At her death Andy had no home and no one to care for him.
One pitying neighbor after another would take him in at night, or let him share a meal with her children, but beyond this he was utterly cast out and friendless.

It was summer-time when Mrs.Burke died, and the poor waif was spared for a time the suffering of cold.
Now and then a mother's heart would be touched, and after a half-reluctantly given supper and a place where he might sleep for the night would mend and wash his soiled clothes and dry them by the fire, ready for morning.

The pleased look that she saw in his large, sad eyes--for they had grown wistful and sad since the only one he had known as a mother died--was always her reward, and something not to be put out of her memory.

Many of the children took kindly to Andy, and often supplied him with food.
"Andy is so hungry, mamma; can't I take him something to eat ?" rarely failed to bring the needed bread for the poor little cast-adrift.

And if he was discovered now and then sound asleep in bed with some pitying child who had taken him in stealthily after dark, few were hard-hearted enough to push him into the street, or make him go down and sleep on the kitchen floor.