communication from Mr. Fledgeby, releasing Mr. Riah at once from his
service, to the great satisfaction of the old man, who then got his few
goods together in a black bag, closed the shutters, pulled down the
office blind, and issued forth upon the steps. There, while Miss Jenny
held the bag, the old man locked the house door, and handed the key over
to the messenger who had brought the note of dismissal.
"Well, godmother," said Miss Wren, "and so you're thrown upon the
world!"
"It would appear so, Jenny, and rather suddenly."
"Where are you going to seek your fortune?" asked Miss Wren. The old man
smiled, but gazed about him with a look of having lost his way in life,
which did not escape the dolls' dressmaker.
"The best thing you can do," said Jenny, "for the time being, at all
events, is to come home with me, godmother. Nobody's there but my bad
child, and Lizzie's lodging stands empty."
The old man, when satisfied that no inconvenience could be entailed on
any one by this move, readily complied, and the singularly assorted
couple once more went through the streets together.
And it was a kindly Providence which placed the child's hand in the aged
Jew's protecting one that night. Before they reached home, they met a
sad party, bearing in their arms an inanimate form, at which the dolls'
dressmaker needed but to take one look.
"Oh gentlemen, gentlemen," she cried, "He belongs to me!" "Belongs to
you!" said the head of the party, stopping;--"Oh yes, dear gentlemen,
he's my child, out without leave. My poor, bad, bad boy! And he don't
know me, he don't know me! Oh, what _shall_ I do?" cried the little
creature, wildly beating her hands together, "when my own child
don't know me!"
The head of the party looked to the old Jew for explanation. He
whispered, as the dolls' dressmaker bent over the still form, and vainly
tried to extract some sign of recognition from it; "It's her
drunken father."
Then the sad party with their lifeless burden went through the streets.
After it, went the dolls' dressmaker, hiding her face in the Jewish
skirts, and clinging to them with one hand, while with the other she
plied her stick, and at last the little home in Church Street
was reached.
Many flaunting dolls had to be gaily dressed, before the money was in
the dressmaker's pocket to get mourning for her father. As Mr. Riah sat
by, helping her in such small ways as he could, he found it difficult to
make out whether she realized that the deceased had really been
her father.
"If my poor boy," she would say, "had been brought up better, he might
have done better. Not that I reproach myself. I hope I have no cause
for that."
"None, indeed, Jenny, I am very certain."
"Thank you, godmother. It cheers me to hear you say so. But you see it
is so hard to bring up a child well, when you work, work, work, all day.
When he was out of employment, I couldn't always keep him near me. He
got fractious and nervous, and I was obliged to let him go into the
streets. And he never did well in the streets, he never did well out of
sight. How often it happens with children! How can I say what I might
have turned out myself, but for my back having been so bad and my legs
so queer, when I was young!" the dressmaker would go on. "I had nothing
to do but work, so I worked. I couldn't play. But my poor, unfortunate
child could play, and it turned out worse for him."
"And not for him alone, Jenny."
"Well, I don't know, godmother. He suffered heavily, did my unfortunate
boy. He was very, very ill sometimes. And I called him a quantity of
names;" shaking her head over her work, and dropping tears.
"You are a good girl, you are a patient girl."
"As for patience," she would reply with a shrug, "not much of that,
godmother. If I had been patient, I should never have called him names.
But I hope I did it for his good. And besides, I felt my responsibility
as a mother so much. I tried reasoning, and reasoning failed. I tried
coaxing, and coaxing failed. I tried scolding, and scolding failed. But
I was bound to try everything, with such a charge on my hands. Where
would have been my duty to my poor lost boy, if I had not tried
everything?"
With such talk, mostly in a cheerful tone on the part of the industrious
little creature, the day work and the night work were beguiled, until
enough of smart dolls had gone forth to bring in the sombre stuff that
the occasion required, and to bring into the house the other sombre
preparations. "And now," said Miss Jenny, "having knocked off my
rosy-cheeked young friends, I'll knock off my white-cheeked self." This
referred to her making her own dress which at last was done, in time for
the simple service, the arrangements for which were of her own planning.
The service ended, and the solitary dressmaker having returned to her
home, she said:
"I must have a very short cry, godmother, before I cheer up for good.
Because after all, a child is a child, you know."
It was a longer cry than might have been expected. Howbeit, it wore
itself out in a shadowy corner, and then the dressmaker came forth, and
washed her face, and made the tea.
"You wouldn't mind my cutting out something while we are at tea, would
you?" she asked with a coaxing air.
"Cinderella, dear child," the old man expostulated. "Will you never
rest?"
"Oh! It's not work, cutting out a pattern isn't," said Miss Jenny, with
her busy little scissors already snipping at some paper; "The truth is,
godmother, I want to fix it, while I have it correct in my mind."
