THE CHILDREN OF DICKENS
[Illustration:
_Copyright by Charles Scribner’s Sons_
DAVID COPPERFIELD AND PEGGOTTY BY THE PARLOUR FIRE]
THE CHILDREN
OF DICKENS
SAMUEL McCHORD CROTHERS
ILLUSTRATED BY
JESSIE WILLCOX SMITH
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
MCMXXVI
COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. LONDON ONCE UPON A TIME 1
II. DICKENS HIMSELF 9
III. PIP 17
PIP AT MR. PUMBLECHOOK’S 26
IV. DAVID COPPERFIELD 27
THE LITTLE BOY AND THE HUNGRY WAITER 36
V. WILKINS MICAWBER JUNIOR AND HIS PARENTS 43
VI. ON THE ROAD TO DOVER 59
VII. JOE THE FAT BOY 69
VIII. OLIVER TWIST 77
IX. THE JELLYBY CHILDREN 89
X. SISSY JUPE 101
XI. THE CHILD OF THE MARSHALSEA 109
XII. THE CRATCHITS 115
XIII. THE DOLL’S DRESSMAKER 123
XIV. LITTLE NELL 131
THE JOLLY SANDBOYS 135
MRS. JARLEY AND HER WAX-WORKS 139
XV. THE KENWIGSES 149
XVI. THE CHILD’S STORY 155
XVII. THE BOY AT TODGERS’S 163
XVIII. THE DOMBEY CHILDREN 171
HOW FLORENCE DOMBEY WAS LOST IN LONDON 176
PAUL DOMBEY AT BRIGHTON 187
XIX. JEMMY JACKMAN LIRRIPER’S STORY 193
XX. ON THE WAY TO GRETNA GREEN 203
XXI. OUR SCHOOL 209
XXII. ALICIA IN WONDERLAND 223
XXIII. THE INFANT PHENOMENON 241
XXIV. A CHRISTMAS TREE 249
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
David Copperfield and Peggotty by the Parlour Fire _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Pip and Joe Gargery 20
Little Em’ly 30
Oliver’s First Meeting with the Artful Dodger 80
Tiny Tim and Bob Cratchit on Christmas Day 118
Jenny Wren, the Little Doll’s Dressmaker 126
Little Nell and Her Grandfather at Mrs. Jarley’s 134
Mrs. Kenwigs and the Four Little Kenwigses 152
Paul Dombey and Florence on the Beach at Brighton 174
The Runaway Couple 206
The cover lining and title-page decoration designed by Euphame
Mallison.
LONDON ONCE UPON A TIME
I
LONDON ONCE UPON A TIME
ONCE there was a city called Bagdad. I know just how it looked, and so
do you. It was very mysterious. It was on a mysterious river called
the Tigris. There were a great many little canals running in every
direction through the city. The drinking water was brought to the
houses in goatskins carried on the backs of men. These water-carriers
often turned out to be very interesting persons. On the banks of the
river were palm-trees, and under every palm-tree was a dervish or two.
The streets of the city were narrow and winding, and dark people in
flowing robes flitted about on secret errands that aroused suspicion.
One could never tell what they were up to. There was Haroun Al Raschid
prowling around with his grand vizier and his executioner. He was full
of curiosity, and had a keen sense of justice. In Bagdad everything
turned out in a most remarkable way. If you were looking for one
mystery, you would find half a dozen.
I have recently read an article by a gentleman who has lived a number
of years in Bagdad, and it appears that he has not seen any of the
wonderful things that I am interested in. He says that the climate is
very uncomfortable and that the thermometer often stands at 112 degrees
at breakfast-time. That is very hot indeed. He says that many of the
people now go about in Ford cars instead of riding on camels. When
they want excitement they go to the movies. In short, according to his
account, Bagdad must be getting to be very much like other places.
All this is disappointing, but as I am never likely to go to the modern
Bagdad, anyway, it doesn’t matter so much to me. My Bagdad is in the
_Arabian Nights_, and I can still go to it whenever I feel so
inclined. When I open the book I find everything just as it was “once
upon a time.”
It is the same with London. When I first crossed the Atlantic and
visited the great city, I was a bit troubled because many parts of it
looked so much like other places. I wanted it to be like the London
I had read about. Of course this wasn’t fair to the people who live
there, who can’t be expected to keep it just for travellers to look at.
When I think of London as it was once upon a time, that is the time
when Charles Dickens lived in it. This London was as wonderful as
Bagdad, though in different ways. If you want to know what it was like,
you must go to the Dickens books. Dickens was the only one who ever saw
London in that way. When you ask whether it was the real London, you
have to take his word for it. It was real to him and he had the power
to make it real to us. That is what we call genius.
The London the Dickens people lived in was a big city, so big that one
easily got lost in it. The railroads were just coming in, but they
didn’t get into the stories. There were no telephones or electric
lights or automobiles or radios. People came in from the green country
on gay stage-coaches with prodigious tooting of horns and cracking of
whips. They stopped at inns, where a great deal of eating and drinking
was going on. But when they left the inns to explore the town, they
plunged into a maze of the queerest streets imaginable. The streets
ran in every direction except in the direction one wanted to go. Many
of them were mere alleys, but they were always crowded. One soon got
down to the river, where there were old warehouses that leaned over the
water but never actually fell in. There were old and shabby houses,
and the people were made to match them. That is what made them so
interesting and exciting. Yet, though there were so many people on the
streets that you didn’t know, it was curious to be all the time running
across people you did know, or who knew you. If you were trying to
hide, you were sure to be found out. On the other hand, you could get
lost with no difficulty at all.
