Charles Dickens' Children Stories Part 9

JENNY WREN.

One day, a great many years ago, a gentleman ran up the steps of a tall house in the neighborhood of St. Mary Axe.

The gentleman knocked and rang several times before any one came, but at last an old man opened the door. "What were you up to that you did not hear me?" said Mr. Fledgeby irritably.

"I was taking the air at the top of the house, sir," said the old man meekly, "it being a holiday. What might you please to want, sir?"

"Humph! Holiday indeed," grumbled his master, who was a toy merchant amongst other things. He then seated himself and gave the old man--a Jew and Riah by name--directions about the dressing of some dolls, and, as he rose to go, exclaimed--

"By the bye, how _do_ you take the air? Do you stick your head out of a chimney-pot?"

"No, sir, I have made a little garden on the roof."

"Let's look at it," said Mr. Fledgeby.

"Sir, I have company there," returned Riah hesitating, "but will you please come up and see them?"

Mr. Fledgeby nodded, and the old man led the way up flight after flight of stairs, till they arrived at the house-top. Seated on a carpet, and leaning against a chimney-stack, were two girls bending over books. Some creepers were trained round the chimney-pots, and evergreens were placed round the roof, and a few more books, a basket of gaily colored sc.r.a.ps, and bits of tinsel, lay near. One of the girls rose on seeing that Riah had brought a visitor, but the other remarked, "I'm the person of the house downstairs, but I can't get up, whoever you are, because my back is bad, and my legs are queer."

"This is my master," said Riah speaking to the two girls, "and this," he added, turning to Mr. Fledgeby, "is Miss Jenny Wren; she lives in this house, and is a clever little dressmaker for little people. Her friend Lizzie," continued Riah, introducing the second girl. "They are good girls, both, and as busy as they are good; in spare moments they come up here, and take to book learning."

"Humph!" said Mr. Fledgeby, looking round, "Humph!" He was so much surprised that apparently he couldn't get beyond that word.

Lizzie, the elder of these two girls, was strong and handsome, but the little Jenny Wren, whom she so loved and protected, was small, and deformed, though she had a beautiful little face, and the longest and loveliest golden hair in the world, which fell about her like a cloak of shining curls, as though to hide the poor little misshapen figure.

The Jew Riah, as well as Lizzie, was always kind and gentle to Jenny Wren, who called him G.o.dfather. She had a father, who shared her poor little rooms, whom she called her child, for he was a bad, drunken, disreputable old man, and the poor girl had to care for him, and earn money to keep them both. Sometimes the two girls, Jenny helping herself along with a crutch, would go and walk about the fashionable streets. As they walked along, Jenny would tell her friend of the fancies she had when sitting alone at her work. "I imagine birds till I can hear them sing," she said one day, "and flowers till I can smell them. And oh! the beautiful children that come to me, in the early mornings! They are quite different to other children, not like me, never cold, or anxious, or tired, or hungry, never any pain; they come in numbers, in long bright slanting rows, all dressed in white, with shiny heads. 'Who is this in pain?' they say, and they sweep around and about me, take me up in their arms, and I feel so light, and all the pain goes. I know they are coming a long way off, by hearing them say, 'Who is this in pain?'

and I answer, 'Oh my blessed children, it's poor me! have pity on me, and take me up and then the pain will go.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: JENNIE WREN.

"THE BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN THAT COME TO ME."]

Lizzie sat stroking and brushing the beautiful hair, when they were at home again, and as she kissed her good-night, a miserable old man stumbled into the room. "How's my Jenny Wren, best of children?" he mumbled, as he shuffled unsteadily towards her, but Jenny pointed her small finger towards him exclaiming--"Go along with you, you bad, wicked, old child, you troublesome, wicked, old thing, _I_ know where you have been; ain't you ashamed of yourself, you disgraceful boy?"

"Yes; my dear, yes," stammered the tipsy old father, tumbling into a corner. One day when Jenny was on her way home with Riah, they came on a small crowd of people. A tipsy man had been knocked down and badly hurt--"Let us see what it is!" said Jennie. The next moment she exclaimed--"Oh, gentlemen--gentlemen, he is my child, he belongs to me, my poor, bad, old child!"

"Your child--belongs to you--" repeated the man who was about to lift the helpless figure on to a stretcher. "Aye, it's old Dolls--tipsy old Dolls--" cried some one in the crowd, for it was by this name that they knew the old man.

"He's her father, sir," said Riah in a low tone to the doctor who was now bending over the stretcher.

"So much the worse," answered the doctor, "for the man is dead."

Yes, "Mr. Dolls" was dead, and many were the dresses which the weary fingers of the sorrowful little worker must make in order to pay for his humble funeral, and buy a black frock for herself. Often the tears rolled down on to her work. "My poor child," she said to Riah, "my poor old child, and to think I scolded him so."

"You were always a good, brave, patient girl," returned Riah, "always good and patient, however tired."

And so the poor little "person of the house" was left alone but for the faithful affection of the kind Jew, and her friend Lizzie. Her room grew pretty comfortable, for she was in great request in her "profession" as she called it, and there was now no one to spend and waste her earnings.

But nothing could make her life otherwise than a suffering one till the happy morning, when her child-angels visited her for the last time and carried her away to the land where all such pain as hers is healed for evermore.

PIP'S ADVENTURE.

All that little Philip Pirrip, usually called Pip, knew about his father and mother, and five little brothers, was from seeing their tombstones in the churchyard. He was taken care of by his sister, who was twenty years older than himself. She had married a blacksmith, named Joe Gargery, a kind, good man, while she, unfortunately, was a hard, stern woman, and treated her little brother and her amiable husband with great harshness. They lived in a marshy part of the country, about twenty miles from the sea.

One cold raw day towards evening, when Pip was about six years old, he wandered into the churchyard, and trying to make out what he could of the inscriptions on his family tombstones, and the darkness coming on, he felt very lonely and frightened, and began to cry.

"Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, and a man started up from among the graves close to him. "Keep still, you little imp, or I'll cut your throat!"

He was a dreadful looking man, dressed in coa.r.s.e grey cloth, with a great iron on his leg. Wet, muddy and miserable, his teeth chattered in his head, as he seized Pip by the chin.

"Oh! don't cut my throat, sir," cried Pip, in terror.

"Tell us your name!" said the man. "Quick!"

"Pip, sir."

"Once more," said the man, staring at him. "Give it mouth."

"Pip. Pip, sir."

"Show us where you live," said the man. "Point out the place."

Pip showed him the village, about a mile or more from the church.

The man looked at him for a moment, and then turned him upside down and emptied his pockets. He found nothing in them but a piece of bread, which he ate ravenously.

"Now lookee here," said the man. "Where's your mother?"

"There, sir," said Pip.

At this the man started to run away, but stopped and looked over his shoulder.

"There, sir," explained Pip, showing him the tombstone.

"Oh, and is that your father along of your mother?"

"Yes, sir," said Pip.

"Ha!" muttered the man, "then who d'ye live with--supposin' you're kindly let to live, which I han't made up my mind about?"

"My sister, sir, Mrs. Joe Gargery, wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, sir."

"Blacksmith, eh?" said the man, and looked down at his leg. Then he seized the trembling little boy by both arms, and glaring down at him, he said,--