She didn't even have to wonder at what to do with her time in the morning;
she headed out the door at nine a.m. and set out in search of the newsboys
to ask them about the strike and to see if their tales of conquering
adversity would inspire her. The crisp November air blew about her
fiercely and made her tug her woolen coat around her tightly as she
ventured out alone into Manhattan's busy streets.
She didn't have to walk far before she came across a newsie hawking the morning's headline. Suddenly shy, she observed him from a fruit stand as he frantically shouted outlandish headlines to all the passersby. His blond hair was tousled from the wind and he wore a patch over his right eye. She wondered absently if the patch were simply a ploy to attract customers or if he had really suffered some grievous injury earlier in his lifetime. He seemed extremely confident as he passed his papers to the citizens and accepted their pennies in return; as if he knew they would buy from him whether they wanted to or not. She scowled at his cocky attitude, as if he took his privileged status as one who made enough money to live for granted. Sure he worked hard, but working hard wasn't enough for everyone; her brother had worked hard, and look where that'd gotten him. Suddenly angry, she scuffed her soft shoe in the dirt in front of the fruit stand. As she moved her foot, she noticed the sharp gleam of metal on the ground and stooped quickly to pick up the penny that one of the stand's customers must have dropped. She took it as a good sign and dropped it in the pocket of her apron, casually wiping the dirt from her fingers.
Turning her attention to the newsie again, she was startled to see that he was moving away from the fruit stand. Silently, she followed him, still feeling too timid to question him, but curious as to where he was going. She dodged and darted around the carts and stands filling the busy streets to avoid being seen by the wandering newsboy, all the while filling her head with her impressions of him and his trade. Does he find dignity in this, she wondered. Is that why so many of them were willing to fight? She found it hard to see dignity in the hawking of someone else's writing on a dusty New York street, but she supposed he would see little dignity in her profession if their situations were reversed.
Biting her lip in thought, she decided to jot some notes on the subject as she followed the lively newsboy. She fished the stub of a pencil from the pocket of her pinafore and realized belatedly that she had nothing to write on. Suddenly the newsie's stack of papers took on a more appealing aspect for her. Their blank white margins seemed to scream for her to fill them. Seeing there was nothing else for it, she approached him to buy a paper.
Knowing that the cost was dear, she held out one of the two pennies she had with her toward the newsboy. "One paper please," she said.
Efficiently, he grabbed the penny and shoved a paper toward her with a mumbled, "Thank ye ma'am."
She knew she had to seize her chance when it presented itself, so when the boy turned from her to hand out two more papers, she quickly perused the day's headlines. As he finished his sales and prepared to move on through the crowd, she blurted, "Sure is quite a lark what they say in here about the new century changing our lives and all."
He looked up, startled to hear that she hadn't moved on after buying her paper. "Look lady, you don't get your money back if ya think the story's lousy."
She cursed inwardly; she had said the wrong thing. "No!" she nearly shouted, anxious to right her wrong. She calmed her voice and continued. "I mean, it doesn't look like much is going to change in our lives in the next two months. Come January, you'll likely still be selling papers and I'll be knitting woolen hats."
This made him chuckle, but he stopped abruptly. "No you won't."
"What?" She was taken aback by his assumption.
"I know about all those layoffs at the knitting mill and I also know for a fact that if you still had a job there you wouldn't be roaming the street at this time of the morning. I newsie's gotta keep his eye on the news, even if it's only on page twelve."
She had been expecting simple, straightforward chatter, not a clever response to her attempts at conversation. She was momentarily at a loss for words. To her relief, he seemed to be content with just letting her know that he knew of her dire situation, and continued the conversation. "I s'pose it's easy for those newsmen to dream of a new world, but all 1900 will mean to me is another year gone."
"You talk like you're an old man."
"Not quite.could an old man do this?" She gasped as he took off at a run and cannoned himself straight into another member of the crowd. The shorter, dark haired boy stumbled to the ground, cursing. "You bastad! I'll cut yah motha lovin' prick off!" He picked himself up, but when he caught sight of his attacker, his outraged scowl turned into a grin of recognition. He took a playful swing which the other boy easily avoided and accepted a good natured punch in the gut. The shorter boy hastily swept off his cap when he caught sight of Katie watching their hijinks.
"A nickel for the show ma'am?" he asked, obviously ready to seize any chance at making some cash. The boy with the eyepatch nudged him.
"Ya dimwit, she's not just gawkin'; I was provin' a point."
"What, that ya couldn't win a fight even when ya took me by surprise?" He was silenced by a cuff on the back of the head and turned his attention back to Katie. "Point proven?"
"Well enough," she smiled.
