Chapter XXIX. The baker
Clare went over the wall and the well without a notion of what he was going to do, except look for work. He had eaten half a loaf, and now drew in his cap some water from the well and drank. He felt better than any moment since leaving the farm. He was full of hope.
All his life he had never been other than hopeful. To the human being hope is as natural as hunger; yet how few there are that hope as they hunger! Men are so proud of being small, that one wonders to what pitch their conceit will have arrived by the time they are nothing at all. They are proud that they love but a little, believe less, and hope for nothing. Every fool prides himself on not being such a fool as believe what would make a man of him. For dread of being taken in, he takes himself in ridiculously. The man who keeps on trying to do his duty, finds a brighter and brighter gleam issue, as he walks, from the lantern of his hope.
Clare was just breaking into a song he had heard his mother sing to his sister, when he was checked by the sight of a long skinny mongrel like a hairy worm, that lay cowering and shivering beside a heap of ashes put down for the dust-cart—such a dry hopeless heap that the famished little dog did not care to search it: some little warmth in it, I presume, had kept him near it. Clare’s own indigence made him the more sorry for the indigent, and he felt very sorry for this member of the family; but he had neither work nor alms to give him, therefore strode on. The dog looked wistfully after him, as if recognizing one of his own sort, one that would help him if he could, but did not follow him.
A hundred yards further, Clare came to a baker’s shop. It was the first he felt inclined to enter, and he went in. He did not know it was the shop from whose cart Tommy had pilfered. A thin-faced, bilious-looking, elderly man stood behind the counter.
“Well, boy, what do you want?” he said in a low, sad, severe, but not unkindly voice.
“Please, sir,” answered Clare, “I want something to do, and I thought perhaps you could help me.”
“What can you do?”
“Not much, but I can try to do anything.”
“Have you ever learned to do anything?”
“I’ve been working on a farm for the last six months. Before that I went to school.”
“Why didn’t you go on going to school?”
“Because my father and mother died.”
“What was your father?”
“A parson.”
“Why did you leave the farm?”
“Because they didn’t want me. The mistress didn’t like me.”
“I dare say she had her reasons!”
“I don’t know, sir; she didn’t seem to like anything I did. My mother used to say, ‘Well done, Clare!’ my mistress never said ‘Well done!”’
“So the farmer sent you away?”
“No, sir; but he boxed my ears for something—I don’t now remember what.”
“I dare say you deserved it!”
“Perhaps I did; I don’t know; he never did it before.”
“If you deserved it, you had no right to run away for that.”
The baker taught in a Sunday-school, and was a good teacher, able to make a class mind him.
“I didn’t run away for that, sir; I ran away because he was tired of me. I couldn’t stay to make him uncomfortable! He had been very kind to me; I fancy it was mistress made him change. I’ve been thinking a good deal about it, and that’s how it looks to me. I’m very sorry not to have him or the creatures any more.”
“What creatures?”
“The bull, and the horses, and the cows, and the pigs—all the creatures about the farm. They were my friends. I shall see them all again somewhere!”
He gave a great sigh.
“What do you mean by that?” asked the baker.
“I hardly know what I mean,” answered Clare.
“When I’m loving anybody I always feel I shall see that person again some time, I don’t know when—somewhere, I don’t know where.”
“That don’t apply to the lower animals; it’s nothing but a foolish imagination,” said the baker.
“But if I love them!” suggested Clare.
“Love a bull, or a horse, or a pig! You can’t!” asserted the baker.
“But I do,” rejoined Clare. “I love my father and mother much more than when they were alive!”
“What has that to do with it?” returned the baker.
“That I know I love my father and mother, and I know I love that fierce bull that would always do what I told him, and that dear old horse that was almost past work, and was always ready to do his best.—I’m afraid they’ve killed him by now!” he added, with another sigh.
“But beasts ‘ain’t got souls, and you can’t love them. And if you could, that’s no reason why you should see them again.”
“I do love them, and perhaps they have souls!” rejoined Clare.
“You mustn’t believe that! It’s quite shocking. It’s nowhere in the Bible.”
“Is everything that is not in the Bible shocking, sir?”
“Well, I won’t say that; but you’re not to believe it.”