One of the most interesting parts of the city to prowl around in was
down by the water-front. The River Thames flowed through London just
as mysteriously as the River Tigris flowed by Bagdad; and it was the
scene of many adventures. To be sure, there were no palm-trees and no
dervishes. But there were great ships coming from countries as far away
as Arabia and the Spice Islands. On the banks of the river were great
warehouses, with musty, mouldy cellars and strange garrets, and with
all kinds of foreign smells. Back from the river were streets where
people lived who could afford to live nowhere else. Some of them were
dwarfed, with gnarled faces, as if they had not had sunlight enough
when they were growing up. Some of these people were as bad as they
looked, but many of them were much better. When you had time to become
acquainted with them, you couldn’t help but like them. Each person had
some little trick of manner which made it easy to recognize him. They
had a way of doing the same thing over again, just as people have in
real life. This made them amusing even when we could not approve of
them.
Most of the people we meet live in lodgings--which is a very
interesting way to live in England. You hire a room and the landlady
will go out and buy the food for you and serve it in your room. This
gives opportunity for a good deal of conversation. It’s all very snug
and cosy if you have money to pay for what you order. If you haven’t,
this leads to more conversation. Many of the Dickens people didn’t have
a very regular income and were not sure where the next meal was coming
from. Having a good dinner was quite an event to them, and they made
the most of it. It is wonderful the enjoyment they got out of eating
and drinking. And how they liked to talk on such happy occasions! They
were living in a hand-to-mouth way, but they didn’t seem to mind it as
much as people in the world outside of the Dickens books do. They took
it all as an adventure.
Down in the city were the offices of the bankers and rich merchants,
where clerks sat on high stools and did their accounts under the eyes
of elderly gentlemen whom they didn’t like. In the suburbs there were
trim little houses where people lived who were beginning to be more
prosperous.
One doesn’t see much of the great places. Though there were palaces in
London, the people whom Dickens was interested in didn’t live in them,
though they admired them very much and were proud of them in a way.
For they were every-day Englishmen who lived in the days of good Queen
Victoria.
The great thing about London as Dickens saw it, and as we see it
through his eyes, was that it was queer. The houses were queer, and the
streets were queer, and the people were queer. Each one went about his
business without caring a rap for what other people thought about him.
If they acted in a particular way, it was because they were made that
way. And yet they were friendly--most of them. And those that weren’t
were such villains and hypocrites that we dislike them heartily. We
always know just what to think about them, and so we don’t waste any
sympathy on them. When the characters appear, we know at once which
ones are to be looked upon with suspicion and which are to be trusted.
You get to know the people in Dickens’s London because he is so anxious
to make you see them as plainly as he does. If you don’t see them at
first, he keeps on telling about them till you can’t help yourself.
Now if I were to tell you that I saw a child with a face like a rosy
apple, you would probably forget all about it in a minute or so. But
Dickens goes at the business of description more thoroughly. He says:
“Miss Tox escorted a plump rosy-cheeked, apple-faced young woman,
with an infant in her arms, and a younger woman not so plump but
apple-faced also, who led a plump and apple-faced child in each hand,
another plump and apple-faced boy who walked by himself, and finally
a plump and apple-faced man who carried another plump and apple-faced
boy, whom he stood down on the floor and admonished in a husky whisper
to ketch hold of his brother Johnny.”
When I see the happy apple-faced family together, it makes an
impression on me. It’s the same with the descriptions of the scenery or
the weather. I might say that the London fog is very disagreeable, and
you would answer that you had always heard so. But Dickens takes you
out into the fog and you see it and feel it and taste it:
“Fog everywhere. Fog up the river where it flows among the green
meadows. Fog down the river where it rolls defiled among the tiers of
shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great and dirty city. Fog
in the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into
the cabooses of collier brigs, fog lying out on the yards and hovering
in the rigging of great ships; fog in the eyes and throats of ancient
Greenwich pensioners wheezing by the firesides in their wards; fog in
the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper down in
the close cabin.”
By this time you get the London fog into your own throat and feel what
it was like in November, when “the raw afternoon is rawest and the
dense fog is densest and the muddiest streets are muddiest.” When you
feel all this, Dickens is ready to go on with his story.
DICKENS HIMSELF
II
DICKENS HIMSELF
I ONCE sat with several thousand people on one summer evening to watch
an historical pageant at Warwick in England. Back of us were the
walls of the great Norman castle, around us were the old trees that
had been there for centuries, and through the trees we could see the
little River Avon. Then the townspeople acted out for us the romantic
scenes that had taken place on that very spot. First we saw the Druids
building their altars; then the Romans came; and after them the Saxons.
After a while we saw Norman knights riding under the greenwood trees.
Warwick the king-maker rode up to his castle. Then there was a stir on
the river, and we saw Queen Elizabeth in her barge. When she had been
received in state, the officers of the neighboring towns were presented
to her. Among them was Mr. Shakespeare from Stratford, who brought with
him his young son, William. Then came Cromwell’s soldiers and the men
who have made history since Queen Elizabeth’s day.
It was all very picturesque, and we felt that we were really watching
the events that had taken place on that spot through the centuries of
English history. But when the Druids and the Saxons and the Normans and
the great personages of every degree had passed out of our sight, there
was only one person left. It was the little boy from Stratford. He
stood there all alone, thinking it all over. Then he walked away.
