hildren of the slums are little men and women almost
from their cradles, and Peter was really the man of the family. He it
was who cared for the baby and prepared their frugal meals; he it was
who cried his papers upon the street in the cold darkness of the winter
mornings, who ran errands all day for the grocer on the next corner and
again in the evening sallied forth with his papers under his arm in
order to procure food to keep the life in their bodies. If father ever
earned any money but little of it was contributed to the family support.

As Peter wrestled with the fire, which positively refused to kindle, he
was still revolving in his mind the problem which troubled him. He had
been thinking of it all day, and the only thing he could decide was
that something must be done at once, but what that something was to be
he could not imagine. Things had been going from bad to worse lately,
and after last night he would never know an easy moment while baby was
under the same roof with father and mother. For himself he did not care.
He had grown accustomed to the beatings, to the drunken quarrels and
fearful language; in fact, he had never known anything different. But
last night father had tried to hurt baby. He might try again and perhaps
next time no Peter would be at hand to save her. They were unusually bad
last night, both father and mother; the child was frightened and had
begun to whimper. Angered still further by the sound, the man had seized
a stove-lifter and flung it straight at baby's head. But Peter had
already sprung between and the missile struck him full on the forehead,
causing a wicked-looking bruise. He had lain stunned for a time, then
crept into bed with baby and listened in terror as the quarrel between
his father and mother progressed from words to blows. He had not minded
these things before, but what would he do if father should ever beat
baby as he, Peter, had been beaten so many times? And Peter felt the
time was coming when father would surely do it. Last night was but the
beginning.

A noise from the next room told him that mother must be waking from the
drunken sleep in which she had lain for several hours. At any moment she
might open that door and enter the kitchen, and her temper was always
terrible when she would first awaken from those long sleeps which
followed a carousal. In a few moments, too, father would come home. The
fire refused to burn; so supper would not be ready, and with mot