So the children waited the due fortnight for the appearance of disease.
But no one "broke out." Looney, it is true, developed a very sore head,
but the doctor declared there was nothing contagious about it; at which
neglect of scientific precaution Clem expressed justifiable disgust.
For, indeed, he could have diagnosed the case completely himself, as a
sore due to compulsory friction of the epidermis against an iron
bedstead. But as science remained deaf to his protests, he hastened to
get first pick of the regulation suits and shoes, and when fairly
satisfied with the fit, he bit private marks on their various parts,
helped to put on Looney's waistcoat wrong way before, split Alfred's
shirt down the back to test its age, and with an emphatic remark upon
the perversity of mortal things, marched stoically up to the school with
the rest of the little band. Little Lizzie followed with the girls about
a hundred yards behind. Alfred pretended not to see her. Somehow he was
now becoming rather ashamed of having a sister.
The great bell was just ringing for dinner. Alfred and the other new
boys were at once arranged according to height in the phalanx of fours
mustered in the yard. At the word of command the whole solid mass put
itself in motion, shortest in front, and advanced towards the hall with
the little workhouse shuffle. Dividing this way and that, the boys filed
along the white tables. At the same moment the girls entered from
another door, and the infants from a third. By a liberal concession,
"the sexes" had lately been allowed to look at each other from a safe
distance at meals.
A gong sounded: there was instant silence. It sounded again: all stood
up and clasped their hands. Many shut their eyes and assumed an
expression of intensity, as though preparing to wrestle with the Spirit.
Clem, having planted both heels firmly on Looney's foot, screwed up his
face, and appeared to wrestle more than any. A note was struck on the
harmonium. All sang the grace. The gong sounded: all sat down. It
sounded again: all talked.
"Yes, we allow them to talk at meals now," said the superintendent to a
visitor who was standing with him in the middle of the room. "We find it
helps to counteract the effects of over-feeding on the digestion."
"What a beautiful sight it all is!" said the visitor. "Such precision
and obedience! Everything seems satisfactory."
"Yes," said the superintendent, "we do our very best to make it a happy
home. Don't we, Ma?"
"We do, indeed," said the matron. "You see, sir, it has to be a home as
well as a school."
The superintendent had been employed in workhouse schools for many
years, and had gradually worked himself up to the highest position. On
his appointment he had hoped to introduce many important changes in the
system. Now, at the end of nine years, he could point to a few
improvements in the steam-laundry, and the substitution of a decent
little cap for the old workhouse Glengarry. At one time he had conceived
the idea of allowing the boys brushes and combs instead of having their
hair cropped short to the skin. But in this and other points he had
found it better to let things slide rather than throw the whole place
out of gear for a trifle. Changes received little encouragement; and the
public didn't really care what happened until some cruel scandal in the
evening papers made their blood boil for half a minute as they went home
to dinner in the suburbs.
The gong sounded. All stood up again with clasped hands, and again
Looney suffered while Clem joined in the grace. As the boys marched out
at one door, Alfred looked back and caught sight of Lizzie departing
flushed and torpid with the infants after her struggle to make a "clean
plate" of her legal pound of flesh and solid dough. In the afternoon he
was sent to enjoy the leisure of school with his "standard," or to creep
about in the howling chaos of play-time in the yard. After tea he was
herded with four hundred others into a day-room quite big enough to
allow them to stand without touching each other. Hot pipes ran round the
sides under a little bench, and the whitewashed walls were relieved by
diagrams of the component parts of a sweet pea and scenes from the life
of Abraham. As usual an attempt was made at hide-and-seek under strange
conditions. Some inglorious inventor had solved the problem of playing
that royal game in an empty oblong room. His method was to plant out the
"juniors" in clusters or copses on the floor, whilst the "seniors"
lurked and ran and hunted in and out their undergrowth. To add zest to
the chase, Clem now let Looney slip as a kind of bag-fox, and the
half-witted creature went lumbering and blubbering about in real terror
of his life, whilst his pursuers encouraged his speed with artifices in
which the animated spinnies and coverts deferentially joined. Unnoticed
and lonely in the crowd, Alfred was almost sorry he was not half-witted
too.
At last he was marched off to his dormitory with fifty-five others, and
lay for a long time listening with the fascination of innocence whilst
Clem in a low voice described with much detail the scenes of "human
nature" which he had recently witnessed down hopping with his people.
Almost before he was well asleep, as it seemed, the strange new life
began again with the bray of a bugle and the flaring of gas, and he had
to hurry down to the model lavatory to wash under his special little jet
of warm spray, so elaborately contrived in the hope of keeping
ophthalmia in check.
So, with drills and scrubbings and breakfasts and schools, the great
circles of childhood's days and nights went by, each distinguished from
another only by the dinner and the Sunday services. And from first to
last the pauper child was haunted by the peculiar pauper smell,
containing elements of whitewash, damp boards, soap, steam, hot pipes,
the last dinner and the next, corduroys, a little chlorate of lime, and
the bodies of hundreds of children. It was not unwholesome.