Now the thing that made the most impression upon us was this boy who
had the gift of seeing all we saw and more in his imagination. For,
after all, the great thing about the River Avon is that this boy once
played upon its banks. And the pleasant Warwickshire country has for
its chief charm the fact that William Shakespeare knew it and loved it.
Now and then a person is born who has the gift not only of seeing
things more clearly than we do, but of making us see them more vividly
than we could without his help. Such a person we call a genius. He
gives us the use of his mind. When such a person writes a book, it is
as if he had created an interesting country and filled it with all
sorts of things for our amusement. He invites us to visit him and make
ourselves at home. And the best of it is that we are not invited for a
particular day. The invitation is open to us for a lifetime. Whenever
we feel inclined, we may visit Shakespeare’s country and meet all the
Shakespearian people and listen to their talk. And the more often we go
on such visits, the more enjoyment we find.
Now it is the same with Dickens. To be sure, his hospitality is not
on so grand a scale as Shakespeare’s. He does not show us kings, or
knights in armor, or vast parks and lordly castles. But he opens to
us a world of imagination that is his own. It is filled with common
people, but they are uncommonly amusing. We see not only what they
are doing, but also what they think they are doing, which is often
absurdly different. We see their “tricks and their manners” as they
cannot possibly see them. That is where we have the advantage of
them. Some of them strut about as if they owned the earth, while some
that wear poor clothes and endure hard knocks turn out to be the real
heroes. Dickens is not like some writers who pride themselves on not
telling what they think of their characters. He has his likes and his
dislikes, and he doesn’t care who knows it. He hates a bully, whether
he is a man or boy, and he loves the people who knock the bully down.
That is because he suffered so much from bullies when he was a boy.
When he was twelve years old, his father lost his money and was thrown
into a debtors’ prison. It was a queer way they had then of treating a
person who couldn’t pay his debts. They shut him up where he couldn’t
earn anything. Charles had to visit pawn-shops to try to borrow money
for the family. Then he was put to work in a big, gloomy establishment
where they made blacking for shoes. His work was to sit all day on a
bench pasting labels on the boxes. Then he would have to find ways of
keeping alive on a few pennies he got each day.
But though he had a very hard time for a year or two, he spent his time
greatly to his own and our advantage. Before he was thirteen, he had
accumulated a great deal of experience. He had kept his eyes open and
had seen a side of life that most people never see at all.
When I think of Dickens and of his way of finding out obscure people,
and making them interesting, I remember the advice I once read in
a newspaper as to how to find a collar-button. When a collar-button
rolls off the dressing-table, it seems to have an uncanny way of
rolling out of sight. The gentleman who is in need of it feels himself
greatly aggrieved over the collar-button’s easy way of getting lost.
Now the newspaper man said that the reason the man doesn’t see the
collar-button is that he stands too high above it. If he will forget
all about his dignity and lie down on the floor, he can’t help but see
what he is looking for. In order to see it he must get down to the
level where the collar-button is. There he will see it shining like a
little mountain of gold.
I think that explains why Dickens sees so much more in his characters
than other persons would who did not have his advantages. He does not
look down on his characters. He meets them on their own level, because
he has been there. And so he makes us see them.
He learned very early that, no matter where a person is, he is always
the centre of his little world. He always has something that he is
afraid of and always has something that he hopes for. And he learned to
sympathize not only with the big hopes and fears but with the little
hopes and fears. They are the things which wise people often overlook,
but they are really very important, for there are so many of them.
Dickens did not write children’s stories, that is, stories about
children who stayed as children. Of course there are children in his
novels just as there are in the London streets--plenty of them. But
they are all mixed up with the older people. And then they are all the
time growing up just as they do in real life. You get acquainted with
a small boy in one chapter; and the next time you meet him he is at
boarding-school, and before the end of the book he is out walking with
children of his own.
This is the reason why it would not be worth while to try to tell the
stories of the children in the novels of Dickens. The moment you got to
the most exciting part of the story you would find that they weren’t
children at all. They are quite grown up. The fact is that Dickens was
not very much of a story-teller. We do not read him for the plot, which
is often hard to follow. He gives us scenes, one after another, each
one really complete in itself.
When we sit down by the fire on a winter evening, some one says: “What
shall we read? We haven’t time to read a book through--only a chapter.”
Now the chances are that we choose a chapter from Dickens. And it’s
very likely that we will choose some scene which we all are most
familiar with.
We come into an inn. The coach has just arrived, and there is a
cheerful bustle. We hear the blowing of the horns and the cracking of
the whips, and if Mr. Weller happens to be driver, or if Mr. Pickwick
and his friends happen to be on board, we are sure that we will be left
in a state of great good humor.
Or we drop into a shabby little house, and climb the stairs till
we come to a room where some of our friends are having a little
dinner. They are making speeches to one another, and acting in a most
extraordinary manner. It’s their way of having a good time, and we are
glad that they can enjoy themselves over so little.
We hear people quarrelling and crying and laughing, and we are curious
to know what it is all about. The best of it is that Dickens always
tells us. If a man is a villain, we see it at once; and if he is a
good-hearted person, we give him credit for it. We do not have to read
the book through to get the flavor of it. We go at once to the scenes
that please us best.
The scenes that are selected for this book are those in which children
appear, and we want to see them as Dickens did.
PIP
III
PIP
AS I have said, almost all the Dickens people lived in London or went
up to it sometimes. But all were not born there, and many of them, as
children, lived in little villages. When they got to be seventeen or
eighteen, they went to the great city to seek their fortunes.
