rs, that were sadly in
need of recruiting. A steady job of "shinin'" was found for him in an
Eighth Ward saloon, and that afternoon, just before Christmas, he came
home from school and putting his books away on the shelf for the next in
order to use, ran across Broadway full of joyous anticipation of his new
dignity in an independent job. He did not see the street-car until it was
fairly upon him, and then it was too late. They thought he was killed, but
he was only crippled for life. When, after many months, he came out of the
hospital, where the company had paid his board and posed as doing a
generous thing, his bright smile was gone; his "shining" was at an end,
and with it his career as it had been marked out for him. He must needs
take up something new, and he was bending all his energies, when I met
him, toward learning to make the "Englis' letter" with a degree of
proficiency that would justify the hope of his doing something somewhere
at sometime to make up for what he had lost. It was a far-off possibility
yet. With the same end in view, probably, he was taking nightly
writing-lessons in his mother-tongue from one of the perambulating
schoolmasters who circulate in the Italian colony, peddling education
cheap in lots to suit. In his sober, submissive way he was content with
the prospect. It had its compensations. The boys who used to worry him,
now let him alone. "When they see this," he said, holding up his scarred
and misshapen arm, "they don't strike me no more." Then there was his
fourteen months old baby brother who was beginning to walk, and could
almost "make a letter." Pietro was much concerned about his education,
anxious evidently that he should one day take his place. "I take him to
school sometime," he said, piloting him across the floor and talking
softly to the child in his own melodious Italian. I watched his grave,
unchanging face.

[Illustration: PIETRO LEARNING TO MAKE AN ENGLIS' LETTER.]

"Pietro," I said, with a sudden yearning to know, "did you ever laugh?"

The boy glanced from the baby to me with a wistful look.

"I did wonst," he said, quietly, and went on his way. And I would gladly
have forgotten that I ever asked the question; even as Pietro had
forgotten his laugh.

CHAPTER III.

IN THE GREAT EAST SIDE TREADMILL

If the sightseer finds less to engage his interest in Jewtown than in the
Bend, outside of the clamoring crowds in the Chasir--the Pig-market--he
will di