Peter was only
eleven, but the children of the slums are little men and women almost
from their cradles, and Peter was really the man of the family. He it
was who cared for the baby and prepared their frugal meals; he it was
who cried his papers upon the street in the cold darkness of the winter
mornings, who ran errands all day for the grocer on the next corner and
again in the evening sallied forth with his papers under his arm in
order to procure food to keep the life in their bodies. If father ever
earned any money but little of it was contributed to the family support.
As Peter wrestled with the fire, which positively refused to kindle, he
was still revolving in his mind the problem which troubled him. He had
been thinking of it all day, and the only thing he could decide was
that something must be done at once, but what that something was to be
he could not imagine. Things had been going from bad to worse lately,
and after last night he would never know an easy moment while baby was
under the same roof with father and mother. For himself he did not care.
He had grown accustomed to the beatings, to the drunken quarrels and
fearful language; in fact, he had never known anything different. But
last night father had tried to hurt baby. He might try again and perhaps
next time no Peter would be at hand to save her.
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