New Britain herald., 1922-12-19
B Year Old New York Boy, Put Out by Stcp-Mother, Lives Alone With Dog on Roofs of Tenement Houses for Three Weeks.

New York, Dec. 1o.--Al this senti
 mental yagabond stuff about sleeping
 under the starry sky with heavens
 canopy for Q quilt falls to thrill John,
 ay Miller. He tried 1t for thyee win
 try weeks on East Side roofs and all
 t got him was swollen feet, 50 now
 te can only walk on hts knees
 Johnny. 8 years old. Polish born
 fond of dogs, is the hero of . melo-
 ,rama which might suit Jackie Coo
 gan. As Johnny's story goes, when
 .ce crashing down chute, killed his
 .ather, and his stepmother, crying ITO the hell with you! I'm going back Q Europe!" drove him from her door ae found d home in an otherwise .mpty water tank on the roof of q tenement house.
 A fox terrier kept watch over him; the ravens who fed him were boys from the street, sneaking an occa- ional frankfurter.
 But the cold rain invaded even the water tank and drove Johnny out .eaving Him as bedroom only bare .oofs or the top steps of tenemsnts, snder the roof scuttle.
 Likes New Cl,ildrcn's Home
 There a magnificent lady who has whole flat of two rooms found him, ,nd yesterday he was taken to the fine lew home of the Society for the Ere yention of Cruelty to Children. lie lad always loathsd the very name or .he Gerry Society" but suddenly ,e loved 1t.
 They put him in a room where Mother Goose rhymes are done III tie md mosaic on the wall, where every hing Is clean and warm; they gave njrn actual food and they bathed lis ,ching feet 50 efficiently that the s"el- Ing began to go down.
 Late in the afternoon Johnny was 10 comfortable that he was Tn danger ,f forgetting both of his well nursed ambitions. One of these IS to go 10 work and earn so much money tnat ,e can take ship to Poland and, as ,e says make her sorry" by finding uis stepmother and telling her what Ii means to a boy to be driven into the street. The other Is an ambition 10 DC ! cowpuncher in the west.
 Johnny says he visited the west nnce with his father, on their way from Brooklyn to Bronx park; and the tie suited him first rate, He Wis specially pleased with the, way the punchers twirl their guns.
 How He Became An Orphan.
 Johnny's tale of how the cruel step mother put him out into ehe cold may have been dreamed out of the movies, but it's his story and not disproved. His father, he said, used to dig potatoes in Poland, nut came to America and went Into the Ice business when the son and heir vas 9 or 8 years old. Here the moth- ey Veronicay died. The father mar ried another woman not nearly as good looking and her name was Mary. Three months ago chunk of ice sliding into Brooklyn cellar ended .he fathers life. He left his family ,ne weeks pay-$25.
 And then" says Johnny, "my step mother told me, Here is five dollars; hat is your share and you go away ut of here. I am going back to Pc and and don't want to mind you Then she sold the furniture and went Lway. We lived by Little Hungary n Houston street. The lady on the irst floor took the live dollars to pend for me. She got shirt, a I bookings and a belt and told me. Here is your nve dollars worth I ,ot the shirt on now"
 fCorroborating 50 much of Johnny's afrative, dwellers in Essex and De- ancy streets say that about three yeeks ago they began to see a boy I tho same description hanging in he evening by street fires. where the