“Hello, sir…
someone said you’re looking for us?”
A cluster of boys crowded into the newspaper office, caps too big and jackets swallowing their frames, voices careful.
Malnutrition had left its mark on every one of them — too thin, skin gone sallow in a way that had nothing to do with the season.
Children took the worst of this Depression, worse than anyone else caught in it.
Later record-keeping would show entire states where malnourished kids ran past ninety percent — a number that would come back to bite the country a decade later, when nearly forty percent of the young men drafted for World War II got turned away at the recruiting station.
Bad eyes.
Weak hearts.
Twisted limbs.
Minds that hadn’t developed right.
Steve Rogers grew up in exactly this stretch of history.
That scrawny frame of his, before the serum ever touched him — that wasn’t exceptional.
That was just what an entire generation of American boys looked like.
“That’s right.”
Colin set his pen down, offered the boys a warm smile, kept his voice easy.
Old John’s deliveryman contact had come through.
Here they were.
“Could I ask, sir…”
Something in Colin’s manner took the edge off the room, loosened the boys up just enough.
They traded glances, and finally the oldest of the bunch — twelve, maybe thirteen, clearly the one the others deferred to — found his nerve.
“Sir, why’d you call us in?
If this is about the price, I can’t agree to it.
Sorry.
This is everybody’s livelihood we’re talking about, and The Messenger’s already got us barely scraping by as it is.”
Price.
The word alone drew the rest of the boys in tighter, shoulders squaring, a little collective spine stiffening up behind their spokesman.
For a newsboy, a single cent moved mountains.
Back in 1899, the strike that shut down half the city’s paper distribution started over exactly ten cents a bundle — the big papers jacking up wholesale costs to protect their own margins, squeezing the boys until there wasn’t enough left to survive on.
The newsboys walked.
Fought it out in the streets.
Won, in the end.
“No.
Just the opposite.”
Colin shook his head, took in the boys crowded in front of his desk.
Most of them weren’t even ten yet. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
Already grinding out a living on street corners.
“I didn’t call you here to raise the price.
I called you here to pay you.”
“Pay us?!”
The words landed like a dropped tray.
Boys traded looks, sallow faces cracking open with disbelief.
Old John looked just as blindsided.
He opened his mouth, half a protest already forming — Colin’s glance shut it down before a word made it out.
“Thank you for your generosity, sir.”
Once the noise settled, the lead boy spoke up again, freckled face turned up toward Colin.
Excitement colored his voice, but something steadier sat underneath it.
“Can you tell us why, though?
We’re just newsboys.
We work because we have to eat, that’s all there is to it.
If you’re looking to use us for something illegal, I’ll say it now — we’re poor, but every cent we’ve got, we earned clean.
That’s what lets us sleep at night.”
That killed whatever joy had been building in the other boys.
Every eye swung back to Colin, waiting.
Colin caught the weight of all those stares and raised an eyebrow, more impressed than annoyed.
Illegal work had never crossed his mind.
But the kid’s nerve — no groveling in it, no deference either — stuck with him.
“What’s your name?”
“Jimmy, sir.”
Colin filed it away with a nod.
“Alright then, Jimmy.
To put your mind at ease — this is about the paper.
The Messenger, nothing more.
Everything we talk about from here stays inside that.”
“Hoo…”
The tension went out of the room all at once, shoulders dropping, breath easing.
Jimmy listened it all through, weighed it, then spoke again. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
“We’ll trust you, sir.
So what do we have to do to earn it?”
“Simple enough.”
Colin looked out at the row of hopeful faces, mouth twitching up at the corner.
“All I need is for you to learn a few lines of a song…”
The lyrics were short.
Barely a handful of lines.
Took the boys all of a few minutes to have them memorized cold.
Jimmy ran the words back under his breath, then looked up at Colin, confusion breaking through for the first time.
“Sir, that’s it?
We sing these lines, and it’s five cents less on every bundle?”
“That’s right.”
Colin nodded, held Jimmy’s freckled gaze, smiled.
“And it’s not just whoever walks through this door.
Take it back to every newsboy you know.
Anyone who learns these lines and sings them while they’re selling The Messenger gets the same discount from me.
No exceptions.”
Five cents a bundle.
Didn’t sound like much on paper — but for boys running on margins this thin, it was everything.
The 1899 strike had started over ten cents.
Five was already generous by comparison, and with the whole country choking under the Depression, newsboys weren’t exactly swimming in better options elsewhere.
They hesitated.
Not for long.
Watching the pack of them tear out the door, buzzing, practically shoving each other in their hurry to spread the word, Old John’s face had gone tight with worry.
“Colin — no, Boss…” He turned, caught Colin’s eye.
“You’re really cutting the price?
I’m worried that if—”
Five cents a bundle didn’t sound like a crisis on its own.
Multiply it across every bundle sold, though, and it turned into real weight — weight a paper already circling the drain couldn’t necessarily carry.
One miscalculation, and that discount could be the thing that finally sank them.
Old John had his own neck in this noose too.
Felt like he owed it to himself to push back at least a little.
“Maybe — maybe we can send Little John out further this time, get more—”