Yet Mush still laughs. A lot. "Did you hear that fellas? I asked Jack how he slept, and..."
Race just tunes him out. He has more important things to worry about.
Then he hears Crutchy asking Jack about if he thinks people will think he's faking the limp. No one's going to think that. People know Crutchy.
Yet Crutchy still thinks he needs a new selling spot.
"Try Bottle Alley or the Harbor," Mush suggests for him.
"Try Central Park, it's guaranteed," Race supplies.
"Try any bank or bum or barber," Jack adds.
"They almost all knows how to read," Skittery finishes.
On another side of the room, the morning chaos continues.
"I smell money," Blink says coming out of the bathroom, and is cut off by Crutchy going, "You smell foul!"
"Met this girl last night," Mush tells Blink, and pushes him around, making him spin. Everyone knows for a fact that even if Mush did meet a girl, he just is trying to get Blink jealous. Blink has more impulse control than Mush likes to think.
"Eh, move your elbow!" Crutchy nearly shouts at Boots who is pumping water, and truly doesn't care.
"Pass the towel," Race asks of someone, soap on his face. It hurts, he wants it off.
But he lives with these guys. He's not getting anything that easily.
"For a buck I might!" Skittery tells him, and pushes him backward.
Aren't these mornings fun?
"Ain't it a fine life," they all say, "carrying the banner through it all?"
Yeah. Yeah it is.
"A mighty fine life, carrying the banner tough and tall."
Most of them are nearly done by now. They start heading downstairs.
"Every morning, we goes where we fishes, we'se as free fishes, sure beats washing dishes. Ain't it a fine life, carrying the banner home free all!"
They're all outside now. This is also one of the fun parts of the morning routine, all of them jumping around.
"It takes a smile, as sweet as butter," Jack says.
"The kind that ladies can't resist," Crutchy adds.
Race adds his bit. "It takes an orphan, with a stutter." That trick works real well.
"Who ain't afraid to use his-"
"Fist!" Kid Blink jumps in.
"Summer stinks and winter's waiting, welcome to New York. Boy ain't nature fascinatin', when you'se got to walk?"
Still it's a fine life, carrying the banner with your chums.
Blowing every nickle as it comes.
"I'm no snoozer," Crutchy says. "Sitting makes me antsy, I like living chancy, Harlem to Delancey."
"What a fine life, carrying the banner through the slums!"
They all stop when they see the Sisters. It means time to be quieter and to listen. "Blessed, children, though you wander lost and depraved..." Race stops listening at that point. "You shall be saved."
Sorry, Sister, I don't know in how much need of saving we are.
Then, as they are getting their food and such from the Sisters, a lady wanders by.
YOU ARE READING
I'll Always Look Out For You
Fanfiction15 years before the legendary newsies strike of 1899, a child was born. When he is 18 months old, he is brought to the Manhattan Newsies Lodging House. In time, he would be known as Racetrack Higgins. This is his story. This is the story of the news...
24 | Another Day | July 16, 1899
Start from the beginning