"Have you seen it to-day, then?" asked Riah.
"Yes, godmother. Saw it just now. It's a surplice, that's what it is.
Thing our clergymen wear, you know," explained Miss Jenny, in
consideration of his professing another faith.
"And what have you to do with that, Jenny?"
"Why, godmother," replied the dressmaker, "you must know that we
professors, who live upon our taste and invention, are obliged to keep
our eyes always open. And you know already that I have many extra
expenses to meet. So it came into my head, while I was weeping at my
poor boy's grave, that something in my way might be done with a
clergyman. Not a funeral, never fear;" said Miss Jenny. "The public
don't like to be made melancholy, I know very well. But a doll
clergyman, my dear,--glossy black curls and whiskers--uniting two of my
young friends in matrimony," said Miss Jenny shaking her forefinger, "is
quite another affair. If you don't see those three at the altar in Bond
Street, in a jiffy, my name's Jack Robinson!"
With her expert little ways in sharp action, she had got a doll into
whitey-brown paper orders, before the meal was over, and displayed it
for the edification of the Jewish mind, and Mr. Riah was lost in
admiration for the brave, resolute little soul, who could so put aside
her sadness to meet and face her pressing need.
And many times thereafter was he likewise lost in admiration of his
little friend, who continued her business as of old, only without the
burden of responsibility by which her life had heretofore been clouded,
and more able to give her imagination free play along the lines of her
interests, without the pressure of home care resting upon her poor
shoulders.
Our last glimpse of her, is as usual, before her little workbench, at
work upon a full-dressed, large sized doll, when there comes a knock
upon the door. When it is opened there is disclosed a young fellow known
to his friends and employer, as Sloppy.
Sloppy was full private No 1 in the Awkward Squad of the rank and file
of life, and yet had his glimmering notions of standing true to his
colors, and in instinctive refinement of feeling was much above others
who outranked him in birth and education.
"Come in, sir," said Miss Wren, "and who may you be?"
Mr. Sloppy introduced himself by name and buttons.
"Oh, indeed," cried Jenny, "I have heard of you."
Sloppy, grinning, was so glad to hear it that he threw back his head and
laughed.
"Bless us!" exclaimed Miss Wren, with a start, "Don't open your mouth as
wide as that, young man, or it'll catch so, and not shut again,
some day."
Mr. Sloppy opened it, if possible, wider, and kept it open, until his
laugh was out.
"Why, you're like the giant," said Miss Wren, "when he came home in the
land of Beanstalk, and wanted Jack for supper."
"Was he good looking, Miss?" asked Sloppy.
"No," said Miss Wren. "Ugly."
Her visitor glanced round the room--which had many comforts in it now,
that it had not had before--and said:
"This is a pretty place, Miss.
"Glad you think so, sir," returned Miss Wren. "And what do you think of
Me?"
The honesty of Mr. Sloppy being severely taxed by the question, he
twisted a button, grinned, and faltered.
"Out with it," said Miss Wren, with an arch look. "Don't you think me a
queer little comicality?" In shaking her head at him after asking the
question, she shook her hair down.
"Oh!" cried Sloppy in a burst of admiration. "What a lot, and what a
color!"
Miss Wren with her usual expressive hitch, went on with her work. But
left her hair as it was, not displeased by the effect it had made.
"You don't live here alone, do you, Miss?" asked Sloppy.
"No," said Miss Wren with a chop. "Live here with my fairy godmother."
"With;" Mr. Sloppy couldn't make it out; "with, who did you say, Miss?"
"Well!" replied Miss Wren more seriously. "With my second father. Or
with my first, for that matter." And she shook her head and drew a sigh.
"If you had known a poor child I used to have here," she added, "you'd
have understood me. But you didn't and you can't. All the better!"
"You must have been taught a long time, Miss," said Sloppy, glancing at
the array of dolls on hand, "before you came to work so neatly, Miss,
and with such a pretty taste."
"Never was taught a stitch, young man!" returned the dressmaker, tossing
her head. "Just gobbled and gobbled, till I found out how to do it.
Badly enough at first, but better now."
"And here have I," said Sloppy, in a self-reproachful tone, "been
a-learning and a-learning at cabinet-making, ever so long! I'll tell you
what, Miss, I should like to make you something."
"Much obliged, but what?"
"I could make you," said Sloppy, surveying the room, "a handy set of
nests to lay the dolls in. Or a little set of drawers to keep your silks
and threads and scraps in. Or I could turn you a rare handle for that
crutch-stick, if it belongs to him you call your father."
"It belongs to me," said the little creature, with a quick flush of her
face and neck. "I am lame."
Poor Sloppy flushed too, for there was an instinctive delicacy behind
his buttons. He said perhaps, the best thing in the way of amends that
could be said. "I am very glad it's yours, because I'd rather ornament
it for you than for any one else. Please, may I look at it?"
