Chapter I.

Four little boys: two of them had soft fair hair, and were dressed in the finest cloth; the other two had very bushy heads, and were dressed in whatever they could get. It was early Christmas morning, and the two rich boys were sitting by the window of a handsome brown-stone house, and they had each a stocking plump full of dainties; the two poor boys were calling the morning papers on the stone-cold sidewalk, and if they had any stockings at all, you may be very sure they were plump full of holes.

"An't he funny," remarked the smaller of the two in the house, looking at the larger of the two in the street; "an't he _too_ funny!" And between laughing and eating, little Fred came near choking himself. "See his old coat, Josie, it trails like Aunt Ellie's blue dress! And such a queer old hat; don't it make you laugh, Josie?"

"I have seen so many of 'em," explained Josie.

"What are you laughing at, Fred," asked their sister Mary, coming up to them.

"Those newsboys," he answered, and imitated their "Times, 'Erald, Tribune! Here's the 'Erald, Times, Tribune!" so perfectly that their father thought it was a real newsboy calling, and cried out to them from another room to "hurry up and bring a Herald," at which command the children rushed eagerly into the hall, and tugged with their united strength to open the doors, each anxious to be the first to speak to the odd-looking newsboys, and also to be the fortunate one to take the paper to their father. In the mean time, the two newsboys had not been unmindful of the faces behind the plated window.

"I say, Jim," said the big boy, who was about twelve or thirteen years old, "did you ever see the beat of that young 'un there? Don't you choke yerself, youngster, f'fear you'd cheat a friend from doing that same when you're growed up.--Ere's the 'Erald! Tribune! Times!--George! Jim, I wish to thunder there'd some new papers come up. An't yer tired allers a hollerin' out them same old tunes?--Times! 'Erald! Tribune!--How d'ye s'pose a feller'd feel to wake up some of these yere mornin's in one o' them big houses?"

"Heerd tell of stranger things 'n that, Dick," replied Jim, who read the weekly papers. "'Turn again, Whittington, Lord-Mayor of London,' as the cat said! Turned out true, too."

"_You'd_ better get a cat, Jim, you're such a stunnin' feller; shouldn't wonder if you'd turn out alderman some of these days!" At which, for no apparent reason, Dick laughed until every rag was fluttering.

"They wants a paper; better 'tend to yer business," answered Jim, at which the other newsboy instantly grew grave, and, shuffling his old shoes across the street, mounted the steps where the children were waiting and calling for him.

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"I want a New York Herald," said Fred very grandly.

"Han't got no 'Eralds," answered the newsboy.

Fred rushed into the house saying, "His Heralds are all gone."

"Tribune, then, and don't keep the door open," instructed the rough voice from some invisible spot. Mary shut the door all but a little crack. "Papa wanted a Herald," she said; "you ought to have one when my papa wants it."

"Thought I had, but couldn't help it; 'Erald's got a great speech to-day, and I've sold 'em all."

"Do you sell papers every day?" Mary asked.

The bushy head made a sort of bow, as the poor newsboy looked at the fair-haired little girl on the stoop, who condescended to question _him_.

"Yes, miss," he answered, "since ever I wasn't bigger'n a grasshopper."

"An't he funny?" said Fred.

"Don't you get tired?" asked Mary.

"Well, I can't say I doesn't, 'specially sometimes."

"An't you glad it's Christmas?" Josie asked, as questions seemed the fashion.

"I kinder am," replied the newsboy.

"Did you have many presents?" questioned Mary.

"Me? Bless you, who'd give 'em to me, miss?"

"Didn't you hang up your stocking last night?" Fred asked.

The newsboy seemed much amused at the question; for it was plain that he could hardly keep from laughing right out.

"Well, no, I didn't," he answered. "Don't think things would stick in one long, if I did!"

"Do you put your money in a savings bank? By and by you'd have enough to build a house maybe, if you were careful," said Josie.

"Jim and me likes takin' it out in eatin' best," answered Dick.

"Why don't you bring me that paper?" cried their father's voice. And the two boys ran hastily into the house.

"You may have my candy," said Mary in a stately way. "I can have plenty more." And she put her store of dainty French candy into the boy's hand, and, while he was still looking at her in amazement, followed her brothers into the house and shut the door.

"Just you pinch me, Jim," Dick said, joining his companion. "Drive in hearty, now. An't I asleep?"

"Well, I dunno; what yer got there?"

"She give it to me."

"Who's that?"

"Her on the steps; didn't you see her?"

"You tell that to the marines! Guess you took it."

"No, I didn't," Dick said indignantly. "I never took nothin' as warn't mine yet."

"Let's have a look," said Jem, reaching out his hand for the package; but Dick would not let him touch it. "I'm going to keep it always to remember her," he said.

"Guess you want ter eat it yerself," Jem said. "I wouldn't be so mean."

"I an't gen'rally called mean," Dick answered with great dignity.

"Don't you wonder, Jim," said Dick, as they made friends and passed on--"don't it seem curious how some folks is rich and purty like them there, and others is poor and ugly like me and you, Jim?"

"George! speak for yerself, if ye like. Guess I'd pass in a crowd, if I'd the fine fixin's!"

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"S'posin' me and you had dandified coats and yeller gloves, and the fixin's to match, s'pose anybody'd know we was newsboys?" Dick asked thoughtfully.

"I _rayther_ think," said Jim, "we'd be a deal sight handsomer'n some of them chaps as has 'em now."

"Let's save our money and try it, Jim."

"'Nuff said," answered Jim, laughing. And the newsboys in their queer garments, and with their light hearts, passed out of sight of Mr. Brandon's brown-stone house and fair-haired children.

But not out of all remembrance. The children had a party that Christmas afternoon; and when they were tired of romping, and were seated around the room, the girls playing with their dolls; the Catholic ones telling the others in low voices about the flowers and lights, and the wonderful manger which they had seen at Mass that morning; and the boys eagerly listening to the stories of faraway lands, which one of the older people was telling, little Mary knelt in an arm-chair, and looked out of the window at the people hurrying through the driving rain and snow, and at the street-lamps glaring through the wet and cold. Her kind little heart had been very light, and a strange joyousness had surrounded her all day, making her more gentle than ever, so that she had not spoken one hasty word, or once hesitated to take the lowest part in any of the plays. Though she did not know it, the little infant Jesus had smiled on her that morning when she was kind to the poor, homeless newsboy; and now she understood--for charity had enlarged her mind--more distinctly than she ever had before, that there were many cold and desolate children for whom there were no earthly glad tidings that day, yet who were as much God's own as the little ones grouped around her father's pleasant parlors. Then, just as she did the best she could, and prayed in her heart for the children of the poor, she thought she saw the newsboy to whom she had spoken in the morning standing close to the railing by the window; but before she could be sure of it, the servant lighted the gas; she heard the children calling her for a new game, and she ran lightly away. But there was one crouched in the cold outside, who wondered at the sudden light and glow within; and as the bewildered newsboy saw her dancing past the lighted windows, it seemed to him that it was not so far, after all, to the heaven and the angels of whom he had heard; for the "glad tidings" had come to Dick, even Dick, and they woke up the good, the will to do right, which is in every heart, and which did not sleep again in him, even when the little, uncared-for, outcast head rested on the stone steps that Christmas night.