The Newsboy's Debt.

« Sir, if you please, my brother Jim—
The one you give the bill, you know—
He couldn't bring the money, sir,
Because his back was hurted so.

« He didn't mean to keep the 'change';
He got runned over, up the street;
One wheel went right across his back,
And t'other forewheel mashed his feet.

« They stopped the horses just in time,
And then they took him up for dead,
And all that day and yesterday
He wasn't rightly in his head.

« He had that money in his hand,
And never saw it any more.
Indeed, he didn't mean to steal!
He never lost a cent before!

« He was afraid that you might think
He meant to keep it anyway;
This morning when they brought him to
He cried, because he couldn't pay.

« He made me fetch his jacket here;
It's torn and dirtied pretty bad;
It's only fit to sell for rags,
But then you know, it's all he had!

« When he gets well—it won't be long—
If you will call the money lent,
He says he'll work his fingers off
But what he'll pay you every cent. »

And then he cast a rueful glance
At the soiled jacket, where it lay.
« No, no, my boy! Take back the coat.
Your brother's badly hurt, you say?

« Where did they take him? Just run out
And hail a cab; then wait for me.
Why, I would give a thousand coats,
And pounds, for such a boy as he! »

A half hour after this we stood
Together in the crowded wards,
And the nurse checked the hasty steps
That fell too loudly on the boards.

I thought him smiling in his sleep,
And scarce believed her when she said,
Smoothing away the tangled hair
From brow and cheek, « The boy is dead. »

Dead? Dead so soon? How fair he looked!
One streak of sunshine on his hair.
Poor lad! Well, it is warm in heaven;
No need of « change » and jackets there.

And something rising in my throat
Made it so hard for me to speak,
I turned away, and left a tear
Lying upon his sunburned cheek.

—Inland Printer. H. R. Hudson.