[Gutenberg 32537] • The Newsboy Partners; Or, Who Was Dick Box?

Excerpt: ...one hand the number of times it had happened since he had had to shift for himself. So Jimmy determined to do his best to learn to read and write. In a week the newsboy knew the alphabet, and could spell a few simple words. The writing came slower, but he was making progress. Then another improvement took place. As he learned to spell the words he also learned how to pronounce them correctly. He saw that "the" spelled a different word from "de," as he was accustomed to pronounce it, and he began to practise using "this" and "then" in place of "dis" and "den." "There!" exclaimed Jimmy triumphantly one night as he looked at a piece of paper. "There's me name!" and he looked at it proudly, for it was written after a severe effort on his part. "Did I speak right den