Chapter I: DO not think that I should devote a chapter in The Children of (2)

TO know the Jellyby children you must know their mother. Mrs. Jellyby had a very kind heart and wanted to do good. Unfortunately the people she wanted to do good to lived a long way off. This was very inconvenient, as it was very difficult to get at them, especially as she didn’t know their names or what they looked like. The people she was particularly interested in lived in Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank of the Niger, in Africa. Mrs. Jellyby had to write a great many letters to all sorts of people about the state of things in Borrioboola-Gha, and this took up the time she might otherwise have given to her children.

What Mrs. Jellyby would have done if she had lived in Africa, we do not know. But in London she didn’t find much to interest her: everything was too near. So the little Jellybys were left to grow up as best they could. There was no one whose business it was to see that they were properly fed or clothed or taught how to behave. Mrs. Jellyby couldn’t look after them, because she was too busy making plans for the Africans. And Mr. Jellyby couldn’t do it, for he had to listen to Mrs. Jellyby and do errands for her. So nobody did it, and the little Jellybys got on as best they could, which was not very well.

In _Bleak House_, Dickens makes Miss Summerson tell of her visit to Mrs. Jellyby.

* * * * *

We were to pass the night, Mr. Kenge told us, at Mrs. Jellyby’s; and then he turned to me, and said that he took it for granted that I knew who Mrs. Jellyby was.

“I really don’t, sir,” I returned.

“Indeed! Mrs. Jellyby is a lady of great strength of character. She devotes herself entirely to the public.”

“And Mr. Jellyby, sir?”

“Ah! Mr. Jellyby,” said Mr. Kenge, “I do not know that I can describe Mr. Jellyby better than by saying he is the husband of Mrs. Jellyby.”

We arrived at our destination and found a crowd of people, mostly children, about the house at which we stopped, which had a tarnished brass plate on the door, with the inscription, JELLYBY.

“Don’t be frightened!” said Mr. Guppy, looking in at the coach-window. “One of the young Jellybys been and got his head through the area railings!”

“Oh, poor child,” said I, “let me out, if you please!”

“Pray be careful of yourself, miss. The young Jellybys are always up to something,” said Mr. Guppy.

I made my way to the poor child, who was one of the dirtiest little unfortunates I ever saw, and found him very hot and frightened, and crying loudly, fixed by the neck between two iron railings, while a milkman and a beadle, with the kindest intentions possible, were endeavoring to drag him back by the legs, under a general impression that his skull was compressible by those means. As I found (after pacifying him) that he was a little boy, with a naturally large head, I thought that, perhaps, where his head could go, his body could follow, and mentioned that the best mode of extrication might be to push him forward. This was so favorably received by the milkman and beadle, that he would immediately have been pushed into the area, if I had not held his pinafore, while Richard and Mr. Guppy ran down through the kitchen, to catch him when he should be released. At last he was happily got down without any accident, and then he began to beat Mr. Guppy with a hoop-stick in quite a frantic manner.

Nobody had appeared belonging to the house, except a person in pattens, who had been poking at the child from below with a broom; I don’t know with what object, and I don’t think she did. I therefore supposed that Mrs. Jellyby was not at home; and was quite surprised when the person appeared in the passage without the pattens, and going up to the back room on the first floor, before Ada and me, announced us as, “Them two young ladies, Missis Jellyby!” We passed several more children on the way up, whom it was difficult to avoid treading on in the dark; and as we came into Mrs. Jellyby’s presence, one of the poor little things fell down-stairs--down a whole flight (as it sounded to me), with a great noise.

Mrs. Jellyby, whose face reflected none of the uneasiness which we could not help showing in our own faces, as the dear child’s head recorded its passage with a bump on every stair--Richard afterwards said he counted seven, besides one for the landing--received us with perfect equanimity. She was a pretty, very diminutive, plump woman, of from forty to fifty, with handsome eyes, though they had a curious habit of seeming to look a long way off. As if--I am quoting Richard again--they could see nothing nearer than Africa!

“I am very glad indeed,” said Mrs. Jellyby, in an agreeable voice, “to have the pleasure of receiving you. I have a great respect for Mr. Jarndyce; and no one in whom he is interested can be an object of indifference to me.”

We expressed our acknowledgments, and sat down behind the door, where there was a lame invalid of a sofa. Mrs. Jellyby had very good hair, but was too much occupied with her African duties to brush it. The shawl in which she had been loosely muffled, dropped on to her chair when she advanced to us; and as she turned to resume her seat, we could not help noticing that her dress didn’t nearly meet up the back, and that the open space was railed across with a lattice-work of stay-lace--like a summer-house.

