Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/169

 s once.

And I ‘swiped’ something, and he said I better come down here and see you about it.”

“All right, but what have you come to me about it for?”

The tears started. “Well,” he said, “I came down here to tell you I’d cut it out and never do it again. And I thought I better get here before the cop did. Joe said the cop ’ud ditch a kid that swiped things, but that you’d help a feller to ditch the swipin’.”

“Yes, I’ll help you ditch swipin’, but you’re a mighty little boy; how did you find the way down here alone ? ”

“Oh,” he said, “ ‘’most every kid I seed knew about it, and they passed me down th’ line to here.”

Johnny Rosenbaum was put on probation, and he began overcoming evil with good, as he proved one day in court. Sometimes the Judge will turn to the boys and ask whether any feller has done that week a thing good enough to make up for an evil thing done before. Once, when he asked this question, Johnny rose and said:

“Judge, some of the kids I run with was diggin’ a cave, and we wanted a shovel, and they said: Let’s go and swipe one.’ So they wanted to put me into Mr. Putnam’s barn where the shovel was, through a little hole that nobody but