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   For my birthday I was hoping my parents would give me a bicycle.  They only gave me a dime.  I was disappointed, but not surprised.  It was 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, and millions of people were out of work.  We were lucky.  My father had a job.  But we never seemed to have much money.  Where we lived, in the Bronx, New York, everyone was poor.
    "Happy birthday," Dad said when I walked him outside.  I watched him go off, carrying his briefcase and smiling.
    My neighbor Jacob was tossing a ball and catching it.  He threw it to me and shouted, "Give me a high one.  I'm Babe Ruth, the world's greatest baseball player."
    I threw the ball and Jacob reached up.  It bounced out of his hands.  He was no Babe Ruth!
    We played for a while, and then Jacob said, "I have to go to work.  Come with me.  We can have a catch while we walk."
    A few blocks from home we passed a woman selling apples.  Her clothes were wrinkled and shabby.  I gave her my birthday dime and bought two apples, one for me and one for Jacob.  I was glad to be rid of the dime.  It reminded me of the present I didn't get.
    We turned onto Webster Avenue, and there were more apple sellers.  Near the next corner I saw a large briefcase.  I looked up and there was Dad, selling apples like the others.  Suddenly I couldn't move.
    "Come on," Jacob said.
    I pointed.
    "Oh," he whispered, "I thought your dad had a job."
    "So did I.  And Mom thinks so, too."
    There were tears in my eyes as I watched people walk past my father.  I wished so much someone would buy an apple from him.  But no one did.  I realized how he had earned my birthday dime and was sorry I had spent it.

  "I have to get to work," Jacob whispered.  
    I was too dazed to know where we were going.  I just followed Jacob until we came to a small building.
    "My dad is out of work, too" Jacob said as he got in line.  "That's why I'm a newsie.  Sell newspapers with me.  "It's fun."
    I didn't feel like going home, so I stayed with Jacob.  We collected our papers, and he said, "Now I'll teach you how to really sell."
    We walked past a newsie on the corner.  "Coney Island fire!" he called out.  "One thousandhomeless.  Read all about it!"  There were lots of people around, but I didn't see anyone buy a newspaper.
   

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