is the girls bunkroom. I guess you can keep the bunk you're on, unless you don't like it." I shrugged and smiled. I was sure any bunk would be fine. "Do you think you can stand on your own? You were pretty near frozen when I found you." I nodded, attempting on my meager knees to stand. My black hair fell in curls around me. Memory now returned of evenings past since that day in the snow when young girls had argued over who would comb my hair.

"How old are you?" Giggles asked, thoughtfully.

"Seventeen," I said, "You?"

"Sixteen. Do you know your real name? We've been calling you Chesapeake. Is that alright with you?"

I breathed deeply. The thought had not occurred to me that I might be staying with these people for a long time- in search of my fiancé. Frankly, I did not care what they called me. "My name is Lynn Bailey. You can call me whatever you like." A pause ensued where I was unsure of what to do.

Giggles then took charge, leading me into the washroom, the boys' bunkroom, the boys' washroom, the lobby, and Kloppman's office. I met Kloppman, and signed into his book. All that business settled, my mind was not at ease. "Do you think you could help me find Richard, Giggles?"

BR CH3

Over the course of the next few months, the newsies and I searched high and low for any Richard from the bay area, to no avail. It was likely, they told me, that the same thugs who had beaten me and stolen my bags had beaten and killed him. I sulked. More often than sulking, I dreamt. The fantasies I had were so elaborate that at times I found myself speaking of them as fact. But I grew close with the newsies and became one of them. They were my friends in a place where I should have been friendless. Slowly I stopped dreaming and gave up Richard for dead.

Until one day, trucking along near tenth street, jingling the coins in my pockets. Life was looking up. It was the middle of spring- the world was beginning again. I wandered into the Lodging House, humming a cheery tune, victim of some spring-fever-like ailment. Kloppman intercepted me on the way in. "Chesa," he called, before I had time to rush up the stairs, "There's a boy been lookin' fer ya. Says ya know 'im. 'E's waitin' fer ya by yer bunk."

My heart leapt. Could it be that all these months, my belovèd had been searching for me as determined as I had been searching for him. I squealed, clutched my skirts and raced up the stairs.

His frame was slighter than before, when I reached the top. He sat on my bunk, looking out the window. I began to cry- he looked up, and we rushed to embrace each other. "Richard!" I exclaimed and refused to let go of him. He kissed my neck, sighing. My thoughts raced, everything inside me was alive, "Where have you been all this time?"

He sat, looking up at me lovingly. I marvelled again, re-infatuated, at his eyes and his face and his hair. "Can't we forget all that's happened here," he said, "And go home?"

"CHESA!" called Smalls as she and the others gallumphed up the stairs, "Guess what!?" I whirled around as the newsies came into the room. "Big night tanight at Medda's- everybody's gonna be deah...." She trailed off.

"Everybody," I said, "This is Richard Lawrence, my fiancé."

**

That evening, I did go to Irving Hall with the newsies. Richard tagged along. Smalls had been right- everybody was there. Even Spot and a few of his cronies from Brooklyn. Richard knit his brow as the show began; I couldn't help but love it.

Medda and a few of the boys had come up with a great follies show. Jack and Blink dressed up in Medda's dresses and Medda dressed up to look like a newsie. It was a riot. They performed numbers together and everything. After the show, when we were all headed home, Jack expressed a certain amount of interest in getting to know Richard. I walked home with them.

"So, do ya like it heah?" Jack asked, kicking up dust.

Richard shook his head, "To tell the truth, I really don't." My heart sank. "It's too...."

"I have to choose?" I blurted, interrupting his sentence- rudely- I could tell by his countenance. "I have to choose between the love of my life and my new best friends?"

"No, Darling," he said at once. "I won't make you choose. I will never do such a thing," he told me, "I love you too much." He grabbed my hand, "I will just have to make some adjustments."

"I love you, too," I said, squeezing his hand.