He bent to collect his scattered papers and grunted in dismay when he found them soggy and ruined by the filth of the street. "Damn it, Blink, look what ya did to my morning papes!"
The taller boy, Blink, shrugged, not looking the least bit concerned. "Ah, forget it. Ya wanna go find some lunch at Tibby's?"
Seemingly forgetting the day's wages he was wasting, the other boy grinned. "Yeah, sure! I'm starved." Katie smiled at their attitudes. It's only life, so why not enjoy it? Perhaps she had been wrong in her assumption that they found some dignity in their profession. Perhaps it was just a way to pass the time.
"Care to join us?" Blink asked.
Katie wanted to, but she was wary, remembering the solitary penny she had in her pocket. "Tibby's ain't the Ritz but Cook's awful free with the leftovers," Blink continued as if reading her mind.
"Don't you mean free with the awful leftovers?" the other boy jibed.
"I'd love to," she answered.
"Great!"
Leaving the muddy newspapers, the three headed together down the street. "So in case ya hadn't noticed, I'm Kid Blink and this midget ovah heah's Racetrack."
"At your service ma'am." Katie was highly amused by Race's attempts at gallantry.
"It's nice to meet you both. My name's Katie."
"So Katie," Blink began, "you lookin' for a job now that the mill's gone bottom up? We could always use anothah good newsie on the streets."
"What he means is he could always use anothah girl in da bunkroom," Race laughed.
Katie smiled seeing the color rise to Blink's cheeks. "Nah, I get by."
"What do ya do?" asked Race, not willing to accept her abbreviated answer.
"I write." The answer came out so quickly she wasn't sure why she's said it. Was she really that ashamed of her job at Irving Hall? "I mean I'm workin' on a story for the Sun." Well, it was almost the truth.
"The Sun, huh?" Race seemed interested. "They did a story about me once." Blink chuckled, and Race looked up at him, annoyed. "Well, not about me exactly; about the newsies."
"Yeah, I heard something about that. A strike, wasn't it?"
"It sure was." His face took on a misty, nostalgic look.
"Jesus Race, you act like those were the good ol' days, bein' gypped out of a tenth of a cent a pape? You get smacked in the head or somethin'?"
Race shrugged as they came into sight of Tibby's, a low, unassuming building with a green awning and dirty windows. Lounging against the façade was a tall, gangly youth with a faded pink shirt and his suspenders hanging uselessly from his pants. He squinted at the approaching trio from under his mop of sandy brown hair.
"Hey Skitts," Blink hailed. "No leftovers yet?"
"Nah, got a couple of fat cows in there cleanin' their plates," he scowled.
Blink grinned. "Katie, this is Skittery. Skittery, this heah's our new friend Katie. She's a writah from the Sun." He boasted as if her accomplishments were somehow his own. Katie stood uncomfortably as Skittery looked her up and down.
"Nah," he said definitively as he spat on the cobblestones. "I don't buy it."
"Excuse me?" she said, taken aback.
He looked at her, annoyed, as if the explanation wasn't worth the trouble. "Look, there ain't no way some fat cat newspaperman would give you a job unless of course it was in return for your other-ah- services. So what, do you spend all day on your back in the printing room?"
She was appalled by what he was insinuating, and he just smirked at her smugly. Racetrack tried to cover up the uncomfortable moment. "What's wit you Skitts, ya have a little ass hole with your coffee this mornin'?" Skittery just shrugged and sauntered casually into the restaurant.
"Hm," Blink reflected, "that was-"He was interrupted by the approach of another newsboy Katie wasn't happy to see.
"Hey fellahs, no food yet?" It was Jack Kelly. Katie steeled herself to be embarrassed and taunted by the boys when Jack told them she was no writer but a cheap vaudeville performer, no better than a whore.
"Hey Jack!" Race answered. "We was just tryin' to treat our new friend Katie heah to lunch so she'd give us another good story for the Sun."
"The Sun huh? Huh." He looked at her, recognition plain on his face and Katie clenched her fists as if preparing for a blow. "Well I hate to break this to ya," he said to Katie, "but something tells me you're not gonna be too impressed with this place. C'mon guys, let's eat." He gestured to Blink and Race to enter the restaurant.
"Comin' Katie?" Blink asked.
"Nah," it came out as a hoarse whisper. "I'm not so hungry."
Blink shrugged, confused. "Well, we'll see ya around then. Our sellin' spot's pretty much the same every day, so stop by and see us sometime."
"Yeah, sure." She was confused as to why Jack had not exposed her lie to his friends. As Race and Blink disappeared into the dimly lit interior of Tibby's, she called out, "Hey Kelly!" He turned to face her with a bemused expression of surprise on his face.
"Yeah?"
