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80 The sound of happy children always made Father Flanagan smile. But as much as he loved them and delighted in seeing them clatter down the hall like colts galloping, it also pained him with worry. The farm’s finances were grim but somehow the farm must survive. Lack of money would never cause him to turn a child away. Flanagan had left the hospital against the doctors’ orders and the sisters fretted and fussed at the door. But he had been in bed too long, been away from his boys too long. There was urgent work to be done. He quickly went through the pile of mail—letters for some of the boys, bills, several letters with contributions, but no letter from Governor Roland Hartley of Washington State. Across the playfield, sun glinted off a boy’s head as he caught a football , then cocked his arm and hurled it. The ball soared into the bright blue sky. Every child was dear to him, given to him by God, he believed. They were blessings, and he could see Herbert at the farm, see the boy on Chapter 10 Chapter 10 81 the playfield, running breathlessly, the bloom of winter upon him as he burst through the door into the warm room. There was no such thing as a bad boy, Flanagan believed. No matter what the child had done, each was a product of his environment. Why that was such a novel idea Flanagan couldn’t understand. The best way to curtail crime was to prevent boys from being brought up in poverty and environments where crime can breed. A youth who makes a mistake may be compared to a plant growing in depleted soil and deprived of health‑giving sunshine, he wrote in one of his many public speeches. A boy in such circumstances hasn’t got a chance. Most boys with criminal records start by stealing food or money for the bare necessities. If no one intervenes, it becomes a way of life. Flanagan had come to that conclusion long ago when he was at St. Patrick’s Church in Omaha in 1915. So many homeless, jobless, hungry men had flocked to the city when they couldn’t get jobs on farms because of the wheat crop failure. Each day more and more got off the train and wandered through the city, looking for work, food, shelter, and hope. The parish, of course, offered a meal or two but it was impossible to keep up with the demand. There were just so many. With the help of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, he had opened the Working Man’s Hotel in 1916 and filled all forty cots the first night. They were a rough lot those men, many being gamblers, drunkards, or dope addicts, but they were all God’s children. And the stories were often the same—childhoods of poverty, neglect, and homelessness. That was the challenge, Flanagan knew. In order to save the man, one must save the child. Omaha’s streets were full of homeless, delinquent boys—orphans and runaways or children turned out because their families were too poor to feed them. With Archbishop Jeremiah Harty’s blessing and $90 borrowed from a friend, Flanagan rented a rickety house at 25th and Dodge streets in downtown Omaha. He took in two boys who had been referred to him from the juvenile court and three boys right off the street. In days, the number grew to twenty-five children. The archbishop had arranged for two nuns and a novice from the School Sisters of Notre 82 Dame to help with the household tasks, but there wasn’t any money or food to provide for his home. Each night he prayed for a miracle. On the snowy Christmas Eve of 1917, the sisters came to him. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, for any of them to eat. As the wind moaned around the eaves of the old house, he heard the clip-clop of horses’ hooves, the creak and jingle of a harness, and the groan of a wagon. He had thrown open the door to see a man, pulling a barrel off the wagon and toting it up the walk. The man mumbled something about thinking that maybe he could use it. He set the barrel on the porch, tipped his hat, and retreated into the storm. It was Christmas dinner. It was manna from heaven. It was divine. It was sauerkraut. A...

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