“It is always hard times on the Bowery,” my diminutive informant told me. He was a new comer to our Colony. He, in company with another young man, had made his appearance an hour or two before, but I had not been able to talk with him, except to assure him that he and his friend might remain with us one night, at least. “Yes, sir,” he continued, “without money a man is a dead one; even in this strange haunt of stranger men money is a daily need. Of course, some men who know the hidden ways can get along on as little as twenty cents a day, or less, but for myself I could not exist on less than thirty-five cents.”

The figures he mentioned seemed modest enough to me. “Couldn’t you earn that much?” I asked him.

“I am so small no one would hire me,” he replied. "I could get errands to do now and then. Of course, while my mother lived she kept a home for me, but after she died I did not know what to do. I only sat in the house day after day and looked out of the window. I could not make any plans for myself. You see when I was a baby I fell and injured my back. I didn’t grow much more after that accident. The doctors called it a curvature."

He laughed easily as he asked me, "You know the poem of James Whitcomb Riley,

“I rather think I’m that boy. One time I chanced to find that poem and read it to my mother. She took the book from me in the gentle way she had, and then putting her arms around me, told me to be a good boy and everything would come out all right. But they never did come all right. Maybe I was not good enough; but this can’t interest you. You hear enough hard luck stories without mine.”

“If you wish to tell me,” I said, “I shall be quite glad to listen.”

“Well, it’s only this,” he continued. "Left to myself, I wasn’t smart enough to make a living. I can’t get my room rent and my lunch money all at the same time. If I have my lunches I have no room, and if I have a room I have nothing to eat."

He grew very serious. He could laugh at his misshapen back, make a jest at his deformity, but hunger—even at the thought of hunger—the smile left his face, the color fled from his lips.

“Are you faint?” I asked him quickly.

“No, I am a coward,” he said, “just a plain coward. You see, I am beaten and I know it.”

“You will be all right in a few days,” I said, “and be able to criticise the food as cheerfully as any other member of my Family.” I laughed gayly enough, but he did not laugh with me. “Have you and this boy been friends a long time? Where did you meet him?” I inquired.

“In the park, some weeks ago. He has no home either. He was sleeping out and so was I. He gave me part of a newspaper to put under me, as the ground was damp. So I tried to talk to him.... He is good looking, isn’t he?”

I admitted it.

“Well, he’s a Russian dummy,” said the boy.

“He is what?” I asked.

“He just landed from Russia three months ago, and he knows very little about the English language. He doesn’t have the slightest idea what I have been talking to you about all this time. Night after night, not having any bed to sleep in, he has ‘flopped’ in the park or ‘carried the banner’ until morning.”

“So you brought him out with you?”

“Yes; I didn’t know whether you would take us in or not. I thought I would take him along on the theory that the ground in Jersey is no harder to sleep on than it is in New York State. If you have to turn us away we will not be any worse off than we have been.”

“We will make room somehow for you and your friend,” I told him.

So Jean—Little Jean, the boys called him—went through a pantomime for the enlightenment of the Russian youth whose name was also Jean. Finally the larger boy understood that I had given them permission to remain, for he turned to me and said simply: “Nice,” and then he bowed gracefully. Little Jean was right—Big Jean was good looking.

“I wish I was big and strong like him,” said Little Jean, admiringly....

... The weeks pass quickly when one has his work to do, and the two Jeans grew to know the Colony. Big Jean spent his spare hours studying English and talking with the other boys. Little Jean made friends with the chickens, the pigs, the cow and the horse, while Boozer—the Colony dog—and he were inseparable chums.

“Boozer,” Little Jean told me, “knows the heart of outcast boys and men. He meets the new arrivals at the gate and escorts them to the house. He may challenge the lawless approach of the rich man in his auto, and warn the household of possible danger impending, but the most unkempt ‘knight of the road’ will find Boozer quick to make friends with him.”

Big Jean—with his pleasing bow—looked after the guests who visited the Tea Room, for he learned to speak English rapidly. The report of his courteous service came to the ears of a wide awake Jap who needed him to help him in his hotel. So one day he sent for the Russian lad.

At the start the pay was to be twenty dollars a month, with room, board and extra tips.

“You need me in your Tea Room, Mr. Floyd,” he said, “I am willing to stay.”

“No, Jean, you must take the position and prove to me and to yourself that you can make good.”

That night he wrote to his aged mother in Russia that there were wonderful opportunities for young men in America.

When he had gone I hunted to find Little Jean. I found him out on the lawn with his chum, Boozer. He did not see me as I approached, but as I looked at him the thought came to me that he had suddenly grown old, and there was the anxious look upon his face—the same that I had seen when he had talked to me the first time.

“Boozer,” I heard him say, “it’s all right; I am a coward, I’m beaten and I know it, but I’m glad Big Jean got the job—honestly, Boozer, I am—you see it isn’t all my fault—he’s so damned good looking.”

Boozer put his face close to that of Little Jean and held out his paw to the discouraged boy. You see when you live your life at the Self Masters you sense the inner thought of broken men. Boozer—who knows no other life—understands the heart of the discouraged. I did not interrupt the two friends, but turned back to the house.

“What can you ever do to help poor Little Jean?” a visitor asked me. “There seems to be no position in the world for him. What can you do for him?”

“I don’t see much chance,” I replied, distrusting for the moment that Divine Guidance that never fails.

It was only two days after Big Jean had left us that a kindly old lady called at the Colony. She wanted a boy who would take good care of her horses, and drive her and her husband back and forth from her home to the railway station. “I want a boy who loves animals,” she said.

So Little Jean has his place in the world—like you and I if we can only find it....

... Xmas Day Big Jean brought four big pies which he had cooked especially for the Self Masters’ dinner.

And Little Jean brought his Xmas present—all neatly tied up in a box bedecked with pink ribbons—a pound of meat for Boozer.