Chapter Two
Jack awoke the next morning to the sound of Catharine rapping gently on his door.
"Wake up, Mr. Kelly," he heard her say softly through the keyhole.
"Five more minutes," he grumbled into his pillow.
"If you're not up soon, you'll be late for your first job."
The job…his premiere as the Weasel of Santa Fe was waiting for him. He had almost forgotten. With a disgusted groan, he swung his legs down from the bed, letting his feet hit the cool, bare wooden floor. Next door, Alexander Connor was whimpering, waiting for just the right moment to blast a full-blown wail unless his mother attended to him immediately. If he hadn't gotten up then, Jack decided, he would have been driven out of bed soon enough by the baby's cries. The Connors were a nice couple, but Catharine had understated the volume Alex produced. He was at a full-scale howl as Jack began to button his shirt; by the time he had tied his shoes, though, Joanie Connor had calmed him. Jack locked his door, dropping the key in his pants pocket, and headed down to the boarding house bathroom to shave the stubble off of his face. He shaved in silence alongside Mr. McAllister, a man in his forties with a wife of the same age and a daughter in her late teens. Cara McAllister was a pretty girl and obviously smitten immediately with the handsome new stranger next door, but the only one Jack had on his mind was Sarah. He would write her a letter when he returned home, he resolved as he washed off his razor. He would write to the boys at the Lodging House too, to tell them how much he missed their chatter-filled mornings.
As he descended the staircase, Jack's nose was immediately filled with the aroma of food. He followed Mr. McAllister into the kitchen and found Catharine serving breakfast -- buttermilk pancakes and toasted bread -- to the men and women who had gotten up early for work. She looked up at him and smiled.
"Take a seat, Mr. Kelly," she instructed. "I make sure all my tenants are well-fed before they all go off to work."
All he could stutter out was a quiet "Thanks" as he sat down and Catharine filled up his plate. He hardly believed any of this. Catharine cooked, cleaned, did everything she could for the boarders -- and she did it all on her own. Not only that, she knew each one of her tenants' names and retained everything they told her. As he ate, he watched her converse animatedly with Mr. Lanley, one of the tenants who lived on the third floor, and then go to the sink to begin the dishes.
"Miss Cate," he said as he stood up and handed her his plate. "Dis is me payment for tonight, two bits, just like you says." He took the quarter from his pocket and placed it on the counter.
"'Two bits'?" Catharine asked, blinking at the strange word.
"A quartah," he corrected. "Sorry, New Yawk slang."
"It's no problem, Mr. Kelly."
"Just Jack, please. I ain't used ta people bein' all propah with me."
She smiled. "All right, Jack."
"I'se gotta be goin'…foist day on the job and all."
"Oh! Of course…good luck!"
"Thanks, Miss Cate," he said, putting on his treasured cowboy hat and exiting the boarding house to the street. He took the front steps two at a time.
It was barely dawn in Santa Fe. The dark night sky had faded to a dull color that reminded him of black and blue coated in fog, waiting to be overcome by the glow of the sun. It was almost desolate. Still, though, he could spot people on the street, heading to their destinations for the day. He was immediately comforted to know that it wasn't just New York that began to bustle early.
Little did Jack know what was waiting for him at the Dispatch as an assorted group of boys began to rise at the paper's Lodging House, but he'd find out soon enough.
The Dispatch's distribution "stand" was an extension of the printing offices, not as much effort put into its building but still stuffed full of copies of the daily edition. As Jack made his way through the back door (Mr. Grayson had given him instructions the day before), two young men greeted him, one older than him, the other around the same age as Jack. Both had the same style of chestnut hair, slicked back with water, and the same strange grin on their faces, though the older's seemed slightly more sinister.
Oh God, thought Jack. The Delancey brothers all over again. But maybe he could get along better with this pair. He could only hope.
"Mornin', fellas," he said to them amiably, hanging his hat on a nail in the wall that Jack guessed was supposed to be a substitute hat-rack. "I'se Jack Kelly."
"Chuck Cartwright," said the older of the two, his voice thick and gruff. He gestured to the other young man. "This is my cousin, Eli."
"Think you're a cowboy, city boy?" asked Eli with genuine humor. He was obviously more good-natured than his cousin.
"I would be if my fiancée weren't so worried that I'se'd get hoit," Jack told him, shrugging. "Youse two been woikin' heah for a while?"
"Long enough to see the other distributors get run out," said Chuck as he untied the twine on a heap of papers. "And smart enough just to count newspapers, not take orders from those kids."
"I used ta be a newsie," Jack informed him. "Dey ain't dat bad."
"No?" questioned Chuck, slightly sarcastic as voices began to grow nearby. "You've never met these boys."
"Can't be woise than I was."
"You'll see. Check out the Courtyard."