Miss Wren was in the act of handing it over to him when she paused.
"But you had better see me use it," she said sharply. "This is the way.
Hoppetty, kicketty, peg-peg-peg. Not pretty, is it?"
"It seems to me that you hardly want it at all," said Sloppy.
The little dressmaker sat down again, and gave it into his hand, saying
with that better look upon her, and with a smile:
"Thank you! You are a very kind young man, a really kind young man. I
accept your offer--I suppose _He_ won't mind," she added as an
afterthought, shrugging her shoulders; "and if he does, he may!"
"Meaning him you call your father, Miss?" said Sloppy.
"No, no," replied Miss Wren. "Him, _him_, HIM!"
"_Him_, HIM, HIM?" repeated Sloppy, staring about, as if for him.
"Him who is coming to court and marry me," returned Miss Wren. "Dear me,
how slow you are!"
"Oh! HIM!" said Sloppy, "I never thought of him. When is he coming,
Miss?"
"What a question!" cried Miss Wren. "How should I know?"
"Where is he coming from, Miss?"
"Why, good gracious, how can I tell! He is coming from somewhere or
other, I suppose, and he is coming some day or other, I suppose. I don't
know any more about him, at present."
This tickled Mr. Sloppy as an extraordinarily good joke, and he threw
back his head and laughed with measureless enjoyment. At the sight of
him laughing in that absurd way, the dolls' dressmaker laughed very
heartily indeed. So they both laughed till they were tired.
"There, there, there!" said Miss Wren. "For goodness sake, stop, Giant,
or I shall be swallowed up alive, before I know it. And to this minute
you haven't said what you've come for?"
"I have come for little Miss Harmonses' doll," said Sloppy.
"I thought as much," remarked Miss Wren, "and here is little Miss
Harmonses' doll waiting for you. She's folded up in silver paper, you
see, as if she was wrapped from head to foot in new banknotes. Take care
of her--and there's my hand--and thank you again."
"I'll take more care of her than if she was a gold image," said Sloppy,
"and there's _both_ my hands, Miss, and I'll soon come back again!"
Here we leave the little dolls' dressmaker, under the protecting care of
her "godmother," the first real guardian she has ever known, and with a
new friendship to supply her life with that youthful intercourse which
has never been hers. And so in leaving her our hearts are light, for
Miss Jenny Wren is brighter now, and happier now, and younger now, than
ever before.
SISSY JUPE
[Illustration: SISSY JUPE AND HER FATHER]
SISSY JUPE
"Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but
Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out
everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon
Facts: nothing else will be of any service to them. This is the
principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle
on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!"
The scene was a bare, plain, monotonous vault of a schoolroom, and the
speaker's square forefinger emphasized his observation. The emphasis was
helped by his square wall of a forehead, by his thin and hardset mouth,
by his inflexible and dictatorial voice, and by the hair which bristled
on the skirts of his bald head, as if the head had scarcely warehouse
room for the hard facts stowed inside. The speaker's obstinate carriage,
square coat, square legs, square shoulders,--nay, his very neckcloth,
trained to take him by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a
stubborn fact, as it was,--all helped the emphasis.
"In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir! Nothing but Facts!"
The speaker, Mr. Thomas Gradgrind, and the schoolmaster, Mr.
M'Choakumchild, and the third grown person present, all backed a little,
and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels then and
there arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of Facts poured
into them until they were full to the brim.
"Girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely pointing with his
square forefinger, "I don't know that girl. Who is that girl?"
"Sissy Jupe, sir," explained number twenty, blushing, standing up, and
curtseying.
"Sissy is not a name," said Mr. Gradgrind. "Call yourself Cecilia."
"It's father as calls me Sissy, sir," returned the young girl with
another curtsey.
"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. 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."
"You mustn't tell us about the ring here. Very well, then. Describe your
father as a horse-breaker. He doctors sick horses, I dare say?"
"Oh, yes, sir."
"Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier and
horse-breaker. 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!"
"Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders,
four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. 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."
She curtsied again, blushed, and sat down, and the third gentleman
present stepped forth, briskly smiling and folding his arms. "That's a
horse," he said. "Now, let me ask you, boys and girls, 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!"
"Of course, No. Why wouldn't you?"
A pause. One boy ventured the answer, because he wouldn't paper a room
at all, but would paint it.
"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 pause,
"why you wouldn't paper a room with a representation of horses. Do you
ever see horses walking up and down the sides of rooms in reality--in
fact? Of course, No. 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. This is a new principle, a great discovery," said the gentleman.
"Now I'll try you again. 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, "why would you carpet your
room with representations of flowers?"
"If you please, sir, I'm 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, please sir.
They would be the pictures of what was very pretty and pleasant, sir,
and I would fancy--"
"Ay, ay, ay! but you mustn't fancy," cried the gentleman, quite elated
by coming so happily to his point. "You are never to fancy."
