A Broth of a Boy (1915)
Joseph Sullivan, a wealthy retired Irish merchant, "was a boy himself, once," so when he sees little Tim Connelly "beat up" a boy twice his age and almost twice his size, when the latter attempts to "swipe" the apple that Sullivan has given to Tim, he, Sullivan, declares the Irish urchin is "a broth of a boy," a lad after his own heart. Thereafter, he sees Tim every once in a while, and predicts a bright future for him. Little Tim's lot in life, however, is not an enviable one. He is the sole support of his invalid mother, a mother who, the doctor has told Tim, cannot long survive without proper food and attention. Between "hustling" papers and other odd jobs, Tim manages to hold things together somehow, but it is a tough job. Mr. Sullivan has a widowed sister, Mrs. Arnold, who lives with her daughter, a girl of fourteen, in a town a few miles away. After having received from this sister, whom he knows to be a very careless housekeeper and poor business woman, several requests for financial aid, Sullivan writes her that he will give her money to finish paying for her home, and asks her to send the daughter, Mary, to get the money. After receiving the money from her uncle, Mary is about to board the train at the station when the purse drops from the handbag she is carrying, the catch of which has not been properly fastened. Little Tim, coming along as the train pulls out, picks up the purse. He goes to a newspaper office and inserts a "Found" advertisement, and then goes home, where he hides the purse in a hole in the woodwork of the porch. That day the doctor tells him again that his mother must have more strengthening food and the proper medicine. Desperate, Tim resolves to risk spending part of the money he has found to get food for his mother. As he is taking the purse from its hiding place, he is seen by a policeman, whose suspicions are aroused by Tim's stealthy movements. As a result, Tim is arrested, but as he is explaining matters in the police station, Mr. Sullivan enters, he having learned that Tim is in trouble. Sullivan urges that Tim is an honest lad, or he would not have advertised the purse as found. He tells the police of how his niece has lost the purse through her own carelessness, and insists upon Tom's being allowed to go. Then he fixes things up all around, and after providing for his mother, tells Tim that he will educate him and start him on the highroad of a useful life.
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GenresDrama
Short
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