The room, which was strewn with papers and nearly filled by a great writing-table covered with similar litter, was, I must say, not only very untidy, but very dirty. We were obliged to take notice of that with our sense of sight, even while, with our sense of hearing, we followed the poor child who had tumbled down-stairs: I think into the back kitchen, where somebody seemed to stifle him.

But what principally struck us was a jaded, and unhealthy-looking, though by no means plain girl, at the writing-table, who sat biting the feather of her pen, and staring at us. I suppose nobody ever was in such a state of ink. And, from her tumbled hair to her pretty feet, which were disfigured with frayed and broken satin slippers trodden down at heel, she really seemed to have no article of dress upon her, from a pin upwards, that was in its proper condition or its right place.

“You find me, my dears,” said Mrs. Jellyby, snuffing the two great office candles in tin candlesticks which made the room taste strongly of hot tallow (the fire had gone out, and there was nothing in the grate but ashes, a bundle of wood, and a poker), “you find me, my dears, as usual, very busy; but that you will excuse. The African project at present employs my whole time. It involves me in correspondence with public bodies, and with private individuals anxious for the welfare of their species all over the country. I am happy to say it is advancing. We hope by this time next year to have from a hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy families cultivating coffee and educating the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank of the Niger.”

As Ada said nothing, but looked at me, I said it must be very gratifying.

“It _is_ gratifying,” said Mrs. Jellyby. “It involves the devotion of all my energies, such as they are; but that is nothing, so that it succeeds; and I am more confident of success every day. Do you know, Miss Summerson, I almost wonder that _you_ never turned your thoughts to Africa.”

This application of the subject was really so unexpected to me, that I was quite at a loss how to receive it. I hinted that the climate----

“The finest climate in the world!” said Mrs. Jellyby.

“Indeed, ma’am?”

“Certainly. With precaution,” said Mrs. Jellyby. “You may go into Holborn, without precaution, and be run over. You may go into Holborn, with precaution, and never be run over. Just so with Africa.”

I said, “No doubt”--I meant as to Holborn.

“If you would like,” said Mrs. Jellyby, putting a number of papers towards us, “to look over some remarks on that head, and on the general subject (which have been extensively circulated), while I finish a letter I am now dictating--to my eldest daughter, who is my amanuensis----”

The girl at the table left off biting her pen, and made a return to our recognition, which was half bashful and half sulky.

“I shall then have finished for the present,” proceeded Mrs. Jellyby, with a sweet smile; “though my work is never done. Where are you, Caddy?”

“‘--Presents her compliments to Mr. Swallow, and begs--’” said Caddy.

“‘And begs,’” said Mrs. Jellyby, dictating, “‘to inform him, in reference to his letter of inquiry on the African project--’ No, Peepy! Not on any account!”

Peepy (so self-named) was the unfortunate child who had fallen down-stairs, who now interrupted the correspondence by presenting himself, with a strip of plaster on his forehead, to exhibit his wounded knees, in which Ada and I did not know which to pity most--the bruises or the dirt. Mrs. Jellyby merely added, “Go along, you naughty Peepy!” and fixed her fine eyes on Africa again.

However, as she at once proceeded with her dictation, and as I interrupted nothing by doing it, I ventured quietly to stop poor Peepy as he was going out, and to take him up to nurse. He looked very much astonished at it, and at Ada’s kissing him; but soon fell fast asleep in my arms, sobbing at longer and longer intervals, until he was quiet. I was so occupied with Peepy that I lost the letter in detail, though I derived such a general impression from it of the momentous importance of Africa, and the utter insignificance of all other places and things, that I felt quite ashamed to have thought so little about it.

“Six o’clock!” said Mrs. Jellyby. “And our dinner hour nominally (for we dine at all hours) five! Caddy, show Miss Clare and Miss Summerson their rooms. You will like to make some change, perhaps? You will excuse me, I know, being so much occupied. Oh, that very bad child! Pray put him down, Miss Summerson!”

I begged permission to retain him, truly saying that he was not at all troublesome; and carried him up-stairs and laid him on my bed. Ada and I had two upper rooms, with a door of communication between. They were excessively bare and disorderly, and the curtain to my window was fastened up with a fork.

“You would like some hot water, wouldn’t you?” said Miss Jellyby, looking round for a jug with a handle to it, but looking in vain.

“If it is not being troublesome,” said we.

“Oh, it’s not the trouble,” returned Miss Jellyby; “the question is, if there _is_ any.”

The evening was so very cold, and the rooms had such a marshy smell, that I must confess it was a little miserable; and Ada was half crying. We soon laughed, however, and were busily unpacking, when Miss Jellyby came back to say, that she was sorry there was no hot water; but they couldn’t find the kettle, and the boiler was out of order.