Chuck pointed to the low gate that gave access to the building's front lot (Chuck's "Courtyard"), where a group of six or so boys were headed. The first boy to enter cleared the gate in a reckless yet stable leap, landing feet first on the ground. He did a mock bow as the other boys cheered for him. Jack guessed him to be the leader. Two of the younger boys tried to clear the gate like the first had, but couldn't cut it. The others laughed as they hit the ground with a thud (they had chosen the smarter way of entering - opening the creaky gate and stepping through), but the first boy helped one up before reassuming his place at the head of the group, quickly approaching the window. Jack leaned on the counter to watch them. This one didn't have any bars behind it like the one at the World had, so he was getting a good view of all of them. Their assumed leader, the boy who had jumped the fence, was approaching fast, the boys he had come with close behind with a few others that had come on their own. The grand total, Jack could figure from stepping back and doing a quick count in his head, was a little over a dozen. The leader, his age looking to be around eighteen, gave Jack a skeptic look and leaned on the counter, facing the other boys.
"Lookit what we've got here, boys!" he hollered to them. "A new friend!" The other boys laughed and joked with each other. For a moment, Jack felt vaguely nostalgic.
"If you ask me, he's more like a yahoo," commented the sixteen year old behind the leader, with chocolate-colored hair that hid his eyes -- the same boy that Jack had met in the train station.
"Think so?" the first boy asked, casually brushing a few strands of dark hair out of his green eyes.
"I may, I may not," he replied in the same cryptic manner Jack remembered from before. "But he wouldn't buy a paper from me yesterday."
"I should know that you'll never give a straight answer to yes-or-no questions, Riddle…" The boy turned and faced Jack. "Too good to buy from the newsies?" he asked, cocking a brow.
"Nah," Jack answered. "Just ask yer buddy about how 'e don't have a headline to sell one on."
"It's a selling tactic, yahoo," mumbled Riddle. "Ask Keystone."
The leader's eyes glinted. "Yeah," he baited, "ask me…newcomer."
Jack couldn't help but laugh. "Ya think I'se a newbie ta papes?"
"You're a Yankee, and here, that means you're new to everything."
"He's a Yahoo," corrected Riddle. Keystone laughed.
"Yahoo, then. With a bad accent."
"Don't be so hard on him…" came a voice from the back end of the group. Jack recognized it to be Topper's. "He's not that bad…"
"Come on up here, Topper," Keystone commanded. Pushing his way through the boys, the redhead did. "How d'ya know that?"
"He's staying at Miss Cate's place," Topper told him. "I met him there yesterday."
"That so? They sharing the same room, maybe?" The boys behind him laughed and jeered.
"Go ahead and think dat, kid," Jack said with a roll of his eyes, his composed demeanor dismissing the accusation easily.
"Key," he corrected. "Stupid yahoo."
"Jack Kelly," he returned, taking his turn to set the names straight. "From New Yawk."
"'New Yawk, New Yawk,'" mocked a shorter boy who popped up behind Riddle. Some of the other boys began to chatter in fake, exaggerated New York accents with him.
"Down, Hound," commanded Keystone sharply. "All of you! It's my job to handle the city boy."
Chuck slammed a newspaper down on the counter next to Jack, who looked up at him, surprised.
"Get your papers now or you're not getting them at all," he growled.
"Think you're a big man, don't you, Chucky?" asked Keystone sardonically. "I'll get my papers when I'm good and ready." He picked up the one Chuck had slammed on the counter and opened it to the inside cover. "So, Yahoo," he said casually, his eyes darting up and down the page. "You know the newsboys in…'New Yawk'?"
Jack snatched the paper out of his hand. "Mock me again," he told Keystone irately, "an' youse'll be bedridden so long you'll forget how ta read the papes, let alone sell 'em." The boys behind Keystone began to whisper to each other nervously.
"Down, boys," he repeated, and to three in particular, "that means you, too, Outlaw, Trusty, Smalls. I'm handling it. Let me try again, Kelly. You know the newsboys in New York?"
"I was one."
Keystone arched an eyebrow. "Yeah? How long?"
"Five yeahs."
"Then you were around when they striked."
"Around?" Jack couldn't help but laugh. "Not to be conceited or anythin', but I was the leadah."
Behind Keystone, the boys murmured their approval.
"Not bad," Keystone was forced to admit.
"For a yahoo," added Riddle.
"Tell yer boys I ain't takin' no bull from no newsboy," Jack warned Keystone. "An' if I get any, 'e's gonna eat 'is papes fer breakfast."
Keystone turned to face his second-in-command. "Down, boy," he warned. "You heard him." He pulled out a few coins and plunked them down on the counter. "Tell Chucky that I want sixty papers."
"Not a real high rollah?" asked Jack.
"Santa Fe's a smaller city than New York, Kelly. We don't move thousands a week like you guys can."
"I sees where ya comes from. Chuck," he said over his shoulder, "sixty fer Keystone."
"And count them right!" Keystone added. The boys behind him laughed. Chuck slammed the papers on the counter angrily.
Riddle was the next to get his papers. "Whatever looks fine for today," he told Jack mysteriously.
"That's fifty for Riddle," Eli said into Jack's ear.
"How'd'ya know dat?" he asked as Chuck set the stack on the counter.
Eli smiled. "You learn."
"Morning!" Hound, a fourteen year old, greeted Jack. "Thirty papers, please," he said, plunking a dime and a nickel on the counter and taking his papers as soon as Chuck set them down.
