LITTLE BEN THIS NEWSBOY.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 198, 16 November 1871, Page 7

LITTLE BEN THIS NEWSBOY.

(From a Cincinnati Paper.) Some months ago, or a year ago, may be. it was — I have forgotten jußt now how long, For I don't remember times and seasons very well — twd people were walking "down the street one day. A big burly newsboy, very rough looking, very dirty and uncombed he was walking slowly along, just before the two people, crying in a hoarse' brazes voice : "'Ere's yer evening pippers, 5 o'clocke — dish — in," just as hundreds of rough-looking uncombed newsboys do every day. But a few feet behind the big boy, another boy a little one was walking timidly. He was the merest mite of a little boy, not more than, seven years old, I think, and small for bis age, too. He was a fragile looking little fellow, with a pale face, and slender little hands. His hair was combed and curled carefully in long yellow curls almost like a girl's. None but a mother's hand can comb and curl a boy's hair just that way, I have noticed. The small boy bad a fevr papers under his arm, trying to hold them as the big boy held his. And when the big boy sung out his cry " Evening papers — 5 o'clock e — dish — in !" in his loud voice, he would turn immediately around to the little one, and nod encouragingly, and tell him, " Now you say it, baby." Then the pale little fellow with the long yellow curls, would take up his-, cry, faintly and feebly, and try to say it in his weak childish quaver. Somehow it made one feel queer about the throat to hear that poor little voice. 1 The large boy was teaching the small one how to be a newsboy. Next afcernoon the two boys had another rehearsal, and the next, and that time the little boy ventured across the street, and go other side; faintly and timidly echoing- the cry of his big rough friend opposite. Hundreds of people must have noticed the two, I avn sure. The small boy was little Ben. Ben was the smallest newsboy you ever saw. Such a little, little mite of a fellow he was, that you wondered bow he could sell papers at all, and how any mother could trust him oat of her sight. Fine ladies said sometimes that it was a pity such a pretty child should be a newsboy^ and that his mother surely did not care much for him, letting him run about the streets so in constant dauger of being knocked down and killed. If he were their boy, he shouldn't do so for anything. For little Ben was a very pretty child, with his slender hands and long golden curlsHow was it ? Did not his mother care for her child? Aye, she did, for he was the only comfort she had in the world — her only comfort and her only child. Little Ben had a fathsr, bat he might better have had no father. This father was a poor pitiful wretch of humanity, fallen so low that I think scarcely the angels of heaven could have r.eaehed him in the depth of degradation to which he had Sunk ! But happily Jesus could. Time had been when his gentle mother, with, her slender -hands and yellow curling hair, bo like little Ben's own, lived in a large house and had a carriage to ride in. Time had been when she had such a happy home that she had nothing left on earth to wish for. But that time was so long gone by now, that Ben's mother, in her trouble and despair, looked forward to no happiness and •no beautiful home till she should pass over the river and enter the gate of the celestial city. Indeed, so heavy was her trouble, that she sometimes lost sight of even that one last hope.

The days of plenty and happiness were so long gone by for little Ben and his mother, that one ' night they had no supper. And the next night it was just the same, and the next — and after that little Ben often went hungry to bed. One day, watching his mother with his large, wistful, blue eyes, he saw that her work had fallen from her hands, and that she was crying. At first, Ben cried too, because he did not know what else to do, laying his bright little head on her shoulder, and clasping his weak arms tight about her neck, as if, poor child, that could do any good. Presently he said, " Mamma, what are you crying for?" Then his^nother told, him" that she had no supper fo? him, and no breakfast either, and did not know where to get any more breakfast or Bupper. " Maybe the angels will bring us some," said poor little Ben. " There are no angels any more, I Benny, I fear," said his mother. i After that little Ben stood by her side a long time, very silent, very quiet (he was always a quiet boy), trying to get it through his childish head that there were truly no more angels with their white dresses and shining wings, such as he "had seen in pictures his mother used to have. The angels all looked like his mother somehow, it seemed to him, and she would make a beautiful angel herself if she only had broad white wings. But. he wanted bis supper awfully, and some supper for' mamma, too, the child thought. By and-bye,' -after' thinking a while longer, Ben. wei^iujuietly out of doors and into the Btreets v stole., so _sofcely out tM traeif WfryWait faiß'Wotufer did

no^se&hini at all. He went to jbhe lady "who lived next door, and said, ■ 11 Mrs. Gray, will you lend me tejj cents ? "

The Ja(ly, hearing the &mid, iremb* ling voice b.eside her, looked down and saw a small face gazing up into hersj with its childish faith and its childish beauty ; saw two lairge blue eyes, with she tears half quivering in them already, as if the.sensitive child expected a refusal. Something, a fleeting recollection maybe, or a wandering tender thought, floatingaboutlike thistledown, seeking some place to rest upon, touched Mrs. Gray's heart at the momsnt ; she remembered thesfrange feeling long afterward, and she patted little Ben's bright hair, as she gave him the money, and she said he was a good child.