We begged her not to mention it, and made all the haste we could to get down to the fire again. But all the little children had come up to the landing outside, to look at the phenomenon of Peepy lying on my bed; and our attention was distracted by the constant apparition of noses and fingers in situations of danger between the hinges of the doors. It was impossible to shut the door of either room; for my lock, with no knob to it, looked as if it wanted to be wound up; and though the handle of Ada’s went round and round with the greatest smoothness, it was attended with no effect whatever on the door. Therefore I proposed to the children that they should come in and be very good at my table, and I would tell them the story of Little Red Riding Hood while I dressed; which they did, and were as quiet as mice, including Peepy, who awoke opportunely before the appearance of the wolf.

Soon after seven o’clock, we went down to dinner. The dinner was long, because of such accidents as the dish of potatoes being mislaid in the coal scuttle. Mrs. Jellyby paid no attention to such matters and told us all about the various committees, and the five thousand circulars that were sent out. After dinner, Mr. Jellyby sat in a corner in a state of great dejection. I sat in another and told Peepy, in whispers, the story of Puss in Boots, until Mrs. Jellyby, accidentally remembering the children, sent them to bed. As Peepy cried for me to take him, I carried him up-stairs.

“What a strange house!” said Ada, when we got up-stairs.

“My love,” said I, “it quite confuses me. I can’t understand it.”

“What?” asked Ada.

“All this, my dear,” said I. “It _must_ be very good of Mrs. Jellyby to take such pains about a scheme for the benefit of Natives--and yet--Peepy and the housekeeping!”

SISSY JUPE

X

SISSY JUPE

DICKENS called the novel in which Sissy Jupe appears _Hard Times_. It was certainly hard times for children who had to go to the kind of schools that Mr. Thomas Gradgrind believed in. Mr. Gradgrind was a big square man, with a square coat and square shoulders, who thought that he knew all about education. He thought that the children in the schoolroom were like so many little pitchers, and the teacher’s business was to fill them with facts.

“Now, what I want is Facts,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle for these children. Stick to Facts.”

Mr. Gradgrind, with another gentleman, had come to visit the school. Now Sissy Jupe was a bright little girl who would really enjoy using her own mind, but she didn’t know how to use Mr. Gradgrind’s mind, and she was very much upset when the great man pointed his square finger at her and said:

* * * * *

“Girl number twenty. I don’t know that girl. Who is that girl?”

“Sissy Jupe, sir,” explained number twenty, blushing, standing up, and courtesying.

“Sissy is not a name,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “Don’t call yourself Sissy. Call yourself Cecilia.”

“It’s father as calls me Sissy, sir,” returned the girl in a trembling voice, and with another courtesy.

“Then he has no business to do it,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “Tell him he mustn’t. Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is your father?”

“He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, sir.”

Mr. Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objectionable calling with his hand.

“We don’t want to know anything about that, here. You mustn’t tell us about that, here. Your father breaks horses, don’t he?”

“If you please, sir, when they can get any to break, they do break horses in the ring, sir.”

“You mustn’t tell us about the ring, here. Very well, then. Describe your father as a horsebreaker. He doctors sick horses, I dare say?”

“Oh yes, sir.”

“Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier, and horsebreaker. Give me your definition of a horse.”

(Sissy Jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand.)

“Girl number twenty unable to define a horse!” said Mr. Gradgrind, for the general behoof of all the little pitchers. “Girl number twenty possessed of no facts, in reference to one of the commonest of animals! Some boy’s definition of a horse. Bitzer, yours.”

The square finger, moving here and there, lighted suddenly on Bitzer, perhaps because he chanced to sit in the same ray of sunlight which, darting in at one of the bare windows of the intensely whitewashed room, irradiated Sissy. For the boys and girls sat on the face of the inclined plane in two compact bodies, divided up the centre by a narrow interval; and Sissy, being at the corner of a row on the sunny side, came in for the beginning of a sunbeam, of which Bitzer, being at corner of a row on the other side, a few rows in advance, caught the end. But, whereas the girl was so dark-eyed and dark-haired that she seemed to receive a deeper and more lustrous color from the sun, when it shone upon her, the boy was so light-eyed and light-haired that the self-same rays appeared to draw out of him what little color he ever possessed. His cold eyes would hardly have been eyes, but for the short ends of lashes which, by bringing them into immediate contrast with something paler than themselves, expressed their form. His short-cropped hair might have been a mere continuation of the sandy freckles on his forehead and face. His skin was so unwholesomely deficient in the natural tinge that he looked as though, if it were cut, he would bleed white.

“Bitzer,” said Thomas Gradgrind. “Your definition of a horse.”

“Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisors. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth.” Thus (and much more) Bitzer.

“Now girl number twenty,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “You know what a horse is.”...

The third gentleman now slipped forth, briskly smiling.

“That’s a horse. Now, let me ask you girls and boys, Would you paper a room with representations of horses?”

