something
wonderful. At the funeral services it was said that without a doubt
Skippy had gone to a better home. His account was squared.

* * * * *

Skippy's story is not invented to be told here. In its main facts it
is a plain account of a well-remembered drama of the slums, on which
the curtain was rung down in the Tombs yard. There are Skippies
without number growing up in those slums to-day, vaguely wondering why
they were born into a world that does not want them; Scrabble Alleys
to be found for the asking, all over this big city where the tenements
abound, alleys in which generations of boys have lived and
died--principally died, and thus done for themselves the best they
could, according to the crusty philosopher of Skippy's set--with
nothing more inspiring than a dead blank wall within reach of their
windows all the days of their cheerless lives. Theirs is the account
to be squared--by justice, not vengeance. Skippy is but an item on the
wrong side of the ledger. The real reckoning of outraged society is
not with him, but with Scrabble Alley.

MAKING A WAY OUT OF THE SLUM

One stormy night in the winter of 1882, going across from my office to
the Police Headquarters of New York City, I nearly stumbled over an
odd couple that crouched on the steps. As the man shifted his seat to
make way for me, the light from the green lamp fell on his face, and I
knew it as one that had haunted the police office for days with a mute
appeal for help. Sometimes a woman was with him. They were Russian
Jews, poor immigrants. No one understood or heeded them. Elbowed out
of the crowd, they had taken refuge on the steps, where they sat
silently watchful of the life that moved about them, but beyond a
swift, keen scrutiny of all who came and went, having no share in it.

That night I heard their story. Between what little German they knew
and such scraps of their harsh jargon as I had picked up, I found out
that they were seeking their lost child--little Yette, who had strayed
away from the Essex Street tenement and disappeared as utterly as if
the earth had swallowed her up. Indeed, I often thought of that in the
weeks and months of weary search that followed. For there was
absolutely no trace to be found of the child, though the tardy police
machinery was set in motion and worked to the uttermost. It was not
until two years later, when we had long given up the quest, that
little Yette w