THE TALE OF A BARROW.
If the West End knows not the East End, save as philanthropy and Mr.
Walter Besant have compelled it, much less does it know Leather Lane, a
remnant of old London, now given over chiefly to Italians, and thus a
little more picturesquely dirty than in its primal state of pure English
grime. The eager business man hurrying down "that part of Holborn
christened High," is as little aware of the neighborhood of Leather Lane
and what it stands for, as the New Yorker on Broadway is of Mulberry
Street and the Great Bend. For either or both, entrance is entrance into
a world quite unknown to decorous respectability, and, if one looks
aright, as full of wonders and discoveries as other unknown countries
under our feet. Out of Leather Lane, with its ancient houses swarming
with inhabitants and in all stages of decay and foulness, open other
lanes as unsavory, through which the costers drive their barrows,
chaffering with dishevelled women, who bear a black eye or other token
that the British husband has been exercising his rights, and who find
bargaining for a bunch of turnips or a head of cabbage an exhilarating
change.
There were many costers and many barrows, but among them all hardly one
so popular as "old Widgeon," who had been in the business forty years;
and as he had chosen to remain a bachelor, an absolutely unheard-of
state of things, he was an object of deepest interest to every woman in
Leather Lane and its purlieus. It was always possible that he might
change his mind; and from the oldest inhabitant down to the child just
beginning to ask questions, there was always a sense of expectation
where Widgeon was concerned. He, in the meantime, did his day's work
contentedly, had a quick eye for all trouble, and in such cases was sure
to give overweight, or even to let the heavy penny or two fall
accidentally into the purchase. His donkey had something the same
expression of patient good-humored receptivity. The children climbed
over the barrow and even on the donkey's back, and though Widgeon made
great feint of driving them off with a very stubby whip, they knew well
that it would always just miss them, and returned day after day
undismayed. He "did for himself" in a garret in a dark little house, up
a darker court; and here it was popularly supposed he had hidden the
gains of all these forty years. They might be there or in the donkey's
stable, but they were somewhere, and then came the question, who would
have them when he died?
To these speculations Nan listened silently, in the pauses of the
machines on which her mother and three other women stitched trousers.
Nothing was expected of her but to mind the baby, to see that the fire
kept in, just smouldering, and that there was always hot water enough
for the tea. On the days when they all stitched she fared well enough;
but when she had carried home the work, and received the money, there
was a day, sometimes two or three, in which gin ruled, and the women
first shouted and sang songs, and at last lay about the floor in every
stage of drunkenness. Gradually chances for work slipped away; the
machines were given up, and the partnership of workers dissolved, and at
twelve, Nan and the baby were beggars and the mother in prison for
aggravated assault on a neighbor. She died there, and thus settled one
problem, and now came the other, how was Nan to live?
Old Widgeon answered this question. They had always been good friends
from the day he had seen her standing, holding the baby, crippled and
hopelessly deformed from its birth. His barrow was almost empty, and the
donkey pointing his long ears toward the stable.
"Get in," he said, "an' I'll give you a bit of a ride," and Nan,
speechless with joy, climbed in and was driven to the stable, and once
there, watched the unharnessing and received some stray oranges as she
finally turned away. From that day old Widgeon became her patron saint.
She had shot up into a tall girl, shrinking from those about her, and
absorbed chiefly in the crooked little figure, still "the baby;" but
tall as she might be, she was barely twelve, and how should she hire a
machine and pay room rent and live?
Widgeon settled all that.
"You know how to stitch away at them trousers?" he had said, and Nan
nodded.
"Then I'll see you through the first week or two," he said; "but, mind!
don't you whisper it, or I'll 'ave hevery distressed female in the court
down on me, and there's enough hof 'em now."
Nan nodded again, but he saw the tears in her eyes, and regarded words
as quite unnecessary. The sweater asked no questions when she came for a
bundle of work, nor did she tell him that she alone was now responsible.
She had learned to stitch. Skill came with practice, and she might as
well have such slight advantage as arose from being her mother's
messenger.
So Nan's independent life began, and so it went on. She grew no taller,
but did grow older, her silent gravity making her seem older still. It
was hard work. She had never liked tea, and she loathed the sight and
smell of either beer or spirits, old experience having made them
hateful. Thus she had none of the nervous stimulant which keeps up the
ordinary worker, and with small knowledge of any cookery but boiling
potatoes and turnips, and frying bacon or sprats, fared worse than her
companions. But she had learned to live on very little. She stitched
steadily all day and every day, gaining more and more skill, but never
able to earn more than fourteen shillings a week. Prices went down
steadily. At fourteen shillings she could live, and had managed even not
only to pay Widgeon but to pick up some "bits of things." She was like
her father, the old people in the alley said. He had been a silent,
decent, hard-working man, who died broken-hearted at the turn his wife
took for drink. Nan had his patience and his faithfulness; and Johnny,
who crawled about the room, and could light a fire and do some odds and
ends of house-keeping, was like her, and saved her much time as he grew
older, but hardly any bigger. He had even learned to fry sprats, and to
sing, in a high, cracked, little voice, a song known throughout the
alley:--
"Oh, 'tis my delight of a Friday night,
When sprats they isn't dear,
To fry a couple o' dozen or so
Upon a fire clear."
