Boyville: A History of Fifteen Years' Work Among NewsboysGunckel, John E. (John Elstner)
History
Boyville: A History of Fifteen Years' Work Among Newsboys
Gunckel, John E. (John Elstner)
Newsboys
It is one of the most difficult things in the oratorical world for any
one to entertain newsboys. A speaker must not talk over them. He must
become as a child and talk as a child, and he will be surprised to see
what a good effect it has upon the boys. One time a very nervous boy, a
seller from the avenue, became quite noisy and restless in the seat he
generally occupied. The president observing this asked him if he would
like a seat in the front row.
“Sure thing, I’ll ’tend every Sunday if you give me this seat,”
pointing to a chair next to a post, where the president imagined he
wanted to rest his head.
“It doesn’t make any difference what boy occupies this seat,” said the
president to “Front Row Art,” as he is called, “I want you to get the
seat. I don’t care what we are doing on the platform.”
One Sunday when the house was crowded to the doors, Art’s seat was
occupied by a boy about fourteen years of age, and much stronger than
Art. While the speaker, a minister, was praying, the president saw Art
at the door. He saw him push his way through the crowd and when at the
platform, he took the boy, who occupied his chair, by the back of his
neck and gave him such a shove along the seats that the young man was
glad to reach the other end of the row. Art sat down, folded his arms,
put his feet upon the platform, and eyed the speaker as if he had been
there all the time.
Art was always ready with a smart answer to any question put to the
boys. Even if his attention was directed to another part of the house,
his little fingers were snapping, indicating his readiness to answer.
His replies, while not always pertinent, gave the speaker a fair
warning not to be too familiar in asking questions.
Art had a companion who was known as “Splinter,” on account of his
being rather slim, but no boy of his age, twelve years, ever had so
many new movements as Splinter. He was never quiet, not so noisy, but
continually annoying the boy who sat next to him. To take a companion’s
hat and throw it across the room, while some good minister was praying,
was of frequent occurrence. He would answer questions without raising
his hand, and would give the boy sitting next to him a knock of some
kind before he stood up. With all this restlessness he was one of the
best-hearted boys among the sellers. There was something in him that
the president concluded he could not afford to lose sight of—just what
that was did not develop enough to encourage.
At one of the Sunday meetings there was a speaker who knew how to
hold the boys when asking questions. He had them perfectly quiet and
recognized no answer unless the boy raised his hand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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