There was Pip. I don’t care so much for him after he grew up. When he
got to London he became very much like other folks. I like him best
when he was a small boy in the country.
His name was Philip Pirrip. This was hard to pronounce, and puckered up
the lips like “Peter Piper picked a peck of peppers.” The best he could
make of it was Pip, and so everybody called him that for short.
His father and mother had died, and he was brought up by his older
sister, who had married Joe Gargery, the blacksmith. She was twenty
years older than Pip and had forgotten how she felt when she was his
age. This made trouble for them both.
Pip had a hard time with Mrs. Gargery, and so had Joe, and so they
became great chums. Joe was a big man, and his arms were strong, as all
blacksmiths’ are, but he had never learned to read and write, though he
knew some of the letters of the alphabet and was very proud over that.
The house where the Gargerys lived was in the marsh country near a
river. One could look out on a dark flat country with little ditches
running through it in every direction. It was a place where one could
easily get lost, and where robbers could hide. There was a prison
ship down near the mouth of the river, and now and then some of the
prisoners would escape and get into the marsh. Pip met two of them once
and had an exciting adventure. Down by the river there was a battery,
and Pip used to go down with Joe Gargery sometimes and sit on the old
cannon, while Joe would tell what fine things they would do if Mrs. Joe
would let them. But she never did let them do what they wanted to do if
she could prevent it.
[Illustration:
_Copyright by Charles Scribner’s Sons_
PIP AND JOE GARGERY]
Pip went to an evening school taught by an old lady who also kept a
little store in the same room. He didn’t learn very much, for the old
lady used to go to sleep most of the time. But as she only charged four
cents a week, Mrs. Joe thought it was cheap enough. It was in this
school that Pip learned the alphabet, and he was very proud when he
found that he could put the letters together to make words. He wanted
to know whether Joe had learned to read, and Joe did not want him to
find out. One night they were sitting in the chimney corner, and with
great effort Pip printed a letter which he handed to Joe. He tells how
the letter was received.
WHY JOE DID NOT KNOW HOW TO READ
“mI deEr JO i opE U r krWitE wEll i opE i shAl soN B haBelL 4 2 teeDge
U JO aN theN wE shOrl b sO glOdd aN wEn i M preNgtD 2 u JO woT larX an
blEvE ME inF xn PiP.”
There was no indispensable necessity for my communicating with Joe
by letter, inasmuch as he sat beside me and we were alone. But, I
delivered this written communication (slate and all) with my own hand,
and Joe received it, as a miracle of erudition.
“I say, Pip, old chap!” cried Joe, opening his blue eyes wide, “what a
scholar you are! Ain’t you?”
“I should like to be,” said I, glancing at the slate as he held it:
with a misgiving that the writing was rather hilly.
“Why, here’s a J,” said Joe, “and an O equal to anythink! Here’s a J
and an O, Pip, and a J-O, Joe.”
I had never heard Joe read aloud to any greater extent than this
monosyllable, and I had observed at church last Sunday, when I
accidentally held our Prayer-Book upside down, that it seemed to suit
his convenience quite as well as if it had been all right. Wishing to
embrace the present occasion of finding out whether in teaching Joe, I
should have to begin quite at the beginning, I said, “Ah! But read the
rest, Joe.”
“The rest, eh, Pip?” said Joe, looking at it with a slowly searching
eye. “One, two, three. Why, here’s three J’s, and three O’s, and three
J-O, Joes, in it, Pip!”
I leaned over Joe, and, with the aid of my forefinger, read him the
whole letter.
“Astonishing!” said Joe, when I had finished. “You ARE a scholar.”
“How do you spell Gargery, Joe?” I asked him, with a modest patronage.
“I don’t spell it at all,” said Joe.
“But supposing you did?”
“It _can’t_ be supposed,” said Joe. “Tho’ I’m uncommon fond of
reading, too.”
“Are you, Joe?”
“On-common. Give me,” said Joe, “a good book, or a good newspaper,
and sit me down afore a good fire, and I ask no better. Lord!” he
continued, after rubbing his knees a little. “When you _do_ come
to a J and a O, and says you, ‘Here, at last, is a J-O, Joe,’ how
interesting reading is!”
I derived from this last, that Joe’s education, like Steam, was yet in
its infancy. Pursuing the subject, I inquired:
“Didn’t you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?”
“No, Pip.”
“Why didn’t you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?”
“Well, Pip,” said Joe, taking up the poker, and settling himself to
his usual occupation when he was thoughtful, of slowly raking the fire
between the lower bars: “I’ll tell you. My father, Pip, he were given
to drink, and when he were overtook with drink, he hammered away at
my mother most onmerciful. It were a’most the only hammering he did,
indeed, ’xcepting at myself. And he hammered at me with a wigor only
to be equalled by the wigor with which he didn’t hammer at his anwil.
You’re a-listening and understanding, Pip?”
“Yes, Joe.”
“’Consequence, my mother and me we ran away from my father several
times; and then my mother she’d go out to work, and she’d say, ‘Joe,’
she’d say, ‘now, please God, you shall have some schooling, child,’
and she’d put me to school. But my father were that good in his heart
that he couldn’t abear to be without us. So, he’d come with a most
tremenjous crowd and make such a row at the doors of the houses where
we was, that they used to be obligated to have no more to do with us
and to give us up to him. And then he took us home and hammered us.
Which, you see, Pip,” said Joe, pausing in his meditative raking of
the fire, and looking at me, “were a drawback on my learning.”
“Certainly, poor Joe!”