“I suppose you don’t like animals, sir! Are you afraid of their going to the same place as you when they die?”
“I wouldn’t have a boy about me that held such an unscriptural notion! The Bible says—the spirit of a man that goeth upward, and the spirit of a beast that goeth downward!”
“Is that in the Bible, sir?”
“It is,” answered the baker with satisfaction, thinking he had proved his point.
“I’m so glad!” returned Clare. “I didn’t know there was anything about it in the Bible! Then when I die I shall only have to go down somewhere, and look for them till I find them!”
The baker was silenced for a moment.
“It’s flat atheism!” he cried. “Get out of my shop! What is the world coming to!”
Clare turned and went out.
But though a bilious, the baker was not an unreasonable or unjust man except when what he had been used to believe all his life was contradicted. Clare had not yet shut the door when he repented. He was a good man, though not quite in the secret of the universe. He vaulted over the counter, and opened the door with such a ringing of its appended bell as made heavy-hearted Clare turn before he heard his voice. The long spare white figure appeared on the threshold, framed in the doorway.
“Hi!” it shouted.
Clare went meekly back.
“I’ve just remembered hearing—but mind I know nothing, and pledge myself to nothing–”
He paused.
“I didn’t say I was sure about it,” returned Clare, thinking he referred to the fate of the animals, “but I fear I’m to blame for not being sure.”
“Come, come!” said the baker, with a twist of his mouth that expressed disgust, “hold your tongue, and listen to me.—I did hear, as I was saying, that Mr. Maidstone, down the town, had one of his errand-boys laid up with scarlet fever. I’ll take you to him, if you like. Perhaps he’ll have you,—though I can’t say you look respectable!”
“I ‘ain’t had much chance since I left home, sir. I had a bit of soap, but–”
He bethought him that he had better say nothing about his family. Tommy had picked his pocket of the soap the night before, and tried to eat it, and Clare had hidden it away: he wanted it to wash the baby with as soon as he could get some warm water; but when he went to find it to wash his own face, it was gone. He suspected Tommy, but before long he had terrible ground for a different surmise.
“You see, sir,” he resumed, “I had other things to think of. When your tummy’s empty, you don’t think about the rest of you—do you, sir?”
The baker could not remember having ever been more than decently, healthily hungry in his life; and here he had been rough on a well-bred boy too hungry to wash his face! Perhaps the word one of these little ones came to him. He had some regard for him who spoke it, though he did talk more about him on Sundays than obey him in the days between.
“I don’t know, my boy,” he answered. “Would you like a piece of bread?”
“I’m not much in want of it at this moment,” replied Clare, “but I should be greatly obliged if you would let me call for it by and by. You see, sir, when a man has no work, he can’t help having no money!”
“A man!” thought the baker. “God pity you, poor monkey!”
He called to some one to mind the shop, removed his apron and put on a coat, shut the door, and went down the street with Clare.
Chapter XXX. The draper
At the shop of a draper and haberdasher, where one might buy almost anything sold, Clare’s new friend stopped and walked in. He asked to see Mr. Maidstone, and a shopman went to fetch him from behind. He came out into the public floor.
“I heard you were in want of a boy, sir,” said the baker, who carried himself as in the presence of a superior; and certainly fine clothes and a gold chain and ring did what they could to make the draper superior to the baker.
“Hm!” said Mr. Maidstone, looking with contempt at Clare.
“I rather liked the look of this poor boy, and ventured to bring him on approval,” continued the baker timidly. “He ain’t much to look at, I confess!”
“Hm!” said the draper again. “He don’t look promising!”
“He don’t. But I think he means performing,” said the baker, with a wan smile.
“Donnow, I’m sure! If he ‘appened to wash his face, I could tell better!”
Clare thought he had washed it pretty well that morning because of his cut, though he had, to be sure, done it without soap, and had been at rather dirty work since!
“He says he’s been too hungry to wash his face,” answered the baker.
“Didn’t ‘ave his ‘ot water in time, I suppose!—Will you answer for him, Mr. Ball?”
“I can’t, Mr. Maidstone—not one way or another. I simply was taken with him. I know nothing about him.”
