The story
“The lonely old maid was a kindly soul and delighted in helping the poor. ‘But the children who are most neglected,’ she often said, ‘are the little boys of Hades Square.’ The old maid was the only one who had ever visited Hades Square who felt that way. It was a favorite place to send new policemen to test their courage. The Hades Square denizens were husky and didn’t care whom they hit. The old maid decided to invite the boys of Hades Square to her home for a children’s party. In spite of protests, however, the old maid had her way, and the dirty-faced little boys came to her home to the party prepared for them. The dignified Butler felt the impact of a missile from a slingshot, a rare and expensive statue was destroyed during a fist fight between two of the ‘dears,’ while the chandeliers in the reception room crashed to the floor during the acrobatic stunts performed by one of the children.
“A little boy sat on the steps of his home, next door to the old maid, reading a volume of Ruskin. He was a very bright child—anyone could tell that by looking at his grave, bespectacled face. He was deeply immersed in Ruskin when a lasso landed around his neck and he was jerked, protesting, into the house next door. The bad little boys were very rude to the student of Ruskin, but they got the surprise of their lives when their prisoner, angered by their disrespect for his favorite author, soundly trounced them all, and converted them into eager if unwilling students of Ruskin. As the children were leaving, their tough leader asked the studious little boy if he could borrow his copy of Ruskin. ‘With pleasure,’ the spectacled wonder replied, ‘but why, may I ask?’ ‘Will, it’s dis,’ said the boy from Hades Square. ‘You seem to do everything to this book except swaller it, and you’re de best rough-house scrapper I ever seen, so I guess when I get through chewin’ de words in dat book I’ll be able to lick every kid in de square.’”
Summary from Reel Life · 19 February 1916
