A week later Spot showed up at my work as I was leaving. This was so unusual that I jumped when he walked up to me. I've been jumpy a lot recently, I thought absently to myself as I greeted him.

"Cat, you been nervous since last week," Spot said, giving voice to what I didn't want to acknowledge—that the incident had shaken me badly. "I want to show you why you can relax. Come with me. I told yer pa you would be with me today," he added.

I followed him trustingly, and we headed down to the docks. I had been near here, but I had never really had a reason to spend time in this area. It was a bit rougher than the neighborhood where I lived. The buildings were the same, but the people looked bigger, dirtier, and scarier. The language was cruder, the smells stronger, and the atmosphere bawdier. I wasn't entirely sure I felt safe until I looked over and saw Spot. He had that glint in his eye that I was coming to recognize, and it didn't take long to realize that even some of the big sailors were wary of him. I remembered how quickly he had moved in the fight the other night, and I vaguely wondered how he could have gotten the obvious bruises last spring if he could best three men with not a mark on him. Someone wolf-whistled near me, but Spot's head snapped around and the whistle cut off as if his eyes had somehow intercepted the sound mid-note. We headed over to a wooden pier where people were jumping and swimming. It took me a moment to realize that these were the newsboys. Ace, Red, Squish, Roller, Greasefoot . . . they were almost all there. They called out greetings to Spot, and I realized how many of them they were—and how big they were! Red was small compared to many of them! Even the physically smaller ones somehow radiated toughness and confidence, and all of them deferred to Spot.

"Cat, these are most of the newsies of Brooklyn." Spot said as we settled down on a crate. I was in awe of the size of the group. There must have been a hundred or more boys. "They operate all over the borough. They know the people, the places, and the goings on of Brooklyn, and they report to me." I turned to look at Spot with new eyes. I knew he was the leader, and I knew he was a fighter, but for the first time I realized a bit of what that entailed. He was responsible for all of these boys? One younger boy of perhaps nine ran up to him, dripping water everywhere; he had obviously been swimming.

"Guess what, Spot!" he said, his excitement causing him to seem to want to come out of his skin. "I sold 35 papes today! I have a penny for the pot!"

Spot ruffled the kid's hair. "That's great, Legs. But you keep that penny for now, okay? Put a penny in next time, but start your savings."

"Yes, sir," the kid said, but then he frowned. "But how do Ise give back to da newsies if I can't put a penny in the pot?"

"Ya go to yer lessons. Ya save up and go to medical school, and ya come back and treat newsboys when they's hurt. Ya got that?"

"These boys," Spot said to me as Legs saluted him and jumped back into the water, "have my back. And they will do anything I ask and more. And because we're friends, they got your back, too. I didn't tell 'em to keep an eye on you, but they do. And Ingrid and yer pa, too." He paused. "Word of what happened made it around. Those goons won't be botherin' you or anyone else, and I would be shocked to see anyone else try it. I wanted you to know that. I want you to know that you are as safe as anybody can be in Brooklyn."

And suddenly I understood. Spot was the leader because he could fight, but he was a good leader because he cared. These boys would do anything he asked and more because they loved him—and he loved them. I had seen that during the strike, but now I wondered at the extent of it. They would really protect me—and Ingrid and Papa—just because we were friends?

"But that don't mean," Spot continued, and my mind snapped back to the present, "that we can protect you from everything. You still gotta take care of yourself. Don't take foolish chances. But you don't need to be so jumpy all the time. We're here. Anything happens, ever, and you just make sure the nearest newsie knows. We'll take it from there."

I nodded, and a weight I didn't know I had been carrying suddenly dropped away. Given the way Spot was looking at me in that moment, I am pretty sure he saw it. After a few minutes of companionable silence, my natural curiosity took over.

"Spot, how did you guys survive the strike? It seems like money is pretty tight for newsboys."

"It is. But the Lodging House waived its fee for the duration, so none of the boys had to pay for a bed. Other services were suspended, though. We had no laundry, no warm water, no lessons, and no kitchen for that time. We did our own cleaning—put the younger boys on that so they wouldn't get hurt when we was dealin' with the scabs," he answered.

"And food?" I pressed. "I know you couldn't have afforded to eat properly during that time."

"None of my boys went hungry. Everyone got at least one warm meal a day. Most of us got savings, you know," Spot said, waving a hand vaguely.

"How much did you spend?" I asked quietly.

