Part 6

She had one good friend, the officer who was called the turnkey, because he had the keys of the prison and was the one who locked the prisoners in. When she began to walk and talk, he bought her a little armchair, and gave her toys. She became very fond of the turnkey, and was delighted when he dressed and undressed her dolls.

After a while, little Dorrit began to wonder what the world outside the prison walls was like. She saw the turnkey turn his great key in the door and thought, how wonderful it would be to go out through it!

She sat by the barred window, looking out. “Thinking of the fields?” the turnkey said, one day.

“Where are they?” she asked.

“Why, they are over there, my dear,” said the turnkey with a flourish of the keys. “Just about there.”

“Does anybody open them, or shut them? Are they locked?”

“Well,” he said, “not in general.”

“Are they pretty, Bob?” She called him Bob because he asked her to.

“Lovely. Full of flowers. There’s buttercups and there’s daisies, and there’s--dandelions and all manner of games.”

“Is it pleasant to be there, Bob?”

“Prime,” said the turnkey.

“Was father ever there?”

“Oh, yes. He was there sometimes.”

“Is he sorry not to be there now?”

“N--not particular,” said the turnkey.

“Nor any of the people? Oh, are you quite sure and certain, Bob?”

Bob changed the subject, but this was the beginning of little Sunday excursions which these two curious companions took. Every other Sunday afternoon the turnkey would open the prison doors with his big key and would go off with little Dorrit into the green fields. He would pick out some meadow or green lane and light his pipe, while the little girl would gather grasses and wild flowers to bring home to her father.

After some years had passed, Mr. Dorrit was released from prison and his fortune was restored, but little Dorrit always remembered the kind turnkey who had given her the first happy hours in the green fields.

THE CRATCHITS

XII

THE CRATCHITS

EVERYBODY knows the Cratchits. When Christmas comes people take up _A Christmas Carol_ and turn to the account of the Christmas dinner which Bob Cratchit and his family enjoyed in their poor little house in the suburbs of London. Here it is just as Dickens wrote it.

* * * * *

Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit’s wife, dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob’s private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honor of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker’s they had smelled the goose and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage-and-onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud, although his collar nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled.

“What has ever got your precious father then?” said Mrs. Cratchit. “And your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha warn’t as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour!”

“Here’s Martha, mother!” said a girl, appearing as she spoke.

“Here’s Martha, mother!” cried the two young Cratchits. “Hurrah! There’s _such_ a goose, Martha!”

“Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!” said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.

“We’d a deal of work to finish up last night,” replied the girl, “and had to clear away this morning, mother!”

“Well! Never mind so long as you are come,” said Mrs. Cratchit. “Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!”

“No, no! There’s father coming,” cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. “Hide, Martha, hide!”

So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame!

“Why, where’s our Martha?” cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.

“Not coming,” said Mrs. Cratchit.

“Not coming!” said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been Tim’s blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. “Not coming upon Christmas Day!”

Martha didn’t like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

“And how did little Tim behave?” asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart’s content.

“As good as gold,” said Bob, “and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk and blind men see.”

Bob’s voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs--as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby--compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round and put it on the hob to simmer, Master Peter, and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course--and in truth it was something very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigor; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn’t believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavor, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by the apple sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish) they hadn’t ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits, in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone--too nervous to bear witnesses--to take the pudding up and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it while they were merry with the goose--a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered--flushed, but smiling proudly--with the pudding like a speckled cannon-ball so hard and firm blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovelful of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit’s elbow stood the family display of glass. Two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:

“A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!”

Which all the family re-echoed.

“God bless us every one!” said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

THE DOLL’S DRESSMAKER

XIII

THE DOLL’S DRESSMAKER

THE fact that Dickens when he was only twelve years old was put to work and had to make his own living made him feel old when he was really very young. He had to look after himself as if he had been a man. In _Our Mutual Friend_ he gives us a picture of an old young person, Jenny Wren, the Doll’s Dressmaker, who talked as if she were forty, when she was only twelve and small for her age. Her father was a drunkard and she had been compelled to act as head of the house.

She was a queer little person with bright, snapping eyes and a sharp tongue. She sat in a little old-fashioned armchair which had a little working-bench before it. She had set up in business as a doll’s dressmaker and manufacturer of pincushions and pen-wipers.

If you were in London you would have to go a long way to find the Doll’s Dressmaker. First you crossed Westminster Bridge, and then you came to a certain little street called Church Street, and then to an out-of-the-way square called Smith Square, in the centre of which was a very ugly church. Then you came to a blacksmith-shop and a lumber-yard, and a dealer in old iron. There was a rusty portion of an old boiler that you had to walk around. Beyond that there were several little quiet houses in a row. In one of these houses was the little Doll’s Dressmaker. That was the way Bradley Headstone and Charley Hexam found the house where Jenny Wren lived.

They knocked at the door and saw a queer little figure sitting in an armchair.

“I can’t get up,” said the child, “because my back’s bad and my legs are queer. But I’m the person of the house. What do you want, young man?”