After a pause, one half of the children cried in chorus, “Yes, sir!” Upon which the other half, seeing in the gentleman’s face that Yes was wrong, cried out in chorus, “No, sir!”--as the custom is, in these examinations.

“Of course, No. Why wouldn’t you?”

A pause. One corpulent slow boy, with a wheezy manner of breathing, ventured the answer, “Because he wouldn’t paper a room at all, but would paint it.”

“You _must_ paper it,” said the gentleman, rather warmly.

“You must paper it,” said Thomas Gradgrind, “whether you like it or not. Don’t tell _us_ you wouldn’t paper it. What do you mean, boy?”

“I’ll explain to you, then,” said the gentleman, after another and a dismal pause, “why you wouldn’t paper a room with representations of horses. Do you ever see horses walking up and down the sides of rooms in reality--in fact? Do you?”

“Yes, sir!” from one half. “No, sir!” from the other.

“Of course no,” said the gentleman, with an indignant look at the wrong half. “Why, then, you are not to see anywhere, what you don’t see in fact; you are not to have anywhere, what you don’t have in fact. What is called Taste, is only another name for Fact.”

Thomas Gradgrind nodded his approbation.

“This is a new principle, a discovery, a great discovery,” said the gentleman.

“Now, I’ll try you again. Suppose you were going to carpet a room. Would you use a carpet having a representation of flowers upon it?”

There being a general conviction by this time that “No, sir!” was always the right answer to this gentleman, the chorus of No was very strong. Only a few feeble stragglers said Yes; among them Sissy Jupe.

“Girl number twenty,” said the gentleman, smiling in the calm strength of knowledge.

Sissy blushed, and stood up.

“So you would carpet your room--or your husband’s room, if you were a grown woman, and had a husband--with representations of flowers, would you,” said the gentleman. “Why would you?”

“If you please sir, I am very fond of flowers,” returned the girl.

“And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon them, and have people walking over them with heavy boots?”

“It wouldn’t hurt them, sir. They wouldn’t crush and wither, if you please, sir. They would be the pictures of what was very pretty and pleasant, and I would fancy----”

“Ay, ay, ay! But you mustn’t fancy,” cried the gentleman, quite elated by coming so happily to his point. “That’s it! You are never to fancy.”

“You are not, Cecilia Jupe,” Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated, “to do anything of that kind.”

“Fact, fact, fact!” said the gentleman. And “Fact, fact, fact!” repeated Thomas Gradgrind.

“You are to be in all things regulated and governed,” said the gentleman, “by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board of fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of fact, and of nothing but fact. You must discard the word Fancy altogether. You have nothing to do with it. You are not to have, in any object of use or ornament, what would be a contradiction in fact. You don’t walk upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in carpets. You don’t find that foreign birds and butterflies come and perch upon your crockery; you cannot be permitted to paint foreign birds and butterflies upon your crockery. You never meet with quadrupeds going up and down walls; you must not have quadrupeds represented upon walls. You must use,” said the gentleman, “for all these purposes, combinations and modifications (in primary colors) of mathematical figures which are susceptible of proof and demonstration. This is the new discovery. This is fact. This is taste.”

The girl courtesied, and sat down. She was very young, and she looked as if she were frightened by the matter-of-fact prospect the world afforded.

THE CHILD OF THE MARSHALSEA

XI

THE CHILD OF THE MARSHALSEA

WHEN Dickens wrote _Little Dorrit_, he must often have thought of the times when as a boy he went to see his father in the debtors’ prison. As a shy little boy he had to do all sorts of errands which took him over the prison and through the narrow streets that were near it.

Amy Dorrit, or little Dorrit, as she was called, was born in the great rambling prison called the Marshalsea. It was the only home she knew. Her father had got into debt and was sent to prison until the debt was paid. Of course he couldn’t pay it so long as he was locked up and not given a chance to earn anything. So there he stayed year after year till he had become the oldest inhabitant, and rather enjoyed the honor. But it was hard on little Dorrit.

She had one good friend, the officer who was called the turnkey, because he had the keys of the prison and was the one who locked the prisoners in. When she began to walk and talk, he bought her a little armchair, and gave her toys. She became very fond of the turnkey, and was delighted when he dressed and undressed her dolls.

After a while, little Dorrit began to wonder what the world outside the prison walls was like. She saw the turnkey turn his great key in the door and thought, how wonderful it would be to go out through it!

She sat by the barred window, looking out. “Thinking of the fields?” the turnkey said, one day.

“Where are they?” she asked.

“Why, they are over there, my dear,” said the turnkey with a flourish of the keys. “Just about there.”

“Does anybody open them, or shut them? Are they locked?”

“Well,” he said, “not in general.”

“Are they pretty, Bob?” She called him Bob because he asked her to.

“Lovely. Full of flowers. There’s buttercups and there’s daisies, and there’s--dandelions and all manner of games.”