Here one of the shopmen came up to his master, and said,
“I heard Mr. Ball’s own man yesterday accuse this very boy of taking a loaf from his cart.”
“Yesterday!” thought Clare; “it seems a week ago!”
“Oh! this is the boy, is it?” said the baker. “You see I didn’t know him! All the same, I don’t believe he took the loaf.”
“Indeed I didn’t, sir! Another boy took it who didn’t know better, and I took it from him, and was putting it back on the cart when the man turned round and saw me, and wouldn’t listen to a word I said. But a working-man believed me, and bought the loaf, and gave it between us.”
“A likely story!” said the draper.
“I’ve heard that much,” said the baker, “and I believe it. At least I have no reason to believe my man against him, Mr. Maidstone. That same night I discovered he had been cheating me to a merry tune. I discharged him this morning.”
“Well, he certainly don’t look a respectable boy,” said the draper, who naturally, being all surface himself, could read no deeper than clothes; “but I’m greatly in want of one to carry out parcels, and I don’t mind if I try him. If he do steal anything, he’ll be caught within the hour!”
“Oh, thank you, sir!” said Clare.
“You shall have sixpence a day,” Mr. Maidstone continued, “—not a penny more till I’m sure you’re an honest boy.”
“Thank you, sir,” iterated Clare. “Please may I run home first? I won’t be long. I ‘ain’t got any other clothes, but–”
“Hold your long tongue. Don’t let me hear it wagging in my establishment. Go and wash your face and hands.” Clare turned to the baker.
“Please, sir,” he said softly, “may I go back with you and get the piece of bread?”
“What! begging already!” cried Mr. Maidstone.
“No, no, sir,” interposed the baker. “I promised him a piece of bread. He did not ask for it.”
The good man was pleased at his success, and began to regard Clare with the favour that springs in the heart of him who has done a good turn to another through a third. Had he helped him out of his own pocket, he might not have been so much pleased. But there had been no loss, and there was no risk! He had beside shown his influence with a superior!
“I am so much obliged to you, sir!” said Clare as they went away together. “I cannot tell you how much!”
He was tempted to open his heart and reveal the fact that three people would live on the sixpence a day which the baker’s kindness had procured him, but prudence was fast coming frontward, and he saw that no one must know that they were in that house! If it were known, they would probably be turned out at once, which would go far to be fatal to them as a family. For, if he had to pay for lodgings, were it no more than the tramps paid Tommy’s grandmother, sixpence a day would not suffice for bare shelter. So he held his tongue.
“Thank me by minding Mr. Maidstone’s interests,” returned his benefactor. “If you don’t do well by him, the blame will come upon me.”
“I will be very careful, sir,” answered Clare, who was too full of honesty to think of being honest; he thought only of minding orders.
They reached the shop; the baker gave him a small loaf, and he hurried home with it The joy in his heart, spread over the days since he left the farm, would have given each a fair amount of gladness.
Taking heed that no one saw him, he darted through the passage to the well, got across it better this time, rushed over the wall like a cat, fell on the other side from the unsteadiness of his potsherds, rose and hurried into the house, with the feeble wail of his baby in his ears.
Chapter XXXI. An addition to the family
The door to the kitchen was open: Tommy must be in the garden again! When he reached the nursery, as he called it to himself, he found the baby as he had left her, but moaning and wailing piteously. She looked as if she had cried till she was worn out. He threw down the clothes to take her. A great rat sprang from the bed. On one of the tiny feet the long thin toes were bleeding and raw. The same instant arose a loud scampering and scuffling and squealing in the room. Clare’s heart quivered. He thought it was a whole army of rats. He was not a bit afraid of them himself, but assuredly they were not company for baby! Already they had smelt food in the house, and come in a swarm! What was to be done with the little one? If he stayed at home with her, she must die of hunger; if he left her alone, the rats would eat her! They had begun already! Oh, that wretch, Tommy! Into the water—but he should go!
I hope their friends will not take it ill that, all his life after, Clare felt less kindly disposed toward rats than toward the rest of the creatures of God.
