Chapter Text
William Murdoch straightened his vest, looking in both directions as he dug his hands into the trash can. He shivered. Winter in Toronto was always cold and miserable, but he normally at least had a jacket. His fingertips burned, sticking out of his worn out gloves.
There was nothing in the trash but newspapers and paper bags. He’d been hoping for scraps of an unfinished meal, the crust of a slice of bread, perhaps.
He pulled out one of the newspapers from the top of the pile. He glanced at the front page headline, a story about the closing of a large bank branch. It didn’t interest him. He glanced at the classified section, looking at all the jobs he was far too young and unqualified for.
His eyes happened to glance at the top of the page, and he stopped dead as he noticed the date: January 16, 1875.
January. January. He shook his head. Had he really been living on the street for a month now?
“Hey, kid!” The fat butcher stood in the doorway of his store. “Beat it! You’re scaring off my customers!”
William didn’t have to be told twice, and he scampered off, letting the paper flutter to the ground. He ducked behind a pile of crates in an alleyway a few blocks away, hugging himself to keep out the cold.
A month. He still couldn’t wrap his mind around it. It had really been a month ago when his sister had run off to join a convent somewhere, a month since his father had sent William to fetch a bottle of liquor and William hadn’t ever come back.
It didn’t feel like a month had passed. It didn’t feel like a week had passed. Every day was the same: he’d wake up in an alley somewhere, try all day to find loose coins or something to eat, and then fall asleep in another alley.
His teeth chattered. It really was cold. He was surprised his fingers hadn’t frozen solid and fallen off. He cupped his hands and blew hot air into them, watching his clouds of breath rise into the air.
Something shone on the ground next to him, and he lashed out to grab it. Please be a fifty cent piece, he prayed. He was immediately disappointed when he found that it wasn’t a quarter, nor was it valuable currency, but it was merely a shiny silver button. He pocketed it nonetheless. Perhaps he’d be able to trade it for something.
His ears perked up at the sound of yelling. Cautiously, he shuffled out of his hiding place and peeked out the end of the alleyway.
On the street corner, waving his hands madly, stood a boy, younger than William, with brown hair tucked under a brown flat cap. He leaned heavily on a beat-up wooden crutch. Around his shoulders hung a heavy sack stuffed full of newspapers. The boy waved a paper in the air. “Extra, extra! Hundreds die in a disastrous train accident! You won’t believe the carnage!”
A handful of people pressed coins into his hands and he passed them paper after paper, tipping his hat with a smile.
William frowned. When he’d seen the paper, there hadn’t been any story about a train accident. It was still early, the afternoon edition hadn’t even started printing yet. Curiously, he inched closer to get a better look.
The newsboy smiled at a lady walking past. “You look lovely this morning, ma’am!” he said. “By far the prettiest lady on the block.”
The woman giggled, waving her hand. “Stop it,” she said. She bought a paper.
William stood entranced, watching every sale like a tiger stalking its prey. In his pocket, he ran his fingers around the few spare coins he had.
Suddenly, like a flash of lightning, someone sprinted out from an alleyway, a second boy, about twice the newsboy’s size, with a head of carrot-coloured hair. He made a beeline for the newsboy and pounced, knocking them both to the ground. The wooden crutch clattered to the pavement as the red-haired boy clambered on top of the younger one, punching and pounding him with his fists. The smaller boy curled in around himself, shielding his head.
The scene was attracting a small but engaged audience. Women watched in horror while men watched with morbid interest, as if they were watching a horse race and had money on the redhead to win.
William couldn’t look away, as much as he wanted to.
It almost seemed like the bigger boy would crush the smaller to a pulp when a constable rushed over. “Oi!” he yelled, wrapping his arms around the red-haired boy to restrain him. “Get off him! He’s had enough!”
The boy twisted out of the policeman’s grip and took off down the street.
The newsboy uncurled slightly, coughing.
“You alright, lad?” the constable asked kindly, kneeling down to help the boy sit up.
The newsboy nodded, stumbling to his feet. His knees knocked together like a newborn deer.
The copper shoved the crutch underneath him, brushing off the boy’s vest. “There we are,” he said. “No harm done.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the boy.
The constable smiled, digging around in his pockets. “Say, how much for a paper?”
“Three cents.”
“Here.” The constable passed him a folded up bill. “One dollar. Keep the change,” he said.
William’s eyes widened. A bill. A real, actual dollar bill. He’d only seen bills a few times in his life, and those had usually been twenty-five cents. He’d never seen a whole dollar in one place before.
The newsboy stared at the bill with huge eyes. “Thank you, sir!” he cried, stuffing the bill in his pocket as quick as a jackrabbit.
The constable walked off, tipping his helmet.
William watched him leave, then glanced at the newsboy. He found his feet taking him closer and closer until he was right behind the boy.
“Extra! Extra! Fire breaks out in Parliament! Prime Minister Mackenzie loses an arm!”
“That’s not true,” William found himself saying.
The newsboy jumped, whirling around in surprise. He was about a head shorter than William was, but he squinted so viciously that William was intimidated. “What’d you say, Nitwit?”
William cleared his throat. “That’s not what the headline says,” he said. “It’s about a bank closing.”
The boy put his free hand on his hip, glaring. “You think a bank closing is going to sell papers?”
“So you’d lie just to make money?”
The boy rolled his eyes. “Scram,” he said. “You’re losing me customers.” He whirled around again.
“No please!” William moved in front of him. “How do you get to be a newsboy?”
The boy snorted. “First off,” he said. “We’re called newsies. Second, you don’t get to be a newsie. When you don’t have any more money and no more food, and you’re fresh out of options, that’s when you’re a newsie.”
“Well, where do you get the papers?”
The boy squinted at him. “You buy them,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “They sell them out back behind the printing house. Two cents each."
William fiddled in his pocket, producing his small collection of coins. "I've got sixty three cents," he said. "So I suppose I'll just buy thirty…" he trailed off. "What?"
The boy was staring at him like he had just sprouted wings. "Are you stupid or something?" The way it was asked made it clear that this wasn't a taunt, but a genuine question.
"No."
The boy shook his head. "They don't buy back what you don't sell. It's the stupidest idea in the world to spend all your money on papers that you can't even sell."
William blinked. "They don't teach you things like that in school."
"Right," scoffed the boy. "Like you'd know. I bet you’ve never even caught a whiff of a school."
"For your information, I was top of my class last term." Any chance he could get on a level above this boy, William would take it.
The boy’s eyes widened. “You’ve really been to school?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
His face screwed up in thought. “You’re new around here, aren’t you?”
William nodded.
The boy sucked in his cheeks. “Alright,” he said. “You want to be a newsie?”
William nodded again.
“Meet me here at nine o’clock tonight.”
“What?”
“Nine o’clock, tonight.” The boy waved his hand. “Now beat it.” He waved his hands, hollered to the crowds about fake, sensational headlines, and ignored William’s attempts at conversation.
After a while, William took the hint and left. He spent the remainder of the day going through his usual routine of digging through garbage cans, but his mind was elsewhere.
He smiled. He wouldn’t have to do this tomorrow. No more searching the trash for stale morsels or scanning the pavement for coins. Tomorrow, he’d have a job. He’d be a newsie.