Then little Ben went to the newspaper 6ffice, to wait for the five o'clock edition. It would have fared badly with him, though, only for Pat Hagans ; for the young ruffions of newsboys, seeing he was a new boy and a green one, fell upon the poor child and began to beat and cuff him savagely. But another wandering though, likea thistledown, must have touched and rested upon the heart of Pat Hagatrs at that moment. For just as a big bad boy had struck poor Ben and made hirri cry, burly Pat Hagans roared out^-— " Stop that ! Ter ' dussent lick a boy of yer size, nohow ! " From that time big Pat Hagans was tbe champion of little Ben. He educated him to be a newsboy, as I told you. That very first night Pat's " baby " sold every one of his papers. And that night little Ben and his mother had some supper though Ben wondered what made his mother cry again, as they sat down to eat, and hold him 1 so tight in her arms, and kiss him again and again. Ben thought it was a little Unreasonable in a woman to cry when she had plenty of bread and milk. Maybe the angels had brought little Ben and his mother their supper after all. But Pat Hagans was the only angel directly visible in the case, and he was rather a dirty looking angel, chewing tobacco, and smoking a stump pipe, as he did. And I'm positively certain nobody would have let Tiim into a Sunday school tableau as an angel. Nevertheless, for all his patched trousers and toes sticking out of his boots, he was a protecting spirit to little Ben. He was so little, so helpless and harmless, that by and by a spirit of pity and gentleness toward him began to develop itself even among the merciless outcast newsboys. They came to be so kind and chivalrous towards him that not a boy of them would go near little Ben's beat, not a boy of them would take a customer from him. lam glad to write that of them. They were glad to remember it, too after that happened which did happen. For some months that weak little boy earned supper for himself and his mother. People were kind to him mostly. Ladies and gentlemen bought papers of the pretty golden-haired child, even when they did not want them. Cab drivers often slacked up a little when they saw him coming, so that he might climb on safely, and even the big policeman used to watch him carefully across the rtreet. Little Ben learned more of the big world than he ever thought was to be known ; more than was good for a child to know, perhaps. He us3d to look at the fine carriages and wonder whether he ever could sell papers enough to buy a carriage. He wondered what he would do when he was a man. He would not be a newspaper editor, because editors were always so cross and in such a hurry. Maybe he would be a street car driver. He liked that better. Or maybe he would even have to go and be a legislator, and driven about upon a hack ard. be gaped at. He would not like that at all. On the whole, he thought he would be a milkman, he told his mother, because a milkman could ride all day in a waggon, and seemed to get more money than anybody else. And little Ben learned some bad worda and rough wayß from the other boys, too. But he never said the bad words before bis mother, never. And he always gave her every penny of bis little earnings, not even keeping enough,to buy a pocket-knife with two blades, though he wanted it more than anything else in the world. At last a terrible thing happened. I hardly know how to write it down, for when I go to write of that, my hand shakes and the tears come in spite of me, and somehow I seem to be writing of one who was of very near kin to me. One afternoon little Ben went out merrily to sell his papers, his slender delicate hands and pale face very clean, and his long bright curls shining in the sun. His mother watched him out of sight from her window, just as always. That was the last time she ever curled little Ben's long bright hair, the last time she was ever to watch her darling from the window. Poor little Ben ! He had sold .three papers, and the little fellow climbed into a street car and sold another. He meant to step off at the crossing, but the child was very little, very weak, and mißsed his footing, and fell uuder' the car. In an instant the heavy wheeled car rolled overnim. .Tliey* stopped the ear, and

picked up~the* sniall crushed body in a moment. A little feeble, trembling life yet Quivered" within him, aiid -he opened "bis blue eyes faintly,' ttqd begged .then; piteously to send for his mother/ ..They knew the child, and went instantly. But the faint tiny spark of life glimmered feebly, aad. went out quietly before the stricken mother came. And with the cold hand o.f death stiffening his white eyelids, and dimming his great blue eyes, littld heroßen murmured with his last weak breath, the words mingling brokenly with the death gasp — "Tell my mother — I've sold four papers — and — the money — is in — my pocket — God — will — care — for — her."

A crowd of men and women, moßt of them with tears in their eyes, saw the long bright cui'ls, all draggled and dusty, two poor slim hands, broken at the wrist, one of them hanging dead and lifeless — a heart-broken woman, moaning and crying, and clasping wildly to her breast the crushed, shapeless thing which had been goldenhaired little Ben !