Cowboy raised his eyebrows and we continued back to the lodging house.

BR PT4

My relationship with Richard flourished. He bought me flowers and candy, although I was never sure where he obtained the money for such novelties. He never once ventured onto the streets with the newsies. He smiled at me from the windowsill and greeted me everyday cheerily with a myriad of questions. And so it astonished me when, a month after he had arrived, Richard told me he wanted to return to Chesapeake Beach... without me. The first thought that troubled my mind was 'why?' followed quickly with, 'I'll go with you!' But he declined- declined so strongly, in unrepeatable words, that I was speechless. He slept on top of the covers of our bed that night.

The next morning, he was to arrive at the great and glorious Grand Central Station, on board a train, headed for Maryland. I, overtaken by unspeakable infatuation, grew quite enraged that he was leaving me. Despite the fact that he was breaking my heart, he was doing it in a manner which would dishonor me. I hadn't told any of the newsies of the tragedy a night earlier, so none of them had accompanied me to see him off.

That day at the trainyards, I became aware of the most awkward scenes and things. Everything seemed slow, as though God wanted to savor every second of something magnificent happening somewhere else. Maybe it was those two long-lost lovers reunited on the platform. Perhaps it was a fly buzzing around the ticket window. A child cried. A girl no higher than four feet huddled beneath a raspberry parasol.

'I'm going to be strong. I'm going to be fine,' I told myself, 'Don't worry about this heart of mine.' I looked at him, sadly, "Go on and go- you see if I care. But don't turn around." 'Don't turn around because you're gonna see my heart breaking,' I thought, 'Don't turn around- I don't want you seeing me cry. Just walk away, it's tearing me apart that you're leaving. I'm letting you go. But I won't let you know.'

With a huff and a pivot, he walked away and boarded the train. He didn't turn around.

I collapsed in a fit of sobs.

BR CH5

I don't recall how long it was before I returned to the lodging house. Everything had seemed so slow, but the sun was setting. I must have looked awful when I climbed the stairs because Skittery, Racetrack and some of the other boys who often don't talk to me (I don't know why) were playing some kind of game when I approached. They all sort of stopped and watched me, flushed and disheveled as I entered the lobby. In the lobby, girls knitting, boys, couples; all sort of froze and watched me painstakingly tackle the stairwell to be alone.

I wondered how long it would be before a group of well-meaning, but naïve girls would come to comfort me. They would make rude jokes and try to make me laugh. They would say they knew it from the beginning. That he was a bad egg. I wondered if they would be right.

I sat before the vanity mirror with a hairbrush we shared. I examined my cheeks and lips; my eyes and lashes. Had Richard been lying when he told me I was beautiful? It was something I had to decide. Now. I combed my hair and braided it. As I pulled the length of leather cord around my second braid, and looked into my own eyes and I found it. It was something inside of me that I had been looking for since I was a child. I needed it, and Richard filled that need for a time. But he had left, and I had found the strength inside myself. I was beautiful. This revealed, I knelt before my bed to pray. I peered out the soiled window at the stars which shone over the same sky that his rail car must be under this second. I changed into my nightgown and fell asleep leaning on the windowsill feeling more peace than I had ever felt in Richard's arms.

**

"Ya mean you'se okay wid' dis?" Smalls asked incredulously over a sarsaparilla at Tibbey's.

Giggles, Firecracker, Mush and Dutchy, Smalls and I occupied a table at the famous restaurant of the newsies. I shrugged, smiling. I had changed, overnight, however impossible.

Firecracker squeezed Mush's hand and looked at me. Lord love her, she hardly knew how I felt, but she wasn't going to try and argue.

Giggles knit her brow, "It's okay ta be a liddle hoit, Chesa. He did leave ya- outta da blue."

"No, Giggles," I said, "It wasn't out of the blue. It was destiny. There wasn't anything I did to make him leave, I just didn't need him anymore, and he knew it before I did."