“Is it pleasant to be there, Bob?”

“Prime,” said the turnkey.

“Was father ever there?”

“Oh, yes. He was there sometimes.”

“Is he sorry not to be there now?”

“N--not particular,” said the turnkey.

“Nor any of the people? Oh, are you quite sure and certain, Bob?”

Bob changed the subject, but this was the beginning of little Sunday excursions which these two curious companions took. Every other Sunday afternoon the turnkey would open the prison doors with his big key and would go off with little Dorrit into the green fields. He would pick out some meadow or green lane and light his pipe, while the little girl would gather grasses and wild flowers to bring home to her father.

After some years had passed, Mr. Dorrit was released from prison and his fortune was restored, but little Dorrit always remembered the kind turnkey who had given her the first happy hours in the green fields.

THE CRATCHITS

XII

THE CRATCHITS

EVERYBODY knows the Cratchits. When Christmas comes people take up _A Christmas Carol_ and turn to the account of the Christmas dinner which Bob Cratchit and his family enjoyed in their poor little house in the suburbs of London. Here it is just as Dickens wrote it.

* * * * *

Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit’s wife, dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob’s private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honor of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker’s they had smelled the goose and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage-and-onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud, although his collar nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled.

_Copyright by Charles Scribner’s Sons_

TINY TIM AND BOB CRATCHIT ON CHRISTMAS DAY]

“What has ever got your precious father then?” said Mrs. Cratchit. “And your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha warn’t as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour!”

“Here’s Martha, mother!” said a girl, appearing as she spoke.

“Here’s Martha, mother!” cried the two young Cratchits. “Hurrah! There’s _such_ a goose, Martha!”

“Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!” said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.

“We’d a deal of work to finish up last night,” replied the girl, “and had to clear away this morning, mother!”

“Well! Never mind so long as you are come,” said Mrs. Cratchit. “Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!”

“No, no! There’s father coming,” cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. “Hide, Martha, hide!”

So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame!

“Why, where’s our Martha?” cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.

“Not coming,” said Mrs. Cratchit.

“Not coming!” said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been Tim’s blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. “Not coming upon Christmas Day!”

Martha didn’t like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

“And how did little Tim behave?” asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart’s content.

“As good as gold,” said Bob, “and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk and blind men see.”

Bob’s voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs--as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby--compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round and put it on the hob to simmer, Master Peter, and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course--and in truth it was something very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigor; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn’t believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavor, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by the apple sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish) they hadn’t ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits, in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone--too nervous to bear witnesses--to take the pudding up and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it while they were merry with the goose--a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered--flushed, but smiling proudly--with the pudding like a speckled cannon-ball so hard and firm blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovelful of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit’s elbow stood the family display of glass. Two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:

“A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!”

Which all the family re-echoed.

“God bless us every one!” said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

THE DOLL’S DRESSMAKER

XIII

THE DOLL’S DRESSMAKER

THE fact that Dickens when he was only twelve years old was put to work and had to make his own living made him feel old when he was really very young. He had to look after himself as if he had been a man. In _Our Mutual Friend_ he gives us a picture of an old young person, Jenny Wren, the Doll’s Dressmaker, who talked as if she were forty, when she was only twelve and small for her age. Her father was a drunkard and she had been compelled to act as head of the house.

She was a queer little person with bright, snapping eyes and a sharp tongue. She sat in a little old-fashioned armchair which had a little working-bench before it. She had set up in business as a doll’s dressmaker and manufacturer of pincushions and pen-wipers.

If you were in London you would have to go a long way to find the Doll’s Dressmaker. First you crossed Westminster Bridge, and then you came to a certain little street called Church Street, and then to an out-of-the-way square called Smith Square, in the centre of which was a very ugly church. Then you came to a blacksmith-shop and a lumber-yard, and a dealer in old iron. There was a rusty portion of an old boiler that you had to walk around. Beyond that there were several little quiet houses in a row. In one of these houses was the little Doll’s Dressmaker. That was the way Bradley Headstone and Charley Hexam found the house where Jenny Wren lived.

_Copyright by Charles Scribner’s Sons_

JENNY WREN, THE LITTLE DOLLS’ DRESSMAKER]

They knocked at the door and saw a queer little figure sitting in an armchair.

“I can’t get up,” said the child, “because my back’s bad and my legs are queer. But I’m the person of the house. What do you want, young man?”

“I wanted to see my sister.”

“Many young men have sisters. Give me your name, young man.”

“Hexam is my name.”

“Ah, indeed?” said the person of the house. “I thought it might be. Your sister will be in, in about a quarter of an hour. I am very fond of your sister. She’s my particular friend. Take a seat. And this gentleman’s name?”

“Mr. Headstone, my schoolmaster.”

