Joe is a sturdy boy of about the same age as Sylvia who has caused the Society more anxiety and exasperation than any ten other boys of his weight and size. When he first arrived he was by no means sturdy; his legs and arms were thin, and on all corners of him there was either a bruise or a place breaking out. This was owing to his father, a circus rider, who used to train Joe to do dexterous tricks with ropes and poles so that he would in time be able to earn money and help support the family—which, by the way, now consisted only of Father; his mother had been worn out long ago.
Every time Joe missed doing the tricks dexterously it meant trouble for him, for his father used to drink as much as his wages allowed and this impaired his judgment and led him many times to nearly overdo what he used to do to Joe in the evenings at home. Joe never complained to the other circus people because he believed that boys came into the world for the purpose of being hammered by their parents; also he worked it out that if he did complain his father would do him in as he had often promised to do and, ridiculous as it may seem to us, Joe wanted to go on living.
Matters came to a finish one evening when he had made a deplorable mess of some gymnastics and his father was greatly annoyed with him, and, as he said he would, “put it acrost him” properly. He was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a grim elderly lady bigger than he was, whom he had noticed several times lately in the one-and-threepence seats, and who now burst open his private kitchen door in defiance of the law and picked up the tongs, not by the handle but by the other end. Then Father knew no more for hours.
And when he did know more it was very unsatisfactory. His skull seemed loose like a jig-saw puzzle, and he was in a horrid mess. And Joe was gone. There were no head-lines in the paper about this case because no one cared anything about it—except Father—and by the time his skull was fitted close together again by the great skill of surgeons (his nose they could do nothing with) Joe was becoming justly celebrated among the other children for his reckless way of riding bucking bears bare-backed, and doing other things contrary to regulations.