Lulu's Library (Volume 3) [Paperback]

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1890. Excerpt: ... Johnny leaned forward to enjoy the long-desired " peek." Page 183. IX. A HOLE IN THE WALL. Part I. TF any one had asked Johnny Morris who were his best friends, he would have answered, -- "The sun and the wind, next to mother." Johnny lived in a little court that led off from one of the busiest streets in the city, -- a noisy street, where horse-car bells tinkled and omnibuses rumbled all day long, goiflg and coming from several great depots near by. The court was a dull place, with only two or three shabby houses in it, and a high blank wall at the end. The people who hurried by were too busy to do more than to glance at the lame boy who sat in the sunshine against the wall, or to guess that there was a picture-gallery and a circulatinglibrary in the court. But Johnny had both, and took such comfort in them that he never could be grateful enough to the wind that brought him his books and pictures, nor to the sun that made it possible for him to enjoy them in the open air, far more than richer folk enjoy their fine galleries and libraries. A bad fall, some months before the time this story begins, did something to Johnny's back which made his poor legs nearly useless, and changed the lively, rosy boy into a pale cripple. His mother took in fine washing, and worked hard to pay doctors' bills and feed and clothe her boy, who could no longer run errands, help with the heavy tubs, or go to school. He could only pick out laces for her to iron, lie on his bed in pain for hours, and, each fair day, hobble out to Sit in a little old chair between the water-butt and the leaky tin boiler in which he kept his library. But he was a happy boy, in spite of poverty and pain; and the day a great gust came blowing fragments of a gay placard and a dusty newspaper down the court to his feet, was the b...