Unsure what gesture would be appropriate, she hastily scooped the penny she'd found on the street earlier out of her pocket and tossed it to him. He caught it with a practiced gesture. "Thanks." She turned and headed for Medda's, ready to start her evening's work.
She didn't have to walk far before she came across a newsie hawking the morning's headline. Suddenly shy, she observed him from a fruit stand as he frantically shouted outlandish headlines to all the passersby. His blond hair was tousled from the wind and he wore a patch over his right eye. She wondered absently if the patch were simply a ploy to attract customers or if he had really suffered some grievous injury earlier in his lifetime. He seemed extremely confident as he passed his papers to the citizens and accepted their pennies in return; as if he knew they would buy from him whether they wanted to or not. She scowled at his cocky attitude, as if he took his privileged status as one who made enough money to live for granted. Sure he worked hard, but working hard wasn't enough for everyone; her brother had worked hard, and look where that'd gotten him. Suddenly angry, she scuffed her soft shoe in the dirt in front of the fruit stand. As she moved her foot, she noticed the sharp gleam of metal on the ground and stooped quickly to pick up the penny that one of the stand's customers must have dropped. She took it as a good sign and dropped it in the pocket of her apron, casually wiping the dirt from her fingers.
Turning her attention to the newsie again, she was startled to see that he was moving away from the fruit stand. Silently, she followed him, still feeling too timid to question him, but curious as to where he was going. She dodged and darted around the carts and stands filling the busy streets to avoid being seen by the wandering newsboy, all the while filling her head with her impressions of him and his trade. Does he find dignity in this, she wondered. Is that why so many of them were willing to fight? She found it hard to see dignity in the hawking of someone else's writing on a dusty New York street, but she supposed he would see little dignity in her profession if their situations were reversed.
Biting her lip in thought, she decided to jot some notes on the subject as she followed the lively newsboy. She fished the stub of a pencil from the pocket of her pinafore and realized belatedly that she had nothing to write on. Suddenly the newsie's stack of papers took on a more appealing aspect for her. Their blank white margins seemed to scream for her to fill them. Seeing there was nothing else for it, she approached him to buy a paper.
Knowing that the cost was dear, she held out one of the two pennies she had with her toward the newsboy. "One paper please," she said.
Efficiently, he grabbed the penny and shoved a paper toward her with a mumbled, "Thank ye ma'am."
She knew she had to seize her chance when it presented itself, so when the boy turned from her to hand out two more papers, she quickly perused the day's headlines. As he finished his sales and prepared to move on through the crowd, she blurted, "Sure is quite a lark what they say in here about the new century changing our lives and all."
He looked up, startled to hear that she hadn't moved on after buying her paper. "Look lady, you don't get your money back if ya think the story's lousy."
She cursed inwardly; she had said the wrong thing. "No!" she nearly shouted, anxious to right her wrong. She calmed her voice and continued. "I mean, it doesn't look like much is going to change in our lives in the next two months. Come January, you'll likely still be selling papers and I'll be knitting woolen hats."
This made him chuckle, but he stopped abruptly. "No you won't."
"What?" She was taken aback by his assumption.
"I know about all those layoffs at the knitting mill and I also know for a fact that if you still had a job there you wouldn't be roaming the street at this time of the morning. I newsie's gotta keep his eye on the news, even if it's only on page twelve."
She had been expecting simple, straightforward chatter, not a clever response to her attempts at conversation. She was momentarily at a loss for words. To her relief, he seemed to be content with just letting her know that he knew of her dire situation, and continued the conversation. "I s'pose it's easy for those newsmen to dream of a new world, but all 1900 will mean to me is another year gone."
"You talk like you're an old man."
"Not quite.could an old man do this?" She gasped as he took off at a run and cannoned himself straight into another member of the crowd. The shorter, dark haired boy stumbled to the ground, cursing. "You bastad! I'll cut yah motha lovin' prick off!" He picked himself up, but when he caught sight of his attacker, his outraged scowl turned into a grin of recognition. He took a playful swing which the other boy easily avoided and accepted a good natured punch in the gut. The shorter boy hastily swept off his cap when he caught sight of Katie watching their hijinks.
"A nickel for the show ma'am?" he asked, obviously ready to seize any chance at making some cash. The boy with the eyepatch nudged him.
"Ya dimwit, she's not just gawkin'; I was provin' a point."
"What, that ya couldn't win a fight even when ya took me by surprise?" He was silenced by a cuff on the back of the head and turned his attention back to Katie. "Point proven?"
"Well enough," she smiled.
He bent to collect his scattered papers and grunted in dismay when he found them soggy and ruined by the filth of the street. "Damn it, Blink, look what ya did to my morning papes!"
The taller boy, Blink, shrugged, not looking the least bit concerned. "Ah, forget it. Ya wanna go find some lunch at Tibby's?"