There are many verses of this ditty, all ending with the chorus:--
"Oh, 'tis my delight of a Friday night!"
and Johnny varied the facts ingeniously, and shouted "bacon," or
anything else that would fry, well pleased at his own ingenuity.
"He was 'wanting.' Nan might better put him away in some asylum," the
neighbors said; but Nan paid no attention. He was all she had, and he
was much better worth working for than herself, and so she went on.
Old Widgeon had been spending the evening with them. Nan had stitched on
as she must; for prices had gone down again, and she was earning but
nine shillings a week. Widgeon seldom said much. He held Johnny on his
knee, and now and then looked at Nan.
"It's a dog's life," he said at last. "It's far worse than a dog's.
You'd be better off going with a barrow, Nan. I'm a good mind to leave
you mine, Nan. You'd get a bit of air, then, and you'd make--well, a
good bit more than you do now."
Widgeon had checked himself suddenly. Nobody knew what the weekly gain
might be, but people put it as high as three pounds; and this was
fabulous wealth.
"I've thought of it," Nan said. "I've thought of it ever since that day
you rode me and Johnny in the barrow. Do you mind? The donkey knows me
now, I think. He's a wise one."
"Ay, he's a wise one," the old man said. "Donkeys is wiser than folks
think." He put Johnny down suddenly, and sat looking at him strangely;
but Nan did not see. The machine whirred on, but it stopped suddenly as
Johnny cried out. Widgeon had slipped silently from his chair; his eyes
were open, but he did not seem to see her, and he was breathing heavily.
Nan ran into the passage and called an old neighbor, and the two
together, using all their strength, managed to get him to the bed.
"It's a stroke," the woman said. "Lord love you, what'll you do? He
can't stay here. He'd better be sent to 'ospital."
"I'll be 'anged first," said old Widgeon, who had opened his eyes
suddenly and looked at them both. "I was a bit queer, but I'm right
enough now. Who talks about 'ospitals?"
He tried to move and his face changed.
"I'm a bit queer yet," he said, "but it'll pass; it'll pass. Nan, you'll
not mind my being in your way for a night. There's money in me pocket.
Maybe there's another room to be 'ad."
"There's a bit of a one off me own that was me John's, an' him only gone
yesterday," said the woman eagerly; "an' a bed an' all, an' openin'
right off of this. The door's behind that press. It's one with this, an'
the two belongs together, an' for two an' six a week without, an' three
an' six with all that's in it, it's for anybody that wants it."
"I'll take it a week," said old Widgeon, "but I'll not want the use of
it more than this night. I'm a bit queer now, but it'll pass; it'll
pass."
The week went, but old Widgeon was still "a bit queer;" and the doctor,
who was at last called in, said that he was likely to remain so. One
side was paralyzed. It might lessen, but would never recover entirely.
He would have to be looked out for. This was his daughter? She must
understand that he needed care, and would not be able to work any more.
Old Widgeon heard him in silence, and then turned his face to the wall,
and for hours made no sign. When he spoke at last, it was in his usual
tone.
"I thought to end my days in the free air," he said, "but that ain't to
be. And I'm thinking the stroke's come to do you a good turn, Nan.
There's the donkey and the barrow, and everybody knowing it as well as
they know me. I'll send you to my man in Covent Garden. He's a fair 'un.
He don't cheat. He'll do well by you, an' you shall drive the barrow and
see what you make of it. We'll be partners, Nan. You look out for me a
bit, an' I'll teach you the business and 'ave an heye to Johnny. What do
you say? Will you try it? It'll break me 'art if that donkey and barrow
goes to hanybody that'll make light of 'em hand habuse 'em. There hain't
such another donkey and barrow in all London, and you're one that knows
it, Nan."
"Yes, I know it," Nan said. "You ought to know, if you think I could do
it."
"There's nought that can't be done if you sets your mind well to it,"
said old Widgeon. "And now, Nan, 'ere's the key, and you get Billy just
by the stable there to move my bits o' things over here. That court's no
place for you, an' there's more light here. Billy's a good 'un. He'll
'elp you when you need it."
This is the story of the fresh-faced, serious young woman who drives a
donkey-barrow through certain quiet streets in northwest London, and has
a regular line of customers, who find her wares, straight from Covent
Garden, exactly what she represents. Health and strength have come with
the new work, and though it has its hardships, they are as nothing
compared with the deadly, monotonous labor at the machine. Johnny, too,
shares the benefit, and holds the reins or makes change, at least once
or twice a week, while old Widgeon, a little more helpless, but
otherwise the same, regards his "stroke" as a providential interposition
on Nan's behalf, and Nan herself as better than any daughter.
"I've all the good of a child, and none o' the hups hand downs o' the
married state," he chuckles; "hand so, whathever you think, I'm lucky to
the hend."