Once I learned to read, I read pretty much everything I could lay my hands on. I got a copy of Ragged Dick and Mark the Match Boy, two novels by Horatio Alger, and was fascinated.
Ragged Dick was serialized in The Student and Schoolmate in 1867. It was the first of six books about Ragged Dick, who is a New York City newsboy, orphaned, who lives on the streets. He initially lives day to day, hand to mouth, spending his earnings on tobacco, alcohol, the Bowery theater (loved because it is warm) and food. He often sleeps on the streets, but sometimes can afford a night of shelter. The story starts with him searching for a patron who has given him a quarter for a newspaper. Dick doesn't have change and says that he will bring it later. The patron is staying at a hotel and is quite surprised to have Ragged Dick show up with the change later in the day. Dick says that he is honest. The patron then gives him some advice, about saving and about selling and says that he can change his circumstances. He advises being cleaner and neater, among other things.
Dick thinks about this and begins to save nickels and dimes. He is given five dollars as a reward for another service. He gets some slightly less ragged clothing. He realizes that he can rent a room if he has a roommate, and takes another child under his wing. Their deal is partly that the younger child can read and will teach Dick. By the end of the story, he is going by Richard Hunter and has an office position.
Mark the Matchboy is the third book in the series and now it is Mark who runs across Richard Hunter. Again the theme of honesty even while poor and the rewards of listening to mentors appears. Mark is not an orphan and is eventually restored to his father.
The books fascinated me not because of rags to riches, but because the street scenes rang true to me, or at least part of the truth, in a way that most childrens' books don't. My family had some very large elephants in the room and reading about a child who smoked tobacco and drank and was on his own was entirely believable. I hoped that the rags to respectability was true, but I was skeptical that virtue would be rewarded. Adults already seemed very complicated and very untrustworthy.
These books were an escape into another time and another place. I liked going there, another world, predictable and after the first reading, safe. I found it reassuring that an adult was admitting that there are or were, children living on the streets and doing the best they could.
My copy had the same cover: https://www.amazon.com/RAGGED-DICK-MARK-MATCH-BOY/dp/0684842904
publisher: Collier Books
many reprint editions
publication date: January 1, 1962
Iron 2023: 11