play and sometimes
joining in their sports, when they would let him, with the spontaneous
abandon of a puppy or a kitten, and now enjoying some street-show or
attractive shop-window. There was nothing of the air of a lost child
about him. For all that his manner betrayed, his home might have been in
the nearest court or alley. So, he wandered along from street to
street without attracting the special notice of any--a bare-headed,
bare-footed, dirty, half-clad atom of humanity not three years old.

Hungry, tired and cold, for the summer was gone and mid-autumn had
brought its chilly nights, Andy found himself, as darkness fell, in a
vile, narrow court, among some children as forlorn and dirty as himself.
It was Grubb's court--his old home--though in his memory there was of
course no record of the place.

Too tired and hungry for play, Andy was sitting on the step of a
wretched hovel, when the door opened and a woman called sharply the
names of her two children. They answered a little way off. "Come in
this minute, and get your suppers," she called again, and turning back
without noticing Andy, left the door open for her children. The poor
cast-adrift looked in and saw light and food and comfort--a home that
made him heartsick with longing, mean and disordered and miserable as
it would have appeared to your eyes and mine, reader. The two children,
coming at their mother's call, found him standing just on the threshold
gazing in wistfully; and as they entered, he, drawn by their attraction,
went in also. Then, turning toward her children, the mother saw Andy.

"Out of this!" she cried, in quick anger, raising her hand and moving
hastily toward the child. "Off home with you!"

Andy might well be frightened at the terrible face and threatening words
of this woman, and he was frightened. But he did not turn and fly, as
she meant that he should. He had learned, young as he was, that if he
were driven off by every rebuff, he would starve. It was only through
importunity and perseverance that he lived. So he held his ground, his
large, clear eyes fixed steadily on the woman's face as she advanced
upon him. Something in those eyes and in the firmly-set mouth checked
the woman's purpose if she had meant violence, but she thrust him out
into the damp street, nevertheless, though not roughly, and shut the
door against him.

Andy did not cry; poor little baby that he was, he had long since
learned that for him crying did no good