erience. But this shrewdness showed that his innocence was his
choice of the good and rejection of the evil, and not merely because he
had been kept from contact with the evil. This was Irish Ned, the
Winnipeg newsy.

The prince of newsboys was little Irish Ned, small in body, but great
in mind, the acknowledged leader of the select circle in which he
moved; always bright, winning, punctual and strictly businesslike, he
was admired by all who knew and watched on the street for his little
dimpled smile. Of course it must be admitted that at times there did
come, now and then, a bit of a scrimmage, but Ned was "quite fit" for
his size and weight any day; and after all, "sure it was only a bit of
fun," as he was known to say, "an' a body must have a bit of a fight
sometimes." Besides, being an Irish boy, he dearly loved a "shindy,"
and Winnipeg's wide streets provided ample room in which to dodge a too
powerful enemy. But for all his teasing the big boys never bullied Ned,
for all of them loved his bright, intelligent face and manly ways.

In the evening, after his papers were sold, Ned used to wend his way to
the schoolroom of the church which was known to him and his chums as
"Peter's Church." There he spent many a happy hour with the Gymnasium
Club, tumbling on the bars, swinging the clubs, performing feats
wonderful in the eyes of the "greenies," and successfully wrestling
with boys twice his size. Many a prize did he carry off, and many a
"newsy" envied him the night he won the gold button for being, as he
styled it, "the best kid in the whole bunch." As a Boy Scout, he would
sit for hours and listen to the wonderful stories related by the
Scoutmaster, or play the grand game of Kim, or join an expedition of
endurance or skill or discovery, on which the painstaking Scoutmaster
used to take and train his boys. A proud boy indeed was Ned when with
his troop he marched with the Veterans and Military to St. John's on
"Decoration Day" to place a wreath on the graves of the Canadian heroes
who gave their lives for Queen and Country in the Rebellion of '85. His
chest would expand, his head would be lifted high, and his step assume
a manly stride, as the band of "The L.B.D.'s," in which one of his
chums was playing, would strike up "The Maple Leaf Forever," or "Pork,
Beans and Hard-tack, Hard-tack, Tra-la-la-la!"

But the greatest day of all the year to Ned was the Sixth of July. That
was the day, the glorious day, of St. Pe