But things were not nearly so bad as Clare thought: the scuffling came from quite another cause. It suddenly ceased, and a sharp scream followed. Clare turned with the baby in his arms. Almost at his feet, gazing up at him, the rat hanging limp from his jaws, stood the little castaway mongrel he had seen in the morning, his eyes flaming, and his tail wagging with wild homage and the delight of presenting the rat to one he would fain make his master.
“You darling!” cried Clare, and meant the dog this time, not the baby. The animal dropped the dead rat at his feet, and glared, and wagged, and looked hunger incarnate, but would not touch the rat until Clare told him to take it. Then he retired with it to a corner, and made a rapid meal of it.
He had seen Clare pass the second time, had doubtless noted that now he carried a loaf, and had followed him in humble hope. Clare was too much occupied with his own joy to perceive him, else he would certainly have given him a little peeling or two from the outside of the bread. But it was decreed that the dog should have the honour of rendering the first service. Clare was not to do all the benevolences.
What a happy day it had been for him! It was a day to be remembered for ever! He had work! he had sixpence a day! he had had a present of milk for the baby, and two presents of bread—one a small, and one a large loaf! And now here was a dog! A dog was more than many meals! The family was four now! A baby, and a dog to take care of the baby!—It was heavenly!
He made haste and gave his baby what milk and water was left. Then he washed her poor torn foot, wrapped it in a pillow-case, for he would not tear anything, and laid her in the bed. Next he cut a good big crust from the loaf and gave it to the dog, who ate it as if the rat were nowhere. The rest he put in a drawer. Then he washed his face and hands—as well as he could without soap. After that, he took the dog, talked to him a little, laid him on the bed beside the baby and talked to him again, telling him plainly, and impressing upon him, that his business was the care of the baby; that he must give himself up to her; that he must watch and tend, and, if needful, fight for the little one. When at length he left him, it was evident to Clare, by the solemnity of the dog’s face, that he understood his duty thoroughly.
Chapter XXXII. Shop and baby
Once clear of the well and the wall, Clare set off running like a gaze-hound. Such was the change produced in him by joy and the satisfaction of hope, that when he entered the shop, no one at first knew him. His face was as the face of an angel, and none the less beautiful that it shone above ragged garments. But Mr. Maidstone, the moment he saw him, and before he had time to recognize him, turned from the boy with dislike.
“What a fool the beggar looks!” he said to himself;—then aloud to one of the young men, “Hand over that parcel of sheets.—Here, you!—what’s your name?”
“Clare, sir.”
“I declare against it!” he rejoined, with a coarse laugh of pleasure at his own fancied wit. “I shall call you Jack!”
“Very well, sir!”
“Don’t you talk.—Here, Jack, take this parcel to Mrs. Trueman’s. You’ll see the address on it.—And look sharp.—You can read, can’t you?”
The people in the shop stood looking on, some pitifully, all curiously, for the parcel was of considerable size, and linen is heavy, while the boy looked pale and thin. But Clare was strong for his age, and present joy made up for past want. He scarcely looked at the parcel which the draper proceeded to lay on his shoulder, stooped a little as he felt its weight, heaved it a little to adjust its balance, and holding it in its place with one hand, started for the door, which the master himself held open for him.
“Please, sir, which way do I turn?” he asked.
“To the left,” answered Mr. Maidstone. “Ask your way as you go.”
Clare forgot that he had heard only the lady’s name. Her address was on the parcel, no doubt, but if he dropped it to look, he could not get it up again by himself. A little way on, therefore, meeting a boy about his own age returning from school, he asked him to be kind enough to read the address on his back and direct him. The boy read it aloud, but gave him false instructions for finding the place. Clare walked and walked until the weight became almost unendurable, and at last, though loath, concluded that the boy must have deceived him. He asked again, but this time of a lady. She took pains not only to tell him right, but to make him understand right: she was pleased with the tired gentle face that looked up from beneath the heavy burden. Perhaps she thought of the proud souls growing pure of their pride, in Dante’s Purgatorio. Following her directions, he needed no further questioning to find the house. But it was hours after the burden was gone from his shoulder before it was rid of the phantom of its weight.
