When Mrs. Burke came home on the evening of her first day out, the baby was a sight to see.  His clothes were stiff with dirt, his shoes and stockings wet, and his face more like that of a chimney-sweep than anything else.  But this was not all; there was a great lump as large as a pigeon’s egg on the back of his head, a black-and-blue spot on his forehead and a bad cut on his upper lip.  His joy at seeing her and the tearful cry he gave as he threw his arm’s about her neck quite overcame Mrs. Burke, and caused her eyes to grow dim.  She was angry at the plight in which she found him, and said some hard things to the woman who had promised to look after the child, at which the latter grew angry in turn, and told her to stay at home and take care of the brat herself, or put him in one of the homes.

The fresh care and anxiety felt by Mrs. Burke drew little Andy nearer and made her reject more decidedly the thought of giving him up.  She remained at home on the day following, but did not find it so easy as before to keep the baby quiet.  He had got a taste of the free, wild life of the street, of its companionship and excitement, and fretted to go out.  Toward evening she put by her work and went on the pavement with Andy.  It was swarming with children.  At the sight of them he began to scream with pleasure.  Pulling his hand free from that of Mrs. Burke, he ran in among them, and in a moment after was tumbled over on the pavement.  His head got a hard knock, but he didn’t seem to mind it, for he scrambled to his feet and commenced tossing his hands about, laughing and crying out as wildly as the rest.  In a little while, over he was knocked again, and as he fell one of the children stepped on his hand and hurt him so that he screamed with pain.  Mrs. Burke caught him in her arms; but when he found that she was going to take him in the house he stopped crying and struggled to get down.  He was willing to take the knocks and falls.  The pleasure of this free life among children was more to him than any of the suffering it brought.

On the next day Mrs. Burke had to go out again.  Another neighbor promised to look after Andy.  When she returned at night, she found things worse, if anything, than before.  The child was dirtier, if that were possible, and there were two great lumps on his head, instead of one.  He had been knocked down by a horse in the street, escaping death by one of the narrowest of chances, and had been discovered and removed from a ladder up which he had climbed a distance of twenty feet.

What help was there?  None that Mrs. Burke knew, except to give up the child, and she was not unselfish enough for this.  The thought of sending him away was always attended with pain.  It would take the light out of her poor lonely life, into which he had brought a few stray sunbeams.