“I wanted to see my sister.”

“Many young men have sisters. Give me your name, young man.”

“Hexam is my name.”

“Ah, indeed?” said the person of the house. “I thought it might be. Your sister will be in, in about a quarter of an hour. I am very fond of your sister. She’s my particular friend. Take a seat. And this gentleman’s name?”

“Mr. Headstone, my schoolmaster.”

“Take a seat. And would you please to shut the street door first? I can’t very well do it myself, because my back’s so bad, and my legs are so queer.”

They complied in silence, and the little figure went on with its work of gumming and gluing together with a camel’s-hair brush certain pieces of cardboard and thin wood, previously cut into various shapes. The scissors and knives upon the bench showed that the child herself had cut them; and the bright scraps of velvet and silk and ribbon also strewn upon the bench showed that when duly stuffed (and stuffing too was there) she was to cover them smartly. The dexterity of her nimble fingers was remarkable, and, as she brought two thin edges accurately together by giving them a little bite, she would glance at the visitors out of the corners of her gray eyes with a look that outsharpened all her other sharpness.

“You can’t tell me the name of my trade, I’ll be bound,” she said, after taking several of these observations.

“You make pincushions,” said Charley.

“What else do I make?”

“Pen-wipers,” said Bradley Headstone.

“Ha! ha! What else do I make? You’re a schoolmaster, but you can’t tell me.”

“You do something,” he returned, pointing to a corner of the little bench, “with straw; but I don’t know what.”

“Well done you!” cried the person of the house. “I only make pincushions and pen-wipers to use up my waste. But my straw really does belong to my business. Try again. What do I make with my straw?”

“Dinner-mats.”

“A schoolmaster, and says dinner-mats! I’ll give you a clue to my trade, in a game of forfeits. I love my love with a B because she’s Beautiful; I hate my love with a B because she is Brazen; I took her to the sign of the Blue Boar, and I treated her with Bonnets; her name’s Bouncer, and she lives in Bedlam.--Now, what do I make with my straw?”

“Ladies’ bonnets?”

“Fine ladies’,” said the person of the house, nodding assent. “Dolls’. I’m a Doll’s Dressmaker.”

“I hope it’s a good business?”

The person of the house shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. “No. Poorly paid. And I’m often so pressed for time! I had a doll married, last week, and was obliged to work all night. And it’s not good for me, on account of my back being so bad and my legs so queer.”

They looked at the little creature with a wonder that did not diminish, and the schoolmaster said: “I am sorry your fine ladies are so inconsiderate.”

“It’s the way with them,” said the person of the house, shrugging her shoulders again. “And they take no care of their clothes, and they never keep to the same fashions a month. I work for a doll with three daughters. Bless you, she’s enough to ruin her husband!”

The person of the house gave a weird little laugh here, and gave them another look out of the corners of her eyes. She had an elfin chin that was capable of great expression; and whenever she gave this look, she hitched this chin up. As if her eyes and her chin worked together on the same wires.

“Are you always as busy as you are now?”

“Busier. I’m slack just now. I finished a large mourning order the day before yesterday. Doll I work for lost a canary-bird.” The person of the house gave another little laugh, and then nodded her head several times, as who should moralize, “Oh this world, this world!”

“Are you alone all day?” asked Bradley Headstone. “Don’t any of the neighboring children----?”

“Ah, lud!” cried the person of the house, with a little scream, as if the word had pricked her. “Don’t talk of children. I can’t bear children. _I_ know their tricks and their manners.” She said this with an angry little shake of her right fist close before her eyes.

Perhaps it scarcely required the teacher-habit to perceive that the doll’s dressmaker was inclined to be bitter on the difference between herself and other children. But both master and pupil understood it so.

“Always running about and screeching, always playing and fighting, always skip-skip-skipping on the pavement and chalking it for their games! Oh! _I_ know their tricks and their manners!” Shaking the little fist as before. “And that’s not all. Ever so often calling names in through a person’s keyhole, and imitating a person’s back and legs. Oh! _I_ know their tricks and their manners. And I’ll tell you what I’d do to punish ’em. There’s doors under the church in the Square--black doors, leading into black vaults. Well! I’d open one of those doors, and I’d cram ’em all in, and then I’d lock the door and through the keyhole I’d blow in pepper.”

“What would be the good of blowing in pepper?” asked Charley Hexam.

“To set ’em sneezing,” said the person of the house, “and make their eyes water. And when they were all sneezing and inflamed, I’d mock ’em through the keyhole. Just as they, with their tricks and their manners, mock a person through a person’s keyhole!”

An uncommonly emphatic shake of her little fist close before her eyes seemed to ease the mind of the person of the house; for she added with recovered composure, “No, no, no. No children for me. Give me grown-ups.”

LITTLE NELL

XIV

LITTLE NELL

ONE of the strange things about London is the number of little shops in out-of-the-way places, where they sell things that one would suppose nobody would be looking for. The shops seem hidden away, and the game is for the customers to find them. And very often the customers don’t find them.

