He'd been a teamster, and he lost his job when he came down with pneumonia, and after they let him out of the hospital, he looked such a scarehead that nobody would employ him.

After he died, my mother struggled on somehow, taking in washing or scrubbing floors--God knows how she managed it!--and by the time I was five, and precious big for my age, I was in the street selling papers.

I used to say I was seven when anybody asked me, but I wasn't more than five; and I remember as plain as if it was yesterday, the way mother used to take me to a corner of Broadway, and put a bundle of papers in my arms, and how I used to hang on to the coppers when the bigger boys tried to get 'em away from me.

Sometimes I'd get an extra dime or nickel, and then we'd have Irish stew or fried onions for supper.

After my mother died, when I was about eight, I still kept on selling papers because I didn't know what else to do, but I didn't have any place to sleep then so I used to crawl into machine shops or areas (he said 'aries') or warehouses, when the watchmen weren't looking.