LITMIR.BIZ

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a day or so if you like, I’ve no objections,” replied the captain. “Here’s something toward his keep;” and he placed a bill in Reordan’s hand.

      “We’ll all chip in,” said another. “Here, Jack, pass around the hat for the blind kid.”

      The Fire-Dog took the hat in his mouth with great alacrity, and gravely went from one to another of the men, each one of whom put in some change.

      “Reordan shall be treasurer of the blind kid’s fund,” said one.

      “There’s enough already to buy more than he can eat in a week,” replied Reordan, shaking up the hat to enjoy the jingling sound of the coins.

      “Please will you show me where I can wash?” asked a gentle voice; and there stood the blind kid, who had approached unnoticed. “If you will show me once, I can find it for myself afterwards.”

      “Here you are, young man,” replied Reordan, leading him to the sink where the men washed. “Here’s the water-faucet, and here’s the soap; and while you’re making your toilet I’ll step out and fetch your breakfast.”

      “Why not take him along with us?” asked one of the men.

      “He isn’t in just the rig for a cold morning,” replied Reordan. “The looks of the thing, to say nothing of his own feelings, goes against it. Wait till he has a hat and coat. I’ll fetch his breakfast, and while he’s eating it we’ll go for ours.”

      “And when we come back we’ll hear his story, and see what account he has to give of himself,” said another.

      The boy made himself quite tidy, considering the poor clothes he had on; and the men, after seating him at the table with a good breakfast before him, went out for theirs.

      How good it did taste to the poor little waif! Only hot coffee and buttered rolls, but it was a feast for the poor child, who for several weeks had eaten his meals whenever he could get them, and little enough at that.

      As the boy sat contentedly eating his breakfast, a slight sound near his feet attracted his attention. “Is that you, Jack?” he quickly asked.

      Jack replied by licking his hand and pressing closely to his side.

      “Dear Jack!” said the blind boy, fondly laying his cheek upon the faithful dog’s head. “If you hadn’t nestled so closely to me last night and kept me warm, I believe I should have frozen to death. Here, you shall have part of my breakfast, I don’t need it all;” and he offered the Fire-Dog a generous piece of his buttered roll.

      Jack took the offering very reluctantly, as if he would have preferred to have the blind boy eat it himself, but accepted it in order not to hurt his new friend’s feelings.

      “You eat so slowly, I don’t believe it tastes so good to you as it does to me, Jack,” said the blind boy, as Jack slowly chewed the soft roll, “and it has butter on it too. I should think you would like that.”

      Jack was trying hard to dispose of a mouthful his kind little friend had just given him when the firemen returned from their breakfast. In fact, Jack did like the bread, but he thought he ought not to take the blind boy’s breakfast. He looked really ashamed of himself when the men entered and Reordan remarked,—

      “Why, you mustn’t give your breakfast away to Jack, young chap, you must eat it yourself. We’ve brought him some leavings from the place where we take our meals, that he likes a great deal better than what you’ve got. Aren’t you hungry, kid? Don’t you like your breakfast?”

      “Yes, indeed,” replied the boy, quickly. “It tastes splendid; but Jack was so good to me last night that I wanted to give him some of it.”

      “Don’t you worry about him, Sonny,” replied one of the men. “We’ll look out for Jack all right;” and he opened a package of bones and scraps of meat which he set before Jack.

      “Now, if you’ve had all you want to eat,” said the captain, who just then entered, “suppose you give an account of yourself.”

      “Yes, sir,” replied the boy.

      “Well,” said the captain, after waiting a moment in vain for the boy to begin his story. “Where do you come from, and what’s your name? Haven’t you got any father and mother?”

      “My name is William,” replied the boy, “William Blake. I haven’t got any father. He used to go to sea, and his ship got lost and they were all drowned.”

      “Haven’t you got any mother?” asked the captain.

      The boy hesitated a moment. Then his lips began to tremble with emotion, and after making several attempts to answer, he put his hands before his sightless eyes and burst into violent weeping.

      The tender-hearted men were overcome at the sight of the child’s grief. He tried to stifle the sobs that shook his slender frame, but his grief was too great for him to master. The brave men who never hesitated to enter a burning building to rescue those who were in danger, who never thought of their own lives when those of others were menaced, broke down to see a little blind boy crying for his mother.

      “Is your mother dead too?” asked the captain in a low voice, a great contrast to his usual hearty tones.

      “No, I don’t think she is. I don’t know,” sobbed the boy.

      “Don’t you know where she is?” asked the captain, gently.

      “No, sir,” replied the boy, trying hard to speak distinctly. “She fell down, and she couldn’t speak to me nor move, and then they carried her off in a wagon.”

      “Don’t you know where they took her?”

      “No, sir, they didn’t say anything about it.”

      “Wasn’t there any one to look after you?”

      “No, sir. There wasn’t any one who knew me.”

      “What did you do then? Where did you go?”

      “I didn’t know where to go. Some children came along and found me crying, and they were real good to me. They said they knew a place where I could stay until my mother came back. So they took me home with them, and put me in a little room there was at the top of the house.”

      “How did you manage to keep warm in this cold weather?”

      “The children found some things to put over me. They got some hay from a stable and made me a bed. It wasn’t very cold after I got used to it.”

      “They probably took his mother to a hospital,” said the captain, “unless she was—” He didn’t like to finish his sentence, for he had not the heart to tell the poor boy that his mother might be dead.

      “Come, little chap,” he continued, “dry your eyes and put a good face on the matter. We will try to hunt up your mother, and we’ll look out for you.”

      “This is no place for a child,” said the captain later to the men. “You can keep him here a day or two, and then you must turn him over to the charities. Perhaps they’ll find his mother; at any rate, it is their business to attend to such cases.”

      The men thought this doctrine rather hard, and grumbled at it somewhat among themselves. When, however, the next day, the captain brought in a large bundle, saying briefly, as he laid it down, “Here is something for the kid,” they changed their minds. The bundle contained a warm overcoat, cap, and mittens.

      The blind boy began at once to show the effects of the kind treatment he now received. A better color came into his pale face and he grew stronger every day. With this improvement of his body, his mind, too, underwent a change. His face became cheerful and happy, and he was soon playing about the engine-house with Jack.

      “He begins to seem something like a child,” remarked Reordan one evening, as Jack and the blind boy were playing together at “hide and seek,” and the boy’s laugh rang out joyously whenever Jack found out his hiding-place. “If he could only see, he’d be all right.”

      It was astonishing how much the blind boy could

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