Page:Minnie Flynn (1925).pdf/33

 with light, careless hearts, and enjoyed the evenings when they went to the movies or to dances.

Jimmy was a handsome boy; small, slender and well-built. He had been pitcher on the school baseball team and at sixteen had won quite a reputation as an amateur boxer. At the Three Sports Club, he had knocked out Mickey McGovern, the East Side lightweight champion. He won a small purse, and the following morning, in the newspaper, the Flynn family glowed to see this paragraph:

"We prophesy big things for a newcomer, Kid Sparrow, known out of the ring as Jimmy Flynn, the West Side amateur lightweight. He will fight Terry Donovan at the Three Sports Club next Friday night, six rounds.

"Last night's performance puts Young Sparrow out of the curtain-raiser class. Watch his step!"

The ten-dollar purse he won that memorable Friday evening paid for two false teeth and the care of a torn ear. But his wounds made him the hero of Ninth Avenue from Forty-second Street to the Circle.

Minnie adored this smiling, easy-going younger brother, and his very weaknesses made him dearer to her. Though he hated work he was not a loafer. He hung onto his job because he dreaded facing a Saturday night without a pay check. Three dollars always went to his mother, the other three he spent on what he styled a blowout. This consisted of a table d'hôte at an Italian restaurant (sixty-five cents, a quart of wine included), a dance at the free pier, or the movies, and sometimes a vaudeville show.

Jimmy had no steady girl; in fact he preferred taking Minnie out. She was the best dancer of their set, and Jimmy was proud of her. For a long time he resented Billy MacNally, and was jealous of him. And when Saturday night came he was lonesome for his sister's company. Beside Minnie, other