Bob, for this was the newsboy’s name, felt all the disgrace of the situation. His face reddened, and he pitched in promiscuously, delivering blow after blow wildly. This gave a decided advantage to Tom, who inflicted considerably more damage than she received.
The fight would have gone on longer if a gentleman had not come up, and spoken authoritatively: “What is all this fighting about? Are you not ashamed to fight with a girl?”
“No, I aint,” said Bob, sullenly. “She took my place, and wouldn’t give it up.”
“I’ve got as much right to it as he,” said Tom. “I’ll give it to him if I am a gal.”
“Don’t you know it is wrong to fight?” asked the gentleman, this time addressing Tom.
“No, I don’t,” said Tom. “Wouldn’t you fight if a feller pitched into you?”
This was rather an embarrassing question, but the gentleman said, “It would be better to go away than to get into a fight.”
“It is bad enough for boys to fight, but it is worse for girls.”
Had Tom been in a higher social position, it might have been suggested to her that to fight was not ladylike; but there was such an incongruity between Tom’s appearance and anything lady-like, that such an appeal would have been out of place. The fact is, Tom claimed no immunity or privilege on the score of sex, but regarded herself, to all intents and purposes, as a boy, and strongly wished that she were one.
The gentleman looked at her, rather puzzled, and walked away, satisfied with having stopped the fight.
Bob did not seem inclined to renew hostilities, but crossed the street, and took his stand there. Tom, by right of conquest, held her place until she had sold out her whole stock of papers.
Tom found at the end of the afternoon that her capital had increased from twenty-five to fifty cents.
“Granny won’t get none of this,” she soliloquized, complacently. “It’s all mine.”
Sitting on a doorstep she counted over the money with an entirely different feeling from what she had experienced when it was to be transferred to granny. Now it was all her own, and, though but fifty cents, it made her feel rich.
She had a square meal in the middle of the day; but several hours had passed since then, and she felt hungry again; Tom did not see any necessity for remaining hungry, with fifty cents in her possession. She made her way, therefore, to another eating-house, where the prices were the same with those at the one before mentioned, and partook of another square meal, leaving out the pie. This reduced her capital to thirty cents. She felt that she ought to save this, to start in business upon in the morning. As a street-sweeper she required no capital except her broom; but though Tom was not troubled with pride, she preferred to sell papers, or take up some other street vocation. Besides, she knew that as a street-sweeper on Broadway, she would be more likely to be discovered by the old woman whom she was now anxious to avoid.