Doodles, the Sunshine Boy

ON the Saturday before New Year’s Day Doodles went home. Giles Gaylord and his wife came for him, and he wore his Christmas presents from Miss Fleming, a long fur coat and a cap...

She was an odd little creature, straight and slender, with a mop of jet─black curls, skin dusky as a gypsy’s, and eyes like the bluest sky. Her coarse dress of red cotton stuff...

“I think so,” she smiled, carefully picking up a dropped stitch. “It’s my mother’s Christmas present. I knew if I didn’t start it early ’twouldn’t be done. I thought you wouldn’...

AT ten o’clock Doodles was taken to the hospital and carried directly to his little white room. Everything was novel and pretty to the boy’s eyes, but prettiest of all was the w...

THE gravity of the strike situation increased. There was small prospect of immediate yielding on either side. A few turbulent strikers blustered and threatened, secret mass meet...

CARUSO was in fullest song now that spring was in town, and he did all that he could to cheer his best friends. His task was hard, and, whether he perceived its difficulties or...

The kitchen was very still. Stairway and hall were empty; the occupants of the top floor worked outside, and would not be home until six o’clock. Only dull sounds came from the...

THE chief of police was right. In less than a week Mrs. Stickney was back at her bench in the Big Shop, and things were going on as before the strike.

THE morning newspapers announced the arrest of Emmanuel de Vendôme, alias Henry Cochin, who was wanted by another state to answer various charges, and the policeman’s warning ag...

“On—ly an armour─bear—er, proud—ly I stand, Wait—ing to fol—low at the King’s command; Marching if ‘onward’ shall the or—der be, Standing by my Cap—tain, serv—ing faith—ful—ly.

“I don’t see why I should be sick,” she worried. “I was well enough last night when I went to bed. I cannot go to the shop if this pain doesn’t let up.”

“At first I didn’t see any way I could comfort her, and then I thought of Caruso. It was his singing that made me think—oh, he sung just beautifully!”

RUMORS of the thunderbolt in The Flatiron met Mrs. Stickney on her way home, and her thankfulness for the safety of her boys routed all worry over the loss of the stove. But aft...

THE vision in the doorway arrested the word of welcome on Doodles’s lips. As soon as he could command his tongue he smiled a cordial “How do you do? Will you walk in?”

THE first days of Doodles’s home─coming were full of a mild excitement. Besides there being so much to talk about when the little family was alone, almost everybody in The Flati...

Blue was living with “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” and at the moment was so eager to know whether the young Lord lost his estate and his title that he absently queried, “H—m?”

IT was hot in The Flatiron. The July sun rose early and blazed over the tin roof, until by nine o’clock the rooms underneath began to feel like ovens. Doodles had never drooped...

“Well,” she softened her voice, “I haven’t said anything—and they’ve kept it pretty whist; but we’re ordered out on strike to─morrow noon, unless the company come to our terms—a...

A WEIGHTY problem was puzzling the Stickney family. What should be the gray bird’s name? Doodles was growing nervous under the reiterated question, “What yer goin’ to call him?”...

“Ladies and gentlemens ... beautiful lark ... emperor of singers ... not swell to look at, but.... Only twenty cents!—Twenty─two am I offered? ... shame, ladies and gentlemens!”...

She shook her head absently. “Blue!—Jim Blue!” she murmured. Then she darted across to the trunk in the corner. “This has got to come open!” she exclaimed decidedly, stooping on...

“Three thousand dollars. But you’re too late, Bill! They’ve just found the child an’ the hull of ’em up in The Flatiron, an’ the reward’s goin’ to a boy ’t lives there.”

IT rained; but no merry, independent little drops tinkled upon the panes. Mother Nature appeared to be housecleaning, and torrents of water were dashed against the windows. Dood...

EVEN the doorknob of Dolly Moon’s room looked melancholy. So Doodles felt, and he turned a little in his chair, that it might not face him. Then, more lonely, he looked back, an...

The mother assented. “I knew his handwriting—the minute I saw the envelope. I was afraid of it when Mr. Gaylord told me the name—oh, if I’d only known! Now it’s too late!” She d...

Blue heard this with a little dismay, for he thought it not unlikely that he should be obliged to leave the bird for treatment. He wondered whether he ought to prepare Doodles f...

“Gracious me! what if ’t was my Jim—and my baby!” she wailed, twisting her little hard─worked hands over Blue’s story of the dancer and her passionately─expressed longing to lie...