Read "What Happened to Tad" by Mary E. Ropes online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"THEN all that I've done is wuss than lost," said Tad to himself as / he walked slowly away from the hospital where he had left his little / brother. "I've run away on the sly and walked all night; I've carried / off a sick child as can't be no good to me; I've broke with Phil and / with the gipsies; and all for what? To stay here and starve in the / streets while maybe the child dies in the hospital, and if he do die, / why then good-bye to any home-goin' at all. Just my luck I can't seem / to compass nothing at all, I can't."
That night he slept under an old boat which was turned on its side / awaiting repairs on the shore, above high-water mark. A more unhappy / lad it would have been hard to find under God's great canopy of sky / than Tad when he awoke next morning, cold, hungry, with a remorseful / conscience and an anxious heart. After buying a small loaf of bread / which was to last him all day, he walked down to the quay, which he had / good cause to remember, for it was here he had first met Renard. But / the thought of old Foxy was not uppermost in his mind as he sauntered / round, looking idly about him at the varied shipping, and at the busy / crowd loading and unloading the vessels. His wretched experiences / with his late master seemed to him now something very remote, almost / forgotten in the nearness of his more recent troubles.