“Though mind you, Pip,” said Joe, with a judicial touch or two of the
poker on the top bar, “rendering unto all their doo, and maintaining
equal justice betwixt man and man, my father were that good in his
heart, don’t you see?”
I didn’t see; but I didn’t say so.
“Well!” Joe pursued, “somebody must keep the pot a-biling, Pip, or the
pot won’t bile, don’t you know?”
I saw that, and said so.
“’Consequence, my father didn’t make objections to my going to work; so
I went to work at my present calling, which were his too, if he would
have followed it, and I worked tolerable hard, I assure _you_,
Pip. In time I were able to keep him, and I kep him till he went off in
a purple leptic fit. And it were my intentions to have had put upon his
tombstone that Whatsume’er the failings on his part, Remember reader
he were that good in his hart.”
Joe recited this couplet with such manifest pride and careful
perspicuity, that I asked him if he had made it himself.
“I made it,” said Joe, “my own self. I made it in a moment. It was like
striking out a horseshoe complete, in a single blow. I never was so
much surprised in all my life--couldn’t credit my own ed--to tell you
the truth, hardly believed it were _my_ own ed. As I was saying,
Pip, it were my intentions to have had it cut over him; but poetry
costs money, cut it how you will, small or large, and it were not done.
Not to mention bearers, all the money that could be spared were wanted
for my mother. She were in poor elth, and quite broke. She waren’t long
of following, poor soul, and her share of peace come round at last.”
Joe’s blue eyes turned a little watery; he rubbed, first one of them,
and then the other, in a most uncongenial and uncomfortable manner,
with the round knob on the top of the poker.
“It were but lonesome then,” said Joe, “living here alone, and I got
acquainted with your sister. Now, Pip”; Joe looked firmly at me, as
if he knew I was not going to agree with him; “your sister is a fine
figure of a woman.”
I could not help looking at the fire, in an obvious state of doubt.
“Whatever family opinions, or whatever the world’s opinions, on that
subject may be, Pip, your sister is,” Joe tapped the top bar with the
poker after every word following, “a--fine--figure--of--a--woman!”
I could think of nothing better to say than “I am glad you think so,
Joe.”
“So am I,” returned Joe, catching me up. “_I_ am glad I think so,
Pip. A little redness, or a little matter of Bone, here or there, what
does it signify to Me?”
I sagaciously observed, if it didn’t signify to him, to whom did it
signify?
“Certainly!” assented Joe. “That’s it. You’re right, old chap! When I
got acquainted with your sister, it were the talk how she was bringing
you up by hand. Very kind of her too, all the folks said, and I said,
along with all the folks. As to you,” Joe pursued, with a countenance
expressive of saying something very nasty indeed: “if you could have
been aware how small and flabby and mean you was, dear me, you’d have
formed the most contemptible opinions of yourself!”
Not exactly relishing this, I said, “Never mind me, Joe.”
“But I did mind you, Pip. And when I married your sister, I said,
‘Bring the poor little child. There’s room for him at the forge.’ And
now when you take me in hand for learning, Mrs. Joe mustn’t see too
much of what we are up to. It must be done, as I may say, on the sly.
Well you see, Pip, here we are. That’s about where it lights--here we
are. And we are ever the best friends; ain’t us?”
PIP AT MR. PUMBLECHOOK’S
THE first time Pip was away from home was when he went to Mr.
Pumblechook’s. Mr. Pumblechook lived in a near-by town, where he kept
a seed-store in the High Street. He was a big, solemn-looking man and
he had an idea that small boys ought to be instructed at all hours. He
thought it was good for them. So he kept at mental arithmetic all the
time, firing one question after another at poor Pip. When he got up in
the morning, Pip said politely, “Good morning, Mr. Pumblechook.”
Mr. Pumblechook answered, “Boy, what is seven times nine?” At the
breakfast-table he would say, “Seven? and four? and eight? and six?
and two? and ten?” All the time Mr. Pumblechook was eating bacon and
hot rolls, while Pip was scared for fear he couldn’t answer the next
question. The hardest thing was to remember about shillings and pence.
Mr. Pumblechook would begin with twelve pence make one shilling, and
keep on to forty pence make three and four pence. No wonder that Pip
was glad to get back to the blacksmith-shop!
DAVID COPPERFIELD
IV
DAVID COPPERFIELD
DICKENS makes David Copperfield tell the story of his life. He begins
at the beginning and tells everything that happened to him as a boy,
the places where he lived, and the people whom he met. There are few
persons whom we can know as thoroughly as David Copperfield. It is all
the more lifelike because many of the scenes are taken from the life of
Dickens himself.
David’s father had died and his mother had married again. His
stepfather, Mr. Murdstone, a gentleman with very black hair and
whiskers, was all that a stepfather ought not to be, so that David was
happiest when he was away from home.
Happily he had a nurse, who was big and good-natured and really
loved David. Her name was Clara Peggotty, but they always called her
Peggotty. Her home was in a town by the sea. Mr. Peggotty and his
nephew Ham and a despondent old lady named Mrs. Gummidge lived in a
houseboat on the shore. David was about seven years old when he went
with Clara on a carrier’s cart to visit the Peggottys.
Ham met them as they got off the cart. He was a great big fellow, six
feet tall, and he carried David’s box under his arm, while Peggotty
trudged along through the sand at his side. There was a fishy smell
about everything. There were boats and fishermen’s nets scattered
about, and an air of pleasant disorder. Everybody seemed to have all
the time there was in the world, and nobody was hurried. Evidently
Yarmouth was a very pleasant place for a boy on his vacation. There was
plenty of room to play in, and no Mr. Murdstone to make him afraid.
