Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1898-10-24

W tnC DOyS Ol MS
"gang." Mamie O'Rourke, whose
esteem Barney held above all price,
and who had singled him out, before
his illness, for her smiles and favors,
pitied where form arly she had ad-
mired, and was kind but condescend-
ing.
Even the tiniest street urchin hooted
him, as the children in the Bible story
hooted the prophet, Elisha. Though
they did not use the precise words of
those children, go up, thou bald
head" they used words just as un-
pleasant to hear, and Barney, unlike
the HebrC@ prophet, had no she bears
at his conrEnd. At fifteen boy sets
great store by his personal appearance !;
and it must not be imagined that, be-
cause he lived at the end of a grimy,
cluttered, six-foot-wide alley, in a
rlckety tenement on which the sun
shone not more than fifteen minutes a
day, BCr&ey Rollins did not have as
much pride as boys of the same age
who are better housed.
On the contrary, Barney telt his
misfortune quite as keenly as many a
pampered little aristocrat would have
done, for. he was boy of an excep-
tionally fne-grained nature, and his
very soul was embittered by this dis
fgurement which O. coarser- -fbred boy
would not have minded.
Down town, one day, Barney saw,
in the show window of theatrical
supply shop, a fine array of wigs, and
among them one that in color and tex
ture seemed so exact a copy of his own
departed hair that his heart was III
his mouth in an instant. The sight
thrilled him through and through.
Braving certain ridicule, he entered
the shop andinquired the price. "Ten
dollarsW For him, at that moment it
might as we'll have been ten thousand
Never mind; he must and would have
that wigl
Easy enough to resolve, but how to
achieve, with his slender resources?
The place he had held before his ILL
ness, as errand-boy for a large dry
goods firm, had been given back to
him, and was worth three dollars and
fifty cents week. Bat every cent of
this had to be given up for the sup
port of the family, and Barney knew
well enough it would be no use to try
to divert any of it to himself. He was
not inclined to cheat his parents, and
had he been he could not by any
chance have done it; they were too
vigilant for that.
To get the wig he must earn more
money, and to earn more money he
must have more work. The extra in
come from the extra work would be
all his own; for to this his parents
so at least it seemed to Barney-c
have no righteous claim.
AS nothing better suggested itself,
Barney put his resolution into effect
by returning TO the early morning
boot cleaning and paper selling he
had been glad to give up when he had
attained to the dignity of position in
dry goods house. He also found
chances to deliver goods for fish
markets and meat markets on Thurs
day and Saturday nights respectively.
Later on he bargained with one of
his boy friends, who was employed
daily from noon to midnight setting
up tenpins in the bowling alley at an
athletic club, and who wanted his
evenings free, to take the last five
hours of the work off his hands.
Barney's parents never questioned
his late hours, and were quite in
different to his goings and comings;
SO he had no trouble in keeping from
them the fact of his new employment;
but he found it hard, indeed, being
still weak from his illness, to bolt his
supper and hurry away to night work
after eight hours Of day work; and it
was also hard to give up the evening
frolics in which he had been accus-
toned to Join with .he boys.