“Take a seat. And would you please to shut the street door first? I can’t very well do it myself, because my back’s so bad, and my legs are so queer.”

They complied in silence, and the little figure went on with its work of gumming and gluing together with a camel’s-hair brush certain pieces of cardboard and thin wood, previously cut into various shapes. The scissors and knives upon the bench showed that the child herself had cut them; and the bright scraps of velvet and silk and ribbon also strewn upon the bench showed that when duly stuffed (and stuffing too was there) she was to cover them smartly. The dexterity of her nimble fingers was remarkable, and, as she brought two thin edges accurately together by giving them a little bite, she would glance at the visitors out of the corners of her gray eyes with a look that outsharpened all her other sharpness.

“You can’t tell me the name of my trade, I’ll be bound,” she said, after taking several of these observations.

“You make pincushions,” said Charley.

“What else do I make?”

“Pen-wipers,” said Bradley Headstone.

“Ha! ha! What else do I make? You’re a schoolmaster, but you can’t tell me.”

“You do something,” he returned, pointing to a corner of the little bench, “with straw; but I don’t know what.”

“Well done you!” cried the person of the house. “I only make pincushions and pen-wipers to use up my waste. But my straw really does belong to my business. Try again. What do I make with my straw?”

“Dinner-mats.”

“A schoolmaster, and says dinner-mats! I’ll give you a clue to my trade, in a game of forfeits. I love my love with a B because she’s Beautiful; I hate my love with a B because she is Brazen; I took her to the sign of the Blue Boar, and I treated her with Bonnets; her name’s Bouncer, and she lives in Bedlam.--Now, what do I make with my straw?”

“Ladies’ bonnets?”

“Fine ladies’,” said the person of the house, nodding assent. “Dolls’. I’m a Doll’s Dressmaker.”

“I hope it’s a good business?”

The person of the house shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. “No. Poorly paid. And I’m often so pressed for time! I had a doll married, last week, and was obliged to work all night. And it’s not good for me, on account of my back being so bad and my legs so queer.”

They looked at the little creature with a wonder that did not diminish, and the schoolmaster said: “I am sorry your fine ladies are so inconsiderate.”

“It’s the way with them,” said the person of the house, shrugging her shoulders again. “And they take no care of their clothes, and they never keep to the same fashions a month. I work for a doll with three daughters. Bless you, she’s enough to ruin her husband!”

The person of the house gave a weird little laugh here, and gave them another look out of the corners of her eyes. She had an elfin chin that was capable of great expression; and whenever she gave this look, she hitched this chin up. As if her eyes and her chin worked together on the same wires.

“Are you always as busy as you are now?”

“Busier. I’m slack just now. I finished a large mourning order the day before yesterday. Doll I work for lost a canary-bird.” The person of the house gave another little laugh, and then nodded her head several times, as who should moralize, “Oh this world, this world!”

“Are you alone all day?” asked Bradley Headstone. “Don’t any of the neighboring children----?”

“Ah, lud!” cried the person of the house, with a little scream, as if the word had pricked her. “Don’t talk of children. I can’t bear children. _I_ know their tricks and their manners.” She said this with an angry little shake of her right fist close before her eyes.

Perhaps it scarcely required the teacher-habit to perceive that the doll’s dressmaker was inclined to be bitter on the difference between herself and other children. But both master and pupil understood it so.

“Always running about and screeching, always playing and fighting, always skip-skip-skipping on the pavement and chalking it for their games! Oh! _I_ know their tricks and their manners!” Shaking the little fist as before. “And that’s not all. Ever so often calling names in through a person’s keyhole, and imitating a person’s back and legs. Oh! _I_ know their tricks and their manners. And I’ll tell you what I’d do to punish ’em. There’s doors under the church in the Square--black doors, leading into black vaults. Well! I’d open one of those doors, and I’d cram ’em all in, and then I’d lock the door and through the keyhole I’d blow in pepper.”

“What would be the good of blowing in pepper?” asked Charley Hexam.

“To set ’em sneezing,” said the person of the house, “and make their eyes water. And when they were all sneezing and inflamed, I’d mock ’em through the keyhole. Just as they, with their tricks and their manners, mock a person through a person’s keyhole!”

An uncommonly emphatic shake of her little fist close before her eyes seemed to ease the mind of the person of the house; for she added with recovered composure, “No, no, no. No children for me. Give me grown-ups.”

LITTLE NELL

XIV

LITTLE NELL

ONE of the strange things about London is the number of little shops in out-of-the-way places, where they sell things that one would suppose nobody would be looking for. The shops seem hidden away, and the game is for the customers to find them. And very often the customers don’t find them.

