[Illustration: JO, THE CROSSING SWEEPER.]
Jo lives in a ruinous place, known to the likes of him by the name of
Tom-all-Alone's. It is a black dilapidated street, avoided by all decent
people; where the crazy houses were seized upon when their decay was far
advanced, by some bold vagrants, who, after establishing their possession,
took to letting them out in lodgings.
Jo sweeps his crossing all day long, and if he is asked a question he
replies that he "don't know nothink." He knows that it's hard to keep the
mud off the crossing in dirty weather, and harder still to live by doing
it. Nobody taught him that much--he found it out.
Indeed, everything poor Jo knows he has had to find out for himself, for
no one has even taken the trouble to tell him his real name.
It must be a strange state to be like Jo, not to know the feeling of a
whole suit of clothes--to wear even in summer the same queer remnant of a
fur cap; to be always dirty and ragged; to shuffle through the streets,
unfamiliar with the shapes, and in utter darkness as to the meaning, of
those mysterious symbols so abundant over the doors and at corners of the
streets, and on the doors and in the windows. To see people read, and to
see people write, and to see the postman deliver letters, and not to have
the least idea of all that language,--to be to all of it stone blind and
dumb.
It must be very puzzling to be hustled and jostled, and moved on, and to
really feel that I have no business here or there or anywhere; and yet to
be perplexed by the consideration that I _am_ here somehow, too, and
everybody overlooked me until I became the creature that I am.
One cold winter night when Jo was shivering near his crossing, a stranger
passed him; turned, looked at him intently, then came back and began to
ask him questions from which he found out that Jo had not a friend in the
world.
"Neither have I, not one," added the man, and gave him the price of a
supper and lodging. And from that day Jo was no longer friendless, for the
stranger often spoke to him, and asked him whether he slept sound at
night, and how he bore cold and hunger; and whether he ever wished to die;
and other strange questions. Then when the man had no money he would say,
"I am as poor as you to-day, Jo," but when he had any he always shared it
with Jo.
But there came a time not long after this, when the stranger was found
dead in his bed, in the house of Crook, the rag-and-bottle merchant, where
he had lodgings; and nothing could be found out about his life or the
reason for his sudden death. So a jury had to be brought together to
ferret out the mystery, if possible, and to discover whether the man's
death was accidental or whether he died by his own hand. No one knew him,
and he had never been seen talking to a human soul except the boy that
swept the crossing, down the lane over the way, round the
corner,--otherwise Jo.
So Jo was called in as a witness at the inquest. Says the coroner, "Is
that boy here?"