Lucky, the Boy Scout

“Watch my papers, will you please, Mister?” Scarcely waiting for a reply, the bright eyed little newsboy left his stand and darted across the street, where he confronted a ragamuffin, nearly a head taller than himself.

“You have to play fair,” he began hotly, “or you can’t sell papers in this block.” Then calling to a youngster who looked little more than a baby, and who was standing several yards away where the bigger boy had chased him, he said:

“Come back here, Billy! You have as much right to this corner as Spot. And don’t you forget that, you Spot,” he flung back over his shoulder as he recrossed the street.

The big stranger who had been left in charge of the papers, watched the proceedings with considerable amusement.

“What’s the trouble, sonny?” he asked, and beneath the stern lines of his face lurked a smile that invited confidence.

The boy recognized him as a rancher, for many of his type came to this great packing center, bringing their herds from the big ranches of the West. You could easily tell them by their breezy manners and friendly ways.

“Oh, that Spot chases every little feller off the block, so there won’t be any com--com--”

“Competition?” the ranchman suggested.

“That’s it--competition. Spot’s nothing but a bully. He won’t pick on anyone his size.”

“And you take it upon yourself to ‘beard the lion in his den’ and act as champion?”

“I don’t know anything about that,” replied the boy, flushing, “but how are all these little fellows going to get a start in business unless somebody takes their part?”

The cattleman eyed the boy keenly. He was quite different from the other little “newsies” shouting hoarsely the startling news of their papers’ headlines. He appeared underfed, as did many of the children of the slums crowding the streets; his clothes were patched and repatched, but they were clean. His face, too, was clean, and his hair, somewhat ragged and uncut, showed the industrious use of comb and brush. He was a lad of about twelve.

John Dean--for that was the stranger’s name--looked down the narrow, dirty, ill-smelling street, with its crowds of surging humanity, down the dingy rows of tenement houses with their crying children and their scolding mothers standing in the doorways. He saw the heavy trucks pounding over the brick pavements, and the rattling wagons, and he thought of the calm that rested over his own boundless country. What a difference there was between the fetid air that rose from this cavernous street and the invigorating breeze that swept across his prairie lands out West! What a difference there was between his stalwart, robust cowboys and the wan-faced, hollow-chested men he saw about him!

The boy before him, according to all the rules of the game should have been another victim of the environment in which he lived. Dean found himself liking the lad, his actions, and especially his championship of the weak. Was there much of such material in this crowded, unwholesome place, he wondered, as he continued on his way.

The business that had called Mr. Dean to Chicago was completed and yet he was compelled to wait four days more because he had promised to meet a certain man, who would not arrive in Chicago until then. Time would hang heavily on his hands, he thought. His thoughts traveled back to the newsboy.

There came to him a sudden impulse; he decided to follow it and so he retraced his steps to where the boy was stationed.

“Back again, mister?” The boy smiled in greeting as if to an old friend. But it could be no more than a second’s greeting, for customers kept him busy.

“What’s your name, sonny?” the man asked, when the opportunity offered.

“Ted--Ted Marsh,” answered the boy.