In one of these little streets was an old curiosity shop, kept by a little old man with long gray hair. The shop was full of old and curious things which the old man had collected and heaped upon the floor. There were suits of armor, and bits of old china and figures carved out of wood. The room was dark, and it was hard to walk around without stepping upon some of the curiosities.

The one bright spot in the old man’s life was his love for his granddaughter, little Nell Trent. For her he had been saving everything he could, but of late he had been losing more than he had gained. It would have been a rather dull life for little Nell if it had not been for Kit Nubbles.

Kit was a shock-headed, awkward boy who lived with his mother not far away, and he came every day to help Nell’s grandfather in the shop. He had an uncommonly big mouth, very red cheeks, and an old hat without any brim. Kit liked to “show off,” especially when Nell was around. He had a remarkable way of standing sideways as he spoke and thrusting his head over his shoulders. When he found that it would make Nell laugh, he did it again and again.

_Copyright by Charles Scribner’s Sons_

LITTLE NELL AND HER GRANDFATHER AT MRS. JARLEY’S]

And there was a dwarf named Quilp who was as ugly as he looked, and delighted in nothing so much as in making everybody afraid of him. He lived down by the river. He had a business of his own. He bought old copper and rusty anchors from ships that had been broken up. But his real occupation was in making everybody who came under him miserable. At last Nell and her grandfather, in order to escape from Quilp, made up their minds to leave London, and go off into the country where they might find peace. They didn’t care where they went so that Quilp could not follow them. This would have been a very good plan if they had had money for their journeys, but as they hadn’t they had to depend on the kindness of the people on the road.

In their wanderings Nell and her grandfather fell in with some queer people. While they were resting near a village church, they came upon two men who were travelling over the country giving Punch and Judy shows. One of them, a merry-faced man with twinkling eyes and a red nose, was named Short. His companion, Codlin, was a more courteous and gloomy person. Mr. Codlin took the figure of Judy out of the box and said:

“Look here, here’s all this Judy’s clothes falling to pieces again. You haven’t got a needle and thread, I suppose?”

Nell had a needle and thread and soon was at work on Judy’s dress, and soon they were friends, and Codlin and Short took them to the wayside inn where they met other travellers who were going to fairs. The chapter which tells of the talk at the Jolly Sandboys is one which the lover of Dickens likes to read more than once.

THE JOLLY SANDBOYS

THE Jolly Sandboys was a small roadside inn with a sign representing three Sandboys increasing their jollity with as many jugs of ale and bags of gold, creaking and swinging on its post on the opposite side of the road. As the travellers had observed that day, there were many indications of their drawing nearer and nearer to the race town, such as gypsy camps, carts laden with gambling booths, itinerant showmen of all kinds, and beggars and trampers of every degree.

Mr. Codlin entered the inn, where a mighty fire was blazing on the hearth and roaring up the wide chimney with a cheerful sound. There was a large iron kettle bubbling and simmering in the heat. And when the landlord lifted the lid, there was a savory smell. The glow of the fire was upon the landlord’s bald head and upon his twinkling eyes. Mr. Codlin drew his sleeve across his lips and said in a murmuring voice, “What is it?”

“It’s a stew of tripe,” said the landlord, “and cowheel, and bacon,” smacking his lips, “and steak, and peas, cauliflowers, new potatoes, and sparrow-grass, all working together in one delicious gravy.”

Very soon all the hungry wayfarers were sitting down to supper while the rain fell in torrents on the roof.

* * * * *

Supper was not yet over, when there arrived at the Jolly Sandboys two more travellers bound for the same haven as the rest, who had been walking in the rain for some hours, and came in shining and heavy with water. One of these was the proprieter of a giant, and a little lady without legs or arms, who had jogged forward in a van; the other, a silent gentleman who earned his living by showing tricks upon the cards, and who had rather deranged the natural expression of his countenance by putting small leaden lozenges into his eyes and bringing them out at his mouth, which was one of his professional accomplishments. The name of the first of these newcomers was Vuffin; the other, probably as a pleasant satire upon his ugliness, was called Sweet William. To render them as comfortable as he could, the landlord bestirred himself nimbly, and in a very short time both gentlemen were perfectly at their ease.

“How’s the Giant?” said Short, when they all sat smoking round the fire.

“Rather weak upon his legs,” returned Mr. Vuffin. “I begin to be afraid he’s going at the knees.”

“That’s a bad lookout,” said Short.

“Ay! Bad indeed,” replied Mr. Vuffin, contemplating the fire with a sigh. “Once get a giant shaky on his legs, and the public care no more about him than they do for a dead cabbage-stalk.”

“What becomes of the old giants?” said Short, turning to him again after a little reflection.

“They’re usually kept in caravans to wait upon the dwarfs,” said Mr. Vuffin.

“The maintaining of ’em must come expensive, when they can’t be shown, eh?” remarked Short, eyeing him doubtfully.