[Illustration:
_Copyright by Charles Scribner’s Sons_
LITTLE EM’LY]
“Yon’s our house, Master Davy,” said Ham.
David looked out and saw a barge high and dry on the beach, with a
snug little house built upon it. There was a stovepipe out of which
the smoke was coming. When they came up, they found everything was as
pleasant as could be. There was a door on one side and tiny little
windows. On the mantelpiece was a Dutch clock, and the table had all
the tea-things on it.
Peggotty opened a door to show David his bedroom. It was in the stern
of the boat where the rudder used to be. There was a little window and
a little looking-glass framed with oyster-shells and a tiny bed, and
there was a blue mug filled with fresh seaweed.
Pretty soon Mr. Peggotty, Peggotty’s older brother and the master of
the house, came in. “Glad to see you, sir,” said Mr. Peggotty. “How’s
your ma? Did you leave her pretty jolly?”
David gave him to understand that she was as jolly as could be wished.
“Well,” said Mr. Peggotty, “if you can make out here for a fortnut,
’long with her,” pointing to his sister, “and Ham, and little Em’ly, we
shall be proud of your company.”
When I spoke of the people who lived on the old boat, I had
forgotten to mention little Em’ly, who turned out to be the most
important member of the family in David’s eyes. She was a very pretty
little girl, who wore a necklace of blue beads, and thought that she
would like to be a lady and marry a prince, or even an earl.
“If I was ever a lady,” said Em’ly, “I’d give Uncle Dan,” that was Mr.
Peggotty, “a sky-blue coat with diamond buttons, nankeen trousers, a
red velvet waistcoat, a cocked hat, a large gold watch, a silver pipe,
and a box of money.”
David thought that was very fine, though it was easier for him to think
of Em’ly as dressed like a princess in the fairy books than it was to
think of big Mr. Peggotty walking about in a red velvet waistcoat and
a cocked hat. As for little Em’ly marrying a prince, that seemed all
right if David could be the prince.
All of the Peggotty family were so healthy and cheerful that even
Mrs. Gummidge, who lived with them, could not make them unhappy. Mrs.
Gummidge was a person who felt that it was necessary to have some one
to pity, and as she couldn’t pity the Peggottys she got into the habit
of pitying herself. She would sit by the fire, and take out an old
black handkerchief, and wipe her eyes, and tell her troubles, and then
tell how wrong it was in her to tell them.
Mr. Peggotty had just come in from his work, having stopped a few
moments at the public house, which was called The Willing Mind. Mrs.
Gummidge was wiping her eyes.
“What’s amiss, dame?” said Mr. Peggotty.
“Nothing,” returned Mrs. Gummidge. “You’ve come from The Willing Mind,
Dan’l?”
“Why yes, I’ve took a short spell at The Willing Mind to-night,” said
Mr. Peggotty.
“I’m sorry I should have drove you there.”
“Drive! I don’t want no driving,” returned Mr. Peggotty. “I only go too
ready.”
“Very ready,” said Mrs. Gummidge. “I am sorry that it should be along
of me that you’re so ready.”
“Along of you! It ain’t along of you! Don’t you believe a bit of it.”
“Yes, it is,” cried Mrs. Gummidge. “I know what I am. I know I’m a lone
lorn creetur’, and not only that everythink goes contrairy with me, but
that I go contrairy with everybody. Yes, I feel more than other people
do, and I know it more. It’s my misfortune. I feel my troubles, and
they make me contrairy. I wish I didn’t feel ’em, but I do. I wish I
could be hardened to ’em, but I ain’t. I make the house uncomfortable.
I don’t wonder at it. It’s far from right. It ain’t a fit return. I’m
a lone lorn creetur’, I’d better not make myself contrairy here. If
things must go contrairy with me, and I must go contrairy with myself,
let me go away.”
But Mrs. Gummidge had no idea of going away to the poorhouse, as she
always threatened; and the Peggottys had no idea of letting her leave
their cheerful little home. It was Mrs. Gummidge’s way of carrying on
conversation, and they had got used to it.
The delightful visit to Yarmouth came to an end, and after a time Mr.
Murdstone sent David to a school near London. We can see the shy little
boy starting off for his first journey alone in the big world. The
first part of the journey was easy, because it was in a carrier’s cart
and the driver was a nice Mr. Barkis, who was in love with Peggotty
and liked to talk about her in a very mysterious way, and gave David a
message to her, saying that “Barkis is willin’.”
David tells of his conversation with Barkis in the cart. He first
looked at the purse which his mother had given him.
* * * * *
It was a stiff leather purse, with a snap, and had three bright
shillings in it, which Peggotty had evidently polished up with
whitening for my greater delight. But its most precious contents
were two half-crowns folded together in a bit of paper, on which was
written, in my mother’s hand: “For Davy. With my love.” I was so
overcome by this that I asked the carrier to be so good as reach me
my pocket-handkerchief again; but he said he thought I had better do
without it; and I thought I really had; so I wiped my eyes on my sleeve
and stopped myself.
For good, too; though, in consequence of my previous emotions, I was
still occasionally seized with a stormy sob. After we had jogged on for
some little time, I asked the carrier if he was going all the way.
“All the way where?” inquired the carrier.
“There,” I said.
“Where’s there?” inquired the carrier.
“Near London,” I said.
“Why that horse,” said the carrier, jerking the rein to point him out,
“would be deader than pork afore he got over half the ground.”