In one of these little streets was an old curiosity shop, kept by a little old man with long gray hair. The shop was full of old and curious things which the old man had collected and heaped upon the floor. There were suits of armor, and bits of old china and figures carved out of wood. The room was dark, and it was hard to walk around without stepping upon some of the curiosities.

The one bright spot in the old man’s life was his love for his granddaughter, little Nell Trent. For her he had been saving everything he could, but of late he had been losing more than he had gained. It would have been a rather dull life for little Nell if it had not been for Kit Nubbles.

Kit was a shock-headed, awkward boy who lived with his mother not far away, and he came every day to help Nell’s grandfather in the shop. He had an uncommonly big mouth, very red cheeks, and an old hat without any brim. Kit liked to “show off,” especially when Nell was around. He had a remarkable way of standing sideways as he spoke and thrusting his head over his shoulders. When he found that it would make Nell laugh, he did it again and again.

And there was a dwarf named Quilp who was as ugly as he looked, and delighted in nothing so much as in making everybody afraid of him. He lived down by the river. He had a business of his own. He bought old copper and rusty anchors from ships that had been broken up. But his real occupation was in making everybody who came under him miserable. At last Nell and her grandfather, in order to escape from Quilp, made up their minds to leave London, and go off into the country where they might find peace. They didn’t care where they went so that Quilp could not follow them. This would have been a very good plan if they had had money for their journeys, but as they hadn’t they had to depend on the kindness of the people on the road.

In their wanderings Nell and her grandfather fell in with some queer people. While they were resting near a village church, they came upon two men who were travelling over the country giving Punch and Judy shows. One of them, a merry-faced man with twinkling eyes and a red nose, was named Short. His companion, Codlin, was a more courteous and gloomy person. Mr. Codlin took the figure of Judy out of the box and said:

“Look here, here’s all this Judy’s clothes falling to pieces again. You haven’t got a needle and thread, I suppose?”

Nell had a needle and thread and soon was at work on Judy’s dress, and soon they were friends, and Codlin and Short took them to the wayside inn where they met other travellers who were going to fairs. The chapter which tells of the talk at the Jolly Sandboys is one which the lover of Dickens likes to read more than once.

THE JOLLY SANDBOYS

THE Jolly Sandboys was a small roadside inn with a sign representing three Sandboys increasing their jollity with as many jugs of ale and bags of gold, creaking and swinging on its post on the opposite side of the road. As the travellers had observed that day, there were many indications of their drawing nearer and nearer to the race town, such as gypsy camps, carts laden with gambling booths, itinerant showmen of all kinds, and beggars and trampers of every degree.

Mr. Codlin entered the inn, where a mighty fire was blazing on the hearth and roaring up the wide chimney with a cheerful sound. There was a large iron kettle bubbling and simmering in the heat. And when the landlord lifted the lid, there was a savory smell. The glow of the fire was upon the landlord’s bald head and upon his twinkling eyes. Mr. Codlin drew his sleeve across his lips and said in a murmuring voice, “What is it?”

“It’s a stew of tripe,” said the landlord, “and cowheel, and bacon,” smacking his lips, “and steak, and peas, cauliflowers, new potatoes, and sparrow-grass, all working together in one delicious gravy.”

Very soon all the hungry wayfarers were sitting down to supper while the rain fell in torrents on the roof.

* * * * *

Supper was not yet over, when there arrived at the Jolly Sandboys two more travellers bound for the same haven as the rest, who had been walking in the rain for some hours, and came in shining and heavy with water. One of these was the proprieter of a giant, and a little lady without legs or arms, who had jogged forward in a van; the other, a silent gentleman who earned his living by showing tricks upon the cards, and who had rather deranged the natural expression of his countenance by putting small leaden lozenges into his eyes and bringing them out at his mouth, which was one of his professional accomplishments. The name of the first of these newcomers was Vuffin; the other, probably as a pleasant satire upon his ugliness, was called Sweet William. To render them as comfortable as he could, the landlord bestirred himself nimbly, and in a very short time both gentlemen were perfectly at their ease.

“How’s the Giant?” said Short, when they all sat smoking round the fire.

“Rather weak upon his legs,” returned Mr. Vuffin. “I begin to be afraid he’s going at the knees.”

“That’s a bad lookout,” said Short.

“Ay! Bad indeed,” replied Mr. Vuffin, contemplating the fire with a sigh. “Once get a giant shaky on his legs, and the public care no more about him than they do for a dead cabbage-stalk.”

“What becomes of the old giants?” said Short, turning to him again after a little reflection.

“They’re usually kept in caravans to wait upon the dwarfs,” said Mr. Vuffin.

“The maintaining of ’em must come expensive, when they can’t be shown, eh?” remarked Short, eyeing him doubtfully.

“It’s better that, than letting ’em go upon the parish or about the streets,” said Mr. Vuffin. “Once make a giant common and giants will never draw again. Look at wooden legs. If there was only one man with a wooden leg what a property _he’d_ be!”

“So he would!” observed the landlord and Short both together. “That’s very true.”