“It’s better that, than letting ’em go upon the parish or about the streets,” said Mr. Vuffin. “Once make a giant common and giants will never draw again. Look at wooden legs. If there was only one man with a wooden leg what a property _he’d_ be!”

“So he would!” observed the landlord and Short both together. “That’s very true.”

“Instead of which,” pursued Mr. Vuffin, “if you was to advertise Shakspeare played entirely by wooden legs, it’s my belief you wouldn’t draw a sixpence.”

“I don’t suppose you would,” said Short. And the landlord said so too.

“This shows, you see,” said Mr. Vuffin, waving his pipe with an argumentative air, “this shows the policy of keeping the used-up giants still in the carawans, where they get food and lodging for nothing, all their lives, and in general very glad they are to stop there. There was one giant--a black ’un--as left his carawan some years ago and took to carrying coach-bills about London, making himself as cheap as crossing-sweepers. He died. I make no insinuation against anybody in particular,” said Mr. Vuffin, looking solemnly round, “but he was ruining the trade;--and he died.”

The landlord drew his breath hard, and looked at the owner of the dogs, who nodded and said gruffly that _he_ remembered.

“I know you do, Jerry,” said Mr. Vuffin with profound meaning. “I know you remember it, Jerry, and the universal opinion was, that it served him right. Why, I remember the time when old Maunders as had three-and-twenty wans--I remember the time when old Maunders had in his cottage in Spa fields in the winter time when the season was over, eight male and female dwarfs setting down to dinner every day, who was waited on by eight old giants in green coats, red smalls, blue cotton stockings, and high-lows: and there was one dwarf as had grown elderly and wicious who whenever his giant wasn’t quick enough to please him, used to stick pins in his legs, not being able to reach up any higher. I know that’s a fact, for Maunders told it me himself.”

“What about the dwarfs, when _they_ get old?” inquired the landlord.

“The older a dwarf is, the better worth he is,” returned Mr. Vuffin; “a gray-headed dwarf, well wrinkled, is beyond all suspicion. But a giant weak in the legs and not standing upright--keep him in the carawan, but never show him, never show him, for any persuasion that can be offered.”

While Mr. Vuffin and his two friends smoked their pipes and beguiled the time with such conversation as this, the silent gentleman sat in a warm corner, swallowing, or seeming to swallow, a sixpennyworth of halfpence for practice, balancing a feather upon his nose, and rehearsing other feats of dexterity of that kind, without paying any regard whatever to the company, who in their turn left him utterly unnoticed. At length the weary child prevailed upon her grandfather to retire, and they withdrew, leaving the company yet seated round the fire, and the dogs fast asleep at a humble distance.

MRS. JARLEY AND HER WAX-WORKS

OF all the adventures of little Nell, the meeting with Mrs. Jarley was the most delightful. It happened just at the right time. Nell and her grandfather were trudging along the road. It was late in the afternoon and they didn’t know where they were to find a resting-place. They came to a common and saw what in England is called a caravan. It is not such a caravan as one would find in Bagdad, made up of camels. It was a little house on wheels. It had white curtains on the windows, and the window-shutters were of green, with bright red trimmings. There was a door with brass knockers and there were two fat horses to draw it. They all belonged to a stout, good-natured lady named Mrs. Jarley, who was at the moment arranging her tea things for a comfortable afternoon tea.

Mrs. Jarley looked up and saw little Nell. “Are you hungry, child?”

“Not very, but we are tired, and it’s a long way.”

“Well, hungry or not,” said Mrs. Jarley, “you had better have some tea, and I suppose the old gentleman is agreeable to that.”

So they sat down on the grass and had tea and bread and butter and generous slices of ham.

Then Mrs. Jarley invited Nell and her grandfather to be her guests in the little house on wheels. There wasn’t very much room, but Mrs. Jarley was so hospitable that they at once accepted her invitation and made themselves at home. Half of the little house had berths for sleeping, very much as if it were a ship. The other half was a kitchen, with a little stove in it. It also had several boxes and kettles and saucepans.

When they got started after breakfast in the morning, little Nell’s spirits rose and she forgot her troubles.

“Well,” said Mrs. Jarley, “how do you like this way of travelling?”

Nell said she liked it very much.

“That’s the happiness of you young people,” said Mrs. Jarley. “You don’t know what it is to be low in your feelings. You always have your appetites too--and what a comfort it is.”

Then Mrs. Jarley brought out a large roll of canvas about a yard wide, and spread it on the floor.

“There, child,” she said, “read that.”

Nell walked down it, and read aloud, in enormous black letters, the inscription, “JARLEY’S WAX-WORK.”

“Read it again,” said the lady, complacently.

“Jarley’s Wax-Work,” repeated Nell.

“That’s me,” said the lady. “I am Mrs. Jarley.”