"You're already better than the last one," commented a tall sixteen-year old with dirty blonde hair and hazel eyes. "He couldn't even last five minutes with Key…I'm Outlaw, by the way. Forty papers for me."
The next boy to approach the counter was a much shorter boy whose age Jack couldn't tell. "Seventeen," he told Jack quietly.
"His age, not his papers," added Outlaw. "Smalls is small for his age."
"Don't rub it in, Outlaw," he mumbled. "Twenty."
"That's not much better!" Keystone laughed from a few feet away.
"Sometimes I think you should just screw off, Keystone..."
"Aw, stop your gassing!" exclaimed a high-pitched voice. Jack peered over Smalls (not a hard thing to do, of course) and saw a young girl was approaching, with yellow-blonde hair and a sway in her hips much too big for someone her age.
"Out, little girl," commanded Keystone with immediate vexation, rolling his eyes.
"Why can't I be a newsie today?" she demanded, kicking up dust at the boys with her foot. "I bet I'm just as good as you, Key!"
"Home," he repeated firmly, pointing to the gate.
"I've got to put food on the table too, and this is the only way I know how!"
"Then start looking for another way," jeered a boy with coffee-colored hair from the back.
"Shut up, Spinner!" she squeaked.
"Goldy," said Keystone firmly.
"Yeah, Key?" She tried to sneer.
"Go home," he said calmly.
The girl frowned. "This isn't the last of it," she told the group of boys.
"It never is!" laughed Spinner as she stomped away, back through the gate from which she came.
"That's Goldilocks," Topper, who had made his way back to the front, told Jack. "She's ten."
"Why ain't dey lettin' 'er be a newsie?"
"Because she's a girl!" snapped Keystone crossly.
"We had goil newsies in Manhattan," he informed them. "Not a lot, a'course. Some of dem fooled their way in…" He paused to remember few in particular that had come since the strike ended, "…but dey was still goils, and still sold papes bettah dan some of the boys we had."
"Goldy's not a New York girl. She's still a little girl. Too young to sell papers."
"Too young to become tarnished gold," commented Riddle in his usual mysterious manner.
"Exactly."
"She said she's got people ta take care of," Jack noted.
"She's got people taking care of them already. She doesn't have to worry about it. Just do your papers, Kelly, and don't worry about it either."
"He's sure defensive," mumbled Jack to Eli as Topper requested thirty papers and stepped aside for the next few boys to approach.
"He gets that way every time Goldy comes around…"
"She's a cute kid, could prolly move a lot o' papes."
"Yeah…but Key's firm when he tells her no girls. And look," Eli added, gesturing to the now-empty line and the thinning yard as the boys went towards the streets to sell their papers, "you survived your first day."
"Not quite," Chuck said, pointing at the gate. "You forgot the twins, Eli." Two identical boys were dashing at full speed through the Courtyard and up the ramp. "Late again." When they approached the counter, Jack could see that they were both boys of thirteen with short, dark hair and dark brown eyes.
"New guy?" asked the one on the left.
"Jack Kelly," he introduced.
"I'm Tex." He pointed to the boy next to him. "This is Mex."
"Twins, if you couldn't tell," said Mex. "Brothers."
Jack laughed. "Yeah, I can tell. How many?"
"Thirty," said Tex.
"And thirty," said Mex.
"Sixty, then," said Jack.
"If you want to do it the easy way," they chorused.
"But we like to try to give it a little variety," continued Tex.
"And confuse Chuck," concluded Mex.
"You boys looking for a fight with the new guy?" asked a fourteen year old with gray eyes and light brown hair who sat nearby, re-counting his papers.
"We heard líder audaz saying on the way out that this one wasn't bad, Trusty," said Mex as he picked up his papers.
"As long as he doesn't short you, right?" laughed Tex, who had taken his as well.
Trusty laughed. "You forget that Chuck does the counting!" he yelled as he headed towards the exit.
"Then we can't ever be sure!" Tex had stacked his thirty papers on his head, wobbling around the counter in an attempt to balance, but his laughter made the papers fall to the ground.
"Get out," Chuck growled from behind the counter.
"They're harmless," Eli said as the twins gathered up Tex's papers and dashed back out the gate and into the streets.
"Now we're done," said Jack as soon as they were gone. "Right?"
Chuck laughed. "Never. We've got to wait around till they come back this afternoon for the sellbacks."
"Sellbacks?"
"If they don't sell all their papers, they take them back and we buy them back at cost. Keeps the kids from going bust…unfortunately."
"Dey ain't bad kids, Chuck. Don't know how so many distributahs got run out…all dey need is some patience."
"You used to be a newsie, of course you're going to say that. Sit down, kid, we've got a while."
Jack took a seat in a chair near Eli and Chuck and took out a pad of paper; the other two settled in with a pair of newspapers. He would write his letter to Sarah first, he decided, and then he'd write to the boys. As the sun settled itself into the morning sky, Jack realized that his first day was going to be longer than he thought. He hoped he had enough to tell them all to make the time go faster.