"You are not, Cecilia Jupe," Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated, "to do
anything of that kind. 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 curtseyed and sat down. She was very young, and she looked as
if she were frightened by the matter-of-fact prospect the world
afforded; while the teacher proceeded to give a lesson based upon hard
Fact for the benefit of his visitors.
Mr. Gradgrind walked homeward from the school, in a state of
considerable satisfaction. It was his school, and he intended it to be a
model. He intended every child in it to be a model, just as the five
young Gradgrinds were all models.
No little Gradgrind had ever seen a face in the moon; no little
Gradgrind had ever learnt the silly jingle, "Twinkle, twinkle, little
star, How I wonder what you are"; each little Gradgrind having at five
years old dissected the Great Bear, and driven Charles's Wain like a
locomotive engine-driver. No little Gradgrind had ever associated a cow
in a field with that famous cow with a crumpled horn who tossed the dog,
who worried the cat, who killed the rat, who ate the malt, or with that
more famous cow who swallowed Tom Thumb. It had never heard of those
celebrities, and had only been introduced to a cow as a graminivorous,
ruminating quadruped with several stomachs.
To his matter-of-fact home, which was called Stone Lodge, Mr. Gradgrind
directed his steps, walking on in a hopeful and satisfied frame of mind.
He was an affectionate father, after his manner; but allowed no foolish
sentiment to interfere with the practical basis of his childrens'
education and bringing-up.
He had reached the outskirts of the town, when his ears were invaded by
the sound of the band attached to the horse-riding establishment, which
had there set up its rest in a wooden pavilion. A flag floating from the
summit of the temple, proclaimed to mankind that it was Sleary's
Horse-Riding which claimed their suffrages. Among the many pleasing
wonders which must be seen to be believed, Signor Jupe was that
afternoon to "elucidate the diverting accomplishments of his highly
trained performing dog, Merrylegs," He was also to exhibit "his
astounding feat of throwing seventy-five hundred weight in rapid
succession back-handed over his head, thus forming a fountain of solid
iron in midair, a feat never before attempted in this or any other
country, and which having elicited such rapturous plaudits from
enthusiastic throngs it cannot be withdrawn." The same Signor Jupe was
to "enliven the varied performances at frequent intervals with his
chaste Shakesperean quips and retorts." Lastly, he was to wind them up
by appearing in his favorite character of Mr. William Button, of Tooley
Street, in "the highly novel and laughable Hippo Comedietta of The
Tailor's Journey to Brentford."
Thomas Gradgrind took no heed of these trivialities, but passed on, as a
practical man ought to pass on. But, at the back of the booth he saw a
number of children congregated in a number of stealthy attitudes,
striving to peep in at the hidden glories of the place. What did he then
behold but his own Louisa peeping with all her might through a hole in a
deal board, and his own Thomas abasing himself on the ground to catch
but a hoof of the graceful Tyrolean Flower-act!
Dumb with amazement, Mr. Gradgrind crossed to the spot where his family
was thus disgraced, laid his hand upon each erring child, and said:
"Louisa!! Thomas!!"
Both rose, red and disconcerted.
"In the name of wonder, idleness, and folly!" said Mr. Gradgrind,
leading each away by a hand; "what do you do here?"
"Wanted to see what it was like," returned Louisa shortly.
"You!" exclaimed Mr. Gradgrind. "Thomas and you, to whom the circle of
the sciences is open; who may be said to be replete with Fact; who have
been trained to mathematical exactness; Thomas and you, here! In this
degraded position! I am amazed."
"I was tired, father," said Louisa.
"Tired? Of what?" asked the astonished father.
"I don't know of what--of everything, I think."
"Say not another word," returned Mr. Gradgrind. "You are childish. I
will hear no more." With which remark he led the culprits to their home
in silence, into the presence of their fretful invalid mother, who was
much annoyed at the disturbance they had created. While she was
peevishly expressing her mind on the subject, Mr. Gradgrind was gravely
pondering upon the matter.
"Whether," he said, "whether any instructor or servant can have
suggested anything? Whether, in spite of all precautions, any idle
story-book can have got into the house for Louisa or Thomas to read?
Because in minds that have been practically formed by rule and line,
from the cradle upwards, this is incomprehensible."
"Stop a bit!" cried his friend Bounderby. "You have one of those
Stroller's children in the school, Cecilia Jupe by name! I tell you
what, Gradgrind, turn this girl to the right-about, and there is an
end of it."
"I am much of your opinion."
"Do it at once," said Bounderby, "has always been my motto. Do you the
same. Do this at once!"
"I have the father's address," said his friend. "Perhaps you would not
mind walking to town with me?"
"Not the least in the world," said Mr. Bounderby, "as long as you do it
at once!"