“Are you only going to Yarmouth, then?” I asked.
“That’s about it,” said the carrier. “And there I shall take you to the
stage-cutch, and the stage-cutch that’ll take you to--wherever it is.”
As this was a great deal for the carrier (whose name was Mr. Barkis)
to say--he being, as I observed in a former chapter, of a phlegmatic
temperament, and not at all conversational--I offered him a cake as a
mark of attention, which he ate at one gulp, exactly like an elephant,
and which made no more impression on his big face than it would have
done on an elephant’s.
“Did _she_ make ’em, now?” said Mr. Barkis, always leaning
forward, in his slouching way, on the footboard of the cart with an arm
on each knee.
“Peggotty, do you mean, sir?”
“Ah!” said Mr. Barkis. “Her.”
“Yes. She makes all our pastry, and does all our cooking.”
“Do she though?” said Mr. Barkis.
He made up his mouth as if to whistle, but he didn’t whistle. He sat
looking at the horse’s ears, as if he saw something new there; and sat
so, for a considerable time. By-and-by, he said:
“No sweethearts, I b’lieve?”
“Sweetmeats did you say, Mr. Barkis?” For I thought he wanted
something else to eat, and had pointedly alluded to that description of
refreshment.
“Hearts,” said Mr. Barkis. “Sweethearts; no person walks with her!”
“With Peggotty?”
“Ah!” he said. “Her.”
“Oh, no. She never had a sweetheart.”
“Didn’t she though!” said Mr. Barkis.
Again he made up his mouth to whistle, and again he didn’t whistle, but
sat looking at the horse’s ears.
“So she makes,” said Mr. Barkis, after a long interval of reflection,
“all the apple parsties, and doos all the cooking, do she?”
I replied that such was the fact.
“Well. I’ll tell you what,” said Mr. Barkis. “P’raps you might be
writin’ to her?”
“I shall certainly write to her,” I rejoined.
“Ah!” he said, slowly turning his eyes towards me. “Well! If you was
writin’ to her, p’raps you’d recollect to say that Barkis was willin’;
would you?”
“That Barkis is willing,” I repeated, innocently. “Is that all the
message?”
“Ye-es,” he said, considering. “Ye-es. Barkis is willin’.”
“But you will be at Blunderstone again to-morrow, Mr. Barkis,” I said,
faltering a little at the idea of my being far away from it then, “and
could give your own message so much better.”
As he repudiated this suggestion, however, with a jerk of his head,
and once more confirmed his previous request by saying, with profound
gravity, “Barkis is willin’. That’s the message,” I readily undertook
its transmission. While I was waiting for the coach in the hotel at
Yarmouth that very afternoon, I procured a sheet of paper and an
inkstand, and wrote a note to Peggotty, which ran thus: “My dear
Peggotty. I have come here safe. Barkis is willing. My love to mama.
Yours affectionately. P. S. He says he particularly wants you to
know--_Barkis is willing_.”
When I had taken this commission on myself prospectively, Mr. Barkis
relapsed into perfect silence; and I, feeling quite worn out by all
that had happened lately, lay down on a sack in the cart and fell
asleep.
It was in the inn at Yarmouth that David fell in with a jolly waiter
who ate up his dinner for him. David was very much afraid of doing
something which he ought not to do. Everything seemed so big and
strange.
THE LITTLE BOY AND THE HUNGRY WAITER
THE waiter brought me some chops, and vegetables, and took the covers
off in such a bouncing manner that I was afraid I must have given him
some offence. But he greatly relieved my mind by putting a chair for me
at the table, and saying, very affably, “Now, six-foot! come on!”
I thanked him, and took my seat at the board; but found it extremely
difficult to handle my knife and fork with anything like dexterity,
or to avoid splashing myself with the gravy, while he was standing
opposite, staring so hard, and making me blush in the most dreadful
manner every time I caught his eye. After watching me into the second
chop, he said:
“There’s half a pint of ale for you. Will you have it now?”
I thanked him and said “Yes.” Upon which he poured it out of a jug into
a large tumbler, and held it up against the light, and made it look
beautiful.
“My eye!” he said. “It seems a good deal, don’t it?”
“It does seem a good deal,” I answered with a smile. For it was quite
delightful to me to find him so pleasant. He was a twinkling-eyed,
pimple-faced man, with his hair standing upright all over his head; and
as he stood with one arm akimbo, holding up the glass to the light with
the other hand, he looked quite friendly.
“There was a gentleman here, yesterday,” he said, “a stout gentleman,
by the name of Topsawyer--perhaps you know him!”
“No,” I said, “I don’t think----”
“In breeches and gaiters, broad-brimmed hat, gray coat, speckled
choker,” said the waiter.
“No,” I said bashfully, “I haven’t the pleasure----”
“He came in here,” said the waiter, looking at the light through the
tumbler, “ordered a glass of this ale--_would_ order it--I told
him not--drank it, and fell dead. It was too old for him. It oughtn’t
to be drawn; that’s the fact.”
I was very much shocked to hear of this melancholy accident, and said I
thought I had better have some water.
“Why you see,” said the waiter, still looking at the light through the
tumbler, with one of his eyes shut up, “our people don’t like things
being ordered and left. It offends ’em. But _I’ll_ drink it, if
you like. I’m used to it, and use is everything. I don’t think it’ll
hurt me, if I throw my head back, and take it off quick. Shall I?”