"Fifty dollars," he responded, and I let out a whooshing breath. That was a LOT of money. More than many people made in a month, and certainly more than most newsies were able to earn in many months. I knew he had savings, but I had no idea it was that much!

"That's a lot," I whispered, touching his arm in sympathy. He grinned at me.

"We had it," he shrugged, "and boys need to eat. Some of it came out of other funds, so it wasn't all mine. Red and some of the other boys with savings pitched in. The boys had to eat."

"And you? Did you eat?" I asked, sensing that the answer was no.

"I didn't starve," he shrugged. I let it go, but I guessed that most of the money had been his.

"How much money can a newsboy save?" I asked, genuinely curious now about the expenses a newsboy incurred.

"The papes come in bundles of ten," he explained, "and I make all the boys who don't have families start at thirty. That costs 18 cents for us, and if we sell them all it's 30 cents. We save 18 for the next day's papes, and we have 12 left. A night at the lodgin' house is 6 cents, and a meal is the same. So if ya sell 30, ya get a night indoors and a warm meal and can still sell the next day. Boys that have a place to stay and eat can get away with selling less, and I tell all me boys to aim for forty out of the gate.. Most won't do that, but within a few weeks they can usually get to 35 or 40—like that new kid Legs ya just met. They also go to the local soup kitchen sometimes and the bakery nearby sells bread for a few cents, and there is an apple cart down the road most days. We eat well enough. Part of the pot goes to bags of potatoes and flour and the like for additional meals for everyone as needed. I like to see all me boys selling around 70 a day. That's 28 cents per day profit, and we can live offa dat pretty good. Once ya get to 40 three days in a row, a penny in the jar is the expectation. Ya can give more, but I teach all the boys to save what they can. They spend a bit on poker or other things, of course, but most of me boys save a nickel a week by the time they's been at it a few months. The new boys can get some money outta da jar to cover food until they gets the hang of things or to buy their first papes. When the weather is nice, a bunch of em sleep outside."

I was impressed with the system—and with the fortitude of the boys.

"And how many do you sell?" I asked.

"Most days 250. More when the headline is good," he shrugged.

"So you make $2.50 a day and spend $1.50 for your papes. And the rest?" I pried.

"I spend about 30 cents a day on food and sometimes lodging. Sometimes a bit more. I put money in the jar. So I often save 40-50 cents a day. More before the strike when da price was lower. The price stayed up after the strike, but they buy back unsold papes now. Helps most of the boys take a few more risks, and they usually sell more."

"But you always sold all your papes, so the new system doesn't help you," I observed, trying to digest what he'd said. Forty cents a day? I barely earned that, and Papa and I didn't save that much!

Spot shrugged again. "I can handle it. My boys can't."

"So you take care of them." It was a statement.

"I'm the leader," he said simply. "And really it's the lodging house that takes care of us. They provide the meals and the schoolin' an' all."

"Do you attend the school?" I asked, curious. Spot had never really mentioned school.

"Nah, I finished," he said.

"You graduated?"

"Sure, you could call it that. I learned all they had to offer. I also got busy running things at the lodging house, helping keep order and things."

"I thought you said—"

"Mrs. Kirby is getting old. She runs things, but really she lets me run them. The rules are much looser now. My rules and all. But the boys have schooling, food, and the place is clean. We have curfew and rules about fighting. We do allow girls inside now, though." He winked at me, and I think I may have blushed.

"There are girl newsies?" I asked, looking around at the newsies on the docks curiously.

"There's a few, but they don't stay at the lodging house. Most of 'em got families, and there's a girls' house down the way that's mostly for factory girls. Two of my girls stay there. They can come over and visit now, though." He smiled and winked at me again. "Goldie likes to take the boys' money at poker," he said, and I smiled at the thought of the tough boys here losing to a girl. I said as much.

"Goldie's no lady," Spot snorted. "She's a street rat like the rest of us. But she's a hell of a poker player. Come on, Darlin'. We'd best get you home and then go see yer pa."

AN: The Lodging House did indeed cost 6 cents/night (more for private rooms, but I am taking some license here) and offered dinner for 6 cents. Mrs. Kirby is real, and she was ailing around this time. The LH also ran a school and had other such services. Apples cost about 3 cents, while a pound of bread cost 5. Newspapers were sold in bundles of 100. It was fun reading about the real LH and trying to balance creative license, movie cannon, and real history. This license will appear throughout. However, the math is correct-if Spot has a profit of a dollar a day, he could conceivably save half of that.