His master rated him for having been so long, and would not permit him to explain his delay, ordering him to hold his tongue and not answer back; but the rest of his day’s work was lighter; there was no other heavy parcel to send out. There were so many smaller ones, however, that, by the time they were all delivered, he had gained something more than a general idea of how the streets lay, and was a weary wight when, with the four-pence his master hesitated to give him on the ground that he was doubtful of his character, he set out at last, walking soberly enough now, to spend it at Mr. Ball’s and the milk-shop. Of the former he bought a stale three-penny loaf, and the baker added a piece to make up the weight. Clare took this for liberality, and returned hearty thanks, which Mr. Ball, I am sorry to say, was not man enough to repudiate. The other penny he laid out on milk—but oh, how inferior it was to that the farmer’s wife had given him! The milk-woman, however, not ungraciously granted him the two matches he begged for.
On his way to baby, he almost hoped Tommy would not return: he would gladly be saved putting him in the water-butt!
He forgot him again as he drew near the nursery, and for a long while after he reached it. He found the infant and the dog lying as he had left them. The only sign that either had moved was the strange cleanness of the tiny gray face which Clare had not ventured to wash. It gave indubitable evidence that the dog had been licking it more than a little—probably every few minutes since he was left curate in charge.
And now Clare did with deliberation a thing for which his sensitive conscience not unfrequently reproached him afterward. His defence was, that he had hurt nobody, and had kept baby alive by it. Having in his mind revolved the matter many a time that day, he got some sticks together from the garden, and with one of the precious matches lighted a small fire of coals that were not his own, and for which he could merely hope one day to restore amends. But baby! Baby was more than coals! He filled a rusty kettle with water, and while it was growing hot on the fire, such was his fear lest the smoke should betray them, that he ran out every other minute to see how much was coming from the chimney.
While the fire was busy heating the water, he was busier preparing a bottle for baby—making a hole through the cork of a phial, putting the broken stem of a clean tobacco pipe he had found in the street through the hole, tying a small lump of cotton wool over the end of the pipe-stem, and covering that with a piece of his pocket-handkerchief, carefully washed with the brown Windsor soap, his mother’s last present. For the day held yet another gladness: in looking for a kettle he had found the soap—which probably the rat had carried away and hidden before finding baby. Through the pipe-stem and the wool and the handkerchief he could without difficulty draw water, and hoped therefore baby would succeed in drawing her supper. As soon as the water was warm he mixed some with the milk, but not so much this time, and put the mixture in the bottle. To his delight, the baby sucked it up splendidly. The bottle, thought out between the heavy linen and the hard street, was a success! Labour is not unfriendly to thought, as the annals of weaving and shoe-making witness.
And now at last was Clare equipped for a great attempt: he was going to wash the baby! He was glad that disrespectful Tommy was not in the house. With a basin of warm water and his precious piece of soap he set about it, and taking much pains washed his treasure perfectly clean. It was a state of bliss in which, up to that moment, I presume, she had never been since her birth. In the process he handled her, if not with all the skill of a nurse, yet with the tenderness of a mother. His chief anxiety was not to hurt, more than could not be helped, the poor little rat-eaten toes. He felt he must wash them, but when in the process she whimpered, it went all through the calves of his legs. When the happy but solicitous task was over, during which the infant had shown the submission of great weakness, he wrapped her in another blanket, and laid her down again. Soothed and comfortable, as probably never soothed or comfortable before, she went to sleep.
As soon as she was out of his arms, he took a piece of bread, and with some of the hot water made a little sop for the dog, which the small hero, whose four legs carried such a long barrel of starvation, ate with undisguised pleasure and thankfulness. For his own supper Clare preferred his bread dry, following it with a fine draught of water from the well.
Then, and not till then, returned the thought—what had Tommy done with himself? Left to himself he was sure to go stealing! He might have been taken in the act! Clare could hardly believe he had actually run away from him. On the other hand, he had left the baby, and knew that if he returned he would be put in the water-butt! He might have come to the conclusion that he could do better without Clare, who would not let him steal! It was clear he did not like taking his share in the work of the family, and looking after the baby! Had he been anything of a true boy, Clare would have taken his bread in his hand and gone to look for him; being such as he was, he did not think it necessary. He felt bound to do his best for him if he came back, but he did not feel bound to leave the baby and roam the country to find a boy with whom baby’s life would be in constant danger.