I replied that he would much oblige me by drinking it, if he thought he
could do it safely, but by no means otherwise. When he did throw his
head back, and take it off quickly, I had a horrible fear, I confess,
of seeing him meet the fate of the lamented Mr. Topsawyer, and fall
lifeless on the carpet. But it didn’t hurt him. On the contrary, I
thought he seemed the fresher for it.
“What have we got here?” he said, putting a fork into my dish. “Not
chops?”
“Chops,” I said.
“Lord bless my soul!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t know they were chops.
Why, a chop’s the very thing to take off the bad effects of that beer!
Ain’t it lucky?”
So he took a chop by the bone in one hand, and a potato in the other,
and ate away with a very good appetite, to my extreme satisfaction.
He afterwards took another chop, and another potato; and after that
another chop and another potato. When he had done, he brought me a
pudding, and having set it before me, seemed to ruminate, and to become
absent in his mind for some moments.
“How’s the pie?” he said, rousing himself.
“It’s a pudding,” I made answer.
“Pudding!” he exclaimed. “Why, bless me, so it is! What!” looking at it
nearer. “You don’t mean to say it’s a batter-pudding!”
“Yes, it is indeed.”
“Why, a batter-pudding,” he said, taking up a tablespoon, “is my
favorite pudding! Ain’t that lucky? Come on, little ’un, and let’s see
who’ll get most.”
The waiter certainly got most. He entreated me more than once to come
in and win, but what with his tablespoon to my teaspoon, his despatch
to my despatch, and his appetite to my appetite, I was left far behind
at the first mouthful, and had no chance with him. I never saw any one
enjoy a pudding so much, I think; and he laughed, when it was all gone,
as if his enjoyment of it lasted still.
Finding him so very friendly and companionable, it was then that I
asked for the pen and ink and paper to write to Peggotty. He not only
brought it immediately, but was good enough to look over me while I
wrote the letter. When I had finished it, he asked me where I was going
to school.
I said, “Near London,” which was all I knew.
“Oh! my eye!” he said, looking very low-spirited. “I am sorry for that.”
“Why?” I asked him.
“Oh, Lord!” he said, shaking his head, “that’s the school where they
broke the boy’s ribs--two ribs--a little boy he was. I should say he
was--let me see--how old are you, about?”
I told him between eight and nine.
“That’s just his age,” he said. “He was eight years and six months old
when they broke his first rib; eight years and eight months old when
they broke his second, and did for him.”
I could not disguise from myself, or from the waiter, that this was an
uncomfortable coincidence, and inquired how it was done. His answer was
not cheering to my spirits, for it consisted of two dismal words: “With
whopping.”
The blowing of the coach horn in the yard was a seasonable diversion,
which made me get up and hesitatingly inquire, in the mingled pride and
diffidence of having a purse (which I took out of my pocket), if there
were anything to pay.
“There’s a sheet of letter-paper,” he returned. “Did you ever buy a
sheet of letter-paper?”
I could not remember that I ever had.
“It’s dear,” he said, “on account of the duty. Three-pence. That’s
the way we’re taxed in this country. There’s nothing else, except the
waiter. Never mind the ink. _I_ lose by that.”
“What should you--what should I--how much ought I to--what would it be
right to pay the waiter, if you please?” I stammered, blushing.
“If I hadn’t a family, and that family hadn’t the cowpock,” said the
waiter, “I wouldn’t take a sixpence. If I didn’t support an aged
pairint and a lovely sister,”--here the waiter was greatly agitated--“I
wouldn’t take a farthing. If I had a good place, and was treated well
here, I should beg acceptance of a trifle, instead of taking of it.
But I live on broken wittles--and I sleep on the coals”--here the
waiter burst into tears.
I was very much concerned for his misfortunes, and felt that any
recognition short of ninepence would be mere brutality and hardness of
heart. Therefore I gave him one of my three bright shillings, which he
received with much humility and veneration, and spun up with his thumb,
directly afterwards, to try the goodness of.
WILKINS MICAWBER JUNIOR AND HIS PARENTS
V
WILKINS MICAWBER JUNIOR AND HIS PARENTS
I DO not think that I should devote a chapter in _The Children of
Dickens_ to Wilkins Micawber Junior if it were not for his parents,
who were very amusing persons whom everybody ought to know. Wilkins
Micawber Junior never did anything or said anything in particular. He
was a child who was seen and not heard. He was always standing around
listening to his father and mother, and he had to do a good deal of
listening, for they talked incessantly, chiefly about themselves.
And then he was always pointed at, when they wanted to tell of their
troubles. He was about four years old when we first see him pointed at,
and he had a sister who was a year younger. Then there were the twins,
who were always in their mother’s arms.
The Micawbers lived in a shabby house on Windsor Terrace, where they
took David Copperfield to board. That is, they lived there when Mr.
Micawber was not in the Debtors’ Prison. David Copperfield found it a
great relief to get away from the company of Mealy Potatoes, the boy
he worked with in Murdstone’s establishment, and get into the friendly
company of the Micawbers.
* * * * *
The Micawbers were always in trouble, but they enjoyed their troubles
and were willing to share their enjoyment with anybody who would
listen to them. Though David Copperfield was only twelve years old, Mr.
Micawber always treated him as an equal, and used the largest words he
could think of. David liked to be talked to that way, so they became
great friends. Wilkins Micawber Junior stood by and listened, and
thought his father was the most wonderful talker in the world. When he
grew up and had a family to support and couldn’t do it, he would talk
that way.
David Copperfield tells how he first met Mr. Micawber at the office of
Murdstone and Grinby and went home with him to Windsor Terrace.
* * * * *