Seemingly forgetting the day's wages he was wasting, the other boy grinned. "Yeah, sure! I'm starved." Katie smiled at their attitudes. It's only life, so why not enjoy it? Perhaps she had been wrong in her assumption that they found some dignity in their profession. Perhaps it was just a way to pass the time.
"Care to join us?" Blink asked.
Katie wanted to, but she was wary, remembering the solitary penny she had in her pocket. "Tibby's ain't the Ritz but Cook's awful free with the leftovers," Blink continued as if reading her mind.
"Don't you mean free with the awful leftovers?" the other boy jibed.
"I'd love to," she answered.
"Great!"
Leaving the muddy newspapers, the three headed together down the street. "So in case ya hadn't noticed, I'm Kid Blink and this midget ovah heah's Racetrack."
"At your service ma'am." Katie was highly amused by Race's attempts at gallantry.
"It's nice to meet you both. My name's Katie."
"So Katie," Blink began, "you lookin' for a job now that the mill's gone bottom up? We could always use anothah good newsie on the streets."
"What he means is he could always use anothah girl in da bunkroom," Race laughed.
Katie smiled seeing the color rise to Blink's cheeks. "Nah, I get by."
"What do ya do?" asked Race, not willing to accept her abbreviated answer.
"I write." The answer came out so quickly she wasn't sure why she's said it. Was she really that ashamed of her job at Irving Hall? "I mean I'm workin' on a story for the Sun." Well, it was almost the truth.
"The Sun, huh?" Race seemed interested. "They did a story about me once." Blink chuckled, and Race looked up at him, annoyed. "Well, not about me exactly; about the newsies."
"Yeah, I heard something about that. A strike, wasn't it?"
"It sure was." His face took on a misty, nostalgic look.
"Jesus Race, you act like those were the good ol' days, bein' gypped out of a tenth of a cent a pape? You get smacked in the head or somethin'?"
Race shrugged as they came into sight of Tibby's, a low, unassuming building with a green awning and dirty windows. Lounging against the façade was a tall, gangly youth with a faded pink shirt and his suspenders hanging uselessly from his pants. He squinted at the approaching trio from under his mop of sandy brown hair.
"Hey Skitts," Blink hailed. "No leftovers yet?"
"Nah, got a couple of fat cows in there cleanin' their plates," he scowled.
Blink grinned. "Katie, this is Skittery. Skittery, this heah's our new friend Katie. She's a writah from the Sun." He boasted as if her accomplishments were somehow his own. Katie stood uncomfortably as Skittery looked her up and down.
"Nah," he said definitively as he spat on the cobblestones. "I don't buy it."
"Excuse me?" she said, taken aback.
He looked at her, annoyed, as if the explanation wasn't worth the trouble. "Look, there ain't no way some fat cat newspaperman would give you a job unless of course it was in return for your other-ah- services. So what, do you spend all day on your back in the printing room?"
She was appalled by what he was insinuating, and he just smirked at her smugly. Racetrack tried to cover up the uncomfortable moment. "What's wit you Skitts, ya have a little ass hole with your coffee this mornin'?" Skittery just shrugged and sauntered casually into the restaurant.
"Hm," Blink reflected, "that was-"He was interrupted by the approach of another newsboy Katie wasn't happy to see.
"Hey fellahs, no food yet?" It was Jack Kelly. Katie steeled herself to be embarrassed and taunted by the boys when Jack told them she was no writer but a cheap vaudeville performer, no better than a whore.
"Hey Jack!" Race answered. "We was just tryin' to treat our new friend Katie heah to lunch so she'd give us another good story for the Sun."
"The Sun huh? Huh." He looked at her, recognition plain on his face and Katie clenched her fists as if preparing for a blow. "Well I hate to break this to ya," he said to Katie, "but something tells me you're not gonna be too impressed with this place. C'mon guys, let's eat." He gestured to Blink and Race to enter the restaurant.
"Comin' Katie?" Blink asked.
"Nah," it came out as a hoarse whisper. "I'm not so hungry."
Blink shrugged, confused. "Well, we'll see ya around then. Our sellin' spot's pretty much the same every day, so stop by and see us sometime."
"Yeah, sure." She was confused as to why Jack had not exposed her lie to his friends. As Race and Blink disappeared into the dimly lit interior of Tibby's, she called out, "Hey Kelly!" He turned to face her with a bemused expression of surprise on his face.
"Yeah?"
Unsure what gesture would be appropriate, she hastily scooped the penny she'd found on the street earlier out of her pocket and tossed it to him. He caught it with a practiced gesture. "Thanks." She turned and headed for Medda's, ready to start her evening's work.