The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1870-05-14

long wooden tables, clean as securing could
make them. About them were gathered
nearly hundred boys eating their supper
Pat recognize many of them as familiar ac-
quaintances. They had each plenty of bread
spread with molasses, and a tin cup filled with
milk or coffee, and were chatteIing like so
many blackbirds.
Sam knew all about the place which he
called the ''Newsboy's Home," and soon got
supper for Pat and himself. Then he went
about to show the novelties OF the "Home"
TO his uninltiated companion.
After supper was eaten and the tables
were put cut of the way, some OF the boys
cot boards for checkers or backgammon, and
began to play; others took books or news
papers, and quietly finding place by the
nearest gas-lieht, sat down to read. Others
still went off to spend shilling for admit
lance into the pit OF the Bowery theatre,
where some woful tragedy delighted their eyes
and ears.
The first evening at the "Newsboy's Home"
was better than a play to Pat. Sam showed
HIM a low Of little wooden savlngs-banks,
fastened up against the wall, and told him
he could have one allotted to him, into which
he might drop all the pennies he wished to
save. He showed him the bath rooms and
the lihray-where the sludious boys got
their books-lilled with volumes of stories
and travel and history. But alas for little
Pat! these were sealed treasures TO him.
lie did not know his alphabet.
At last, when t was quite late, and the last
loterer from the theatre had come back tor
The night, Sam took him to the dOrDitory.
Here were long rows of beds, two tiers high,
like berths on shipboard, made up clean and
white-such contrast 10 the straw bags in
The vile cellar where Pat had so often paid
his nightly shilling They both took bath
before getting between the sheets. that they
might not sully their whiteness. and Pat laid
his head on :. wholesome bed for the first time
in his life.
lie could not help wondering, remorsefully,
before he closed his eyes, what his father and
mother would do without him that night.
And he resolved to devote the fist money he
could lay up in one OF the wooden savings
| boxes ON the wall, to hiring place which
| should be home for his parents. Thinking
this, and many other new thoughts. Pat drop
| ed of into the land OF dreams.
| Then Mr.. Holmes was absent from the city
for nearly half the year. On his return TO
| New York he missed from all his accustomed
| places tie little fellow who had been SO eager
to serve him with his favorife papers.
| "What has become Of Little Pat?' he ask
| ed one night, as he bought his Euening Post
| of broafshouldered bow who stood ON the
corner of Broadway and Fulton.
~, dU MCOOui9dlg ne 5 SICK ,SlT. lueY
say he's DING very last"
Where does he iive?" asked Mr.. Holmes.
"Down at the five Points, up Sheep's-head
| Alley, sir. Anybody there will tell YOU the
house. ii you ask for little Pat, who is dying OF
| consumption"
| Mr.. Holmes was a business man, without
much opportunity for the active exercise OF
| philanthropy, but the sad life of poor Pat had
touched him deeply, and he resolved to so the
next day and see if he was suffering very much
for anything. SO as soon as his working hours
were over, he started iii search of Sheeps-heat
| Alley, Five Points.
| Mr.. Holmes picked his Way. with his var
Dished boots through the horrible alley ant
asked for the place where little Pat lived. A
| dirty Old woman directed him up some mar
row, dIlapidated stairs, and he climbed them.
As he knocked at broken door on III,
landing some one cried:
"Come in"
| He entered and was in Pats home-a boo
room enough, but one he had managed to hir,
Tor his father and mother since he had com
menced business. 1t was very dirty place
OF course. How could it be otherwise, whe1
his mother was drunk from morning till night
and had hardly known the use of soap an(
| water? But Pat had evidently tried, befor,
| he was sick, 10 make il look a little NOR,
cheerful; for he had pasted prints cut from
illustrated papers on the damp walls, and there
| was withered rose-bush in a CLAW pot on tht
window-si
| The chairs were broken: barrel with 2
board Oh it served for a table; and in the cor
ner was little straw pallet on an iron he'd
| stead. Stretched over this was a clean white
| sheet, covering stiff little figure. A bloateC
woman, with bleary red eyes and uncombed
hair, sat beside it. She was now sober-one
of the few times for many years.
els little Pat dead ?" asked Mr., Holmes
softly, stopping short and somewhat shocked
at the sight.
"Yes, sir, he's Dead" sobbed the woman
He died at Tin this morning, an though it's
not for the likes of me to say it of my own
childer, he was as good a boy as didn't de-
serve"
Had be been comfortably cared for while
he was sick?"
| Pretty well, sir. He had a little money oil
his own laid by unbeknownst to us-and the
Mission folk have been very good to him. 'Tis
they that will bury him."
And here Pats mother began to rock to and
iro in an agony of grief.
Mr.. Holmes approached and lifted the sheet
The poor pinched features wore a peace thai
was not of the Five Points nor of the noisy
busting city-a peace that not even the qui
etest PAGES of earth shall ever know. And as
he spread the covering gently back, he was
| glad to ronaenabea that - 80 to the han
piest and most prosperous of eartn'S CULTURES
that the words were uttered" Come unto
me and will give you rest"