The World Will Know (Newsies)

22: Pulitzer and Hearst

After they were let in, the Hearst siblings were shepherded over to Sniper’s bunk, and the newsies quickly crowded around them. The room fell practically silent once again, only this time the silence lasted for much longer than a few seconds.

Romeo was the one to break the silence. “So wait, what's goin’ on?” he asked as he leaned against a nearby bunk, voicing the confusion that everyone else had.

Once he was prompted by the twins, Bill retrieved the letter from inside his suit jacket. “Our mother has been writing to an old friend, who operates a boarding school in Boston. According to this letter, she had asked whether there was space for my sisters to attend, and apparently there is. From what I overheard this morning, it sounds like my parents are going to send them.” He held the letter out to show whoever felt like reading it.

Jack snatched the letter from Bill and started to read it, with Crutchie and Sniper trying to read over his shoulder. Crutchie was tall enough to somewhat make it work, but Sniper could barely see anything.

While they read, Elizabeth spoke up. “We clearly don’t want to leave New York. It’s the only home we’ve ever known. So, we were hoping that we could stay here until this all calms down, if it does.”

Initially, nobody replied. Jack was still reading the letter, and clearly the rest of the newsies were waiting for him to give his response. After all, Jack was still the leader, so his opinion mattered quite a bit. “Okay, this lady doesn’t understand nothin’ about what happened here,” he commented, breaking the silence as he gestured to the letter. “But anyway, we do have two beds in the back open. Technically, we all rent ‘em for a little cut of our earnings every day-”

“We can handle that,” Rebecca interrupted, grinning. “We can use our profits to pay for the beds each night too.”

Finch tilted his head slightly, looking at the girls. “Are you sayin’ what I think youse sayin’?”

“Hey, I’ve wanted to try and be a newsie since before the strike, so it’s the perfect opportunity to stay away from our parents and try something new,” Rebecca replied. Her answer received quite a few cheers from the surrounding boys.

“So, how much is a night’s rent here for the two of them? I snuck some money from our father’s wallet to pay for whatever they needed to start off,” Bill stated as he took the letter back from Jack.

“Not much,” Specs explained, “since the people who run this place are pretty fair to us. I’ll help ya get it taken care of.” With that, he led Bill away to get everything straightened out for the girls. Bill clearly had a lot of questions, so Specs was hopefully going to be able to answer every one of them.

This left the girls with the rest of the newsies. “So, youse finally gonna be newsies, huh?” Race asked the girls as he twirled an unlit cigar between his fingers.

Elizabeth nodded with a smile and said, “Looks like it.”

Sniper sat down between the two girls, looking between them with a sweet smile on his face. “Well, if youse gonna be newsies now, you gotta have names now, don’t ya?”

“If you insist,” Elizabeth stated, though she and her sister were fairly excited to join the ranks. Finally, they were going to be part of the family.

“Well, we ain’t gonna give you your names now. They gotta come naturally, out of the blue almost,” Sniper explained.

The rest of the newsies all nodded in agreement. “Yeah, it’s like they just happen,” Buttons commented. “Someone just calls out to ya with the name, and if it sticks, that’s it.”