hink an extra
edition had to be printed to supply the demand.

CHAPTER IX

THE WAIF'S STORY

"I know nothing about my father," said the boy to me. "My mother
worked in the brick-yard not far from our cottage, where we lived
together. I went to school for two years and learned to read and
write, a little.

"Every evening I used to go to the bend in the road and meet my mother
as she came home. She was always very tired--so tired! She carried
clay on her head all day and it was heavy. I used to make the fire and
boil the supper and run all the errands to the grocery.

"One evening at the bend of the road I waited for my mother until it
was dark, but she did not come. Then I went home crying. I found my
mother lying on the bed with her clothes on. She would not wake up. I
shook her by the arm, I rolled her from one side to the other, but she
would not speak; then, I got on my knees and I kissed her--and her
face was very cold. I was scared. I went for the old woman who lived
next door. She shook her; then she cried and told me that my mother
was dead.

"My mother used to play with me at night and sometimes in the morning,
too. When they told me she was dead, I wondered what I would do
without her; but all the neighbours were so kind to me that I forgot a
good deal about my mother until they put her in a box and carried her
away. Then one of the neighbour women took me and said I must live
with her; so I did. I sold papers, ran errands, dried the dishes,
swept the floor for her; but after a long time she began to speak very
crossly to me, and I often trembled with fear.

"One day I decided to run away. After I sold all my papers, I came to
the cottage and slipped all the pennies under the door, and then ran
away as fast as I could. I did not know where I was going, but I had
heard so much about London that I thought it must be a very great
place and that I could get papers to sell and do lots of other things;
so, when a man found me sitting on the side of the road and asked me
where I was going, I said, 'To London.' He laughed and said:

"'Whom do you know there?'

"'Nobody,' I replied, 'but there are lots of people there and lots of
work, and I don't like the place where I live.' The man took me to his
house and kept me all night and paid my carfare to London next day.

"Many days and many nights I had no food to eat, nor no place to
sleep. I did not like to beg, not because I thought it wrong, but
be