James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

“ You’ re a nice article to read prayers to!”

But Doctor Flinders was more surprised than anybody.

“Hey-day, young fellow!” exclaimed he; “you never mean to tell us that you’ve weathered it through!”

“Yes, sir,” said Mrs. Dipple; “he’s cheated the worms, as the saying is.”

With that the doctor felt my pulse, and had a good look at me.

“You are right, ma’am,” said he, laughing, and patting my cheek; “upon my life, I believe that he has. It is wonderful. Last night I would have backed a penny rushlight against his life; and now, I’ll undertake to say that he has at least as good a chance of living as of kicking the bucket. He’ll do, ma’am. I’ll warrant we have him hearty and on his legs again before his hair grows long enough to need cutting.”

It was the last part only of Doctor Flinder’s speech that caused me surprise. What he had said about my chances of living caused me no amazement; for, as before observed, I never once thought that I was in danger of dying. What did astonish me was his observation on the probability of my being set up hearty and on my legs before the time when my hair needed cutting. I have not before had occasion to mention it; but since I had been an inmate of the workhouse, my hair had been cut, and my head shaven as smooth as a pumpkin. Why, it would be ever so many weeks before my hair could grow long enough for cutting; and shouldn’t I be well before that? Doctor Flinders must make a mistake.

So he did; but, what was worse, so did I. My hair grew but slowly; but I was not hearty and well by the time it wanted shearing. To be sure, the rules of the workhouse at which I was staying were particularly stringent as regarded boys’ heads, and didn’t allow of the hair growing an eighth of an inch longer than the scissors could be made to bite at; still, starting with no hair at all, and the weather being cold, the remainder of October and the whole of November passed before my crop infringed the workhouse laws; nevertheless, the barber had to come to me, in consequence of my being still too weak to go to the barber.

Unfortunately, too, my illness did not terminate with the fever. Indeed, as far as feeling miserable and in pain goes, I may truthfully say that my real illness began just about that time when Doctor Flinders prophesied that I should be hearty and on my legs. True, I was on my legs, in as far as I was compelled to get up and dress myself, and walk about the ward. But if any one imagined that I was “hearty,” they never laboured under a more perfect delusion. As regards feeding, I was hearty enough. I was more than hearty—I was wolfish, and any day could have eaten four times as much as the stingy dietary scale awarded me, which, of course, was a certain sign that my health was mending. But if I could have had my choice, I would sooner have had the fever all along, because then I should have been allowed to lie snug in bed, and been waited on, which was ever so much better than being neither up nor down, as one may say, and setting my sore bones on hard forms and the sharp edges of bedsteads, and being in everybody’s way; and having this week my feet so swollen that I couldn’t get my shoes on; and next week the ear-ache; and the week after, bad eyes, so that I had to wear a great green shade over them; and all the while feeling snappish and being snapped at, and getting the creeps every time the ward-room door swung open—all of which I suffered, and a great deal more, which, though it would appear foolish were it written down, was dreadfully hard to bear, and made me sick and tired of the workhouse, and longing for the time when I should be well, and they would give me my clothes and let me go.

For, without doubt, that was what I expected they would do. I thought it likely that they might make up what I was short of, and give me a shirt and a cap, and perhaps a pair of boots—indeed, I very much wished that they might help me so far; and that when I desired it, I had only to say to them, “I’m very much obliged to you for curing me, and now I think I’ll go,” and they would open the door and let me go. Where I should go, seemed just as much a matter of course,—back to the dark arches; back to Mouldy and Ripston, whom I longed to see again, and who, I had no doubt, would be delighted to see me! It might be supposed that, having enjoyed such a long spell of comfortable feeding and lodging, I should not be able to think of being obliged to return to my market and dark-arches life without dread. Nothing of the sort; I only thought of the jolly larks we used to have, and how we used to rove about, earning our money and spending it just how we pleased. Besides, what was the world to me without Mouldy and Ripston?—an empty world, with not a single soul to speak to, or make myself at home with. Of course, there was Fryingpan Alley; but Fryingpan Alley was now cut altogether out of my world, and might as well have been in the moon, as far as I was concerned.

Only that I was so very sure in my own mind as to what I should do, I might have found out the true state of the case several weeks before I did; for in the same ward with myself were other boys who had lived nearly all their lives in the workhouse, and knew all its ways. They were a foolish sort of boys, though; and I never talked to them much—never about my own affairs. That was my secret. The master himself knew no other than that I was an orphan, and hadn’t a friend in the world, (as the carman had told him;) and it wasn’t likely I was going to let out anything to the boys which might lead to my father being sent for.

At last, there came a day—it was in February, and the snow was lying on the ground pretty thick—when Dr. Flinders came round, and ordered myself and another boy named Biles, who had been sent up to be cured of the scarlatina, to be discharged from the sick ward on the following day. When the doctor was gone, Biles said to me—

“Let’s see, Smithfield, you’re an orphan, ain’t you?”

“I’m a orphan,” I replied.

“Then war-orks to you!” said Biles, grinning.

“What do you mean? Why war’orks to me?”

“Stop till you gets to Stratford, and then they’ll show you,” answered Biles; “all orphans goes to Stratford, don’t you know? What with the walloping, and the skilly, and the blackhole, it’s a awful place. I know a boy—a orphan, just like you—wot they killed.”

“What did they kill him for?”

“’Cos they caught him climbin’ over the high wall, with the spikes a-top, tryin’ to get away,” replied Biles. “At least, when I say they killed him, I on’y tell you what everybody says. They caught him a-gettin’ over, and they pulled him down and shut him in the dark hole; he was never seen any more! What d’yer think of that?”

“I think he was a jolly fool for goin’ to Stratford,” said I.

“He didn’t go; they took him in the conwayance—like they’ll take you,” answered Biles.

“No, they won’t,” said I; “let them go to Stratford that’s got a mind to. When the master comes round by and by, I shall ask him to give me my own clothes, and let me out to go where I like.”

“That’s right!” grinned Biles; “you ask him; he’s sure to do it, and I dessay he’ll give you a tanner to pay your omblibust!”

But I didn’t mind what Biles said. I always thought he was a fool, and now I was sure of it. Was it likely, since I had had so much trouble in getting into the workhouse, that they would mind my going out? It stood to reason that they would be very glad to get rid of me.

The master went through the wards every night at nine, to see that everybody was a-bed. When he came through ours that night, and was near my bed, I called him. Everybody in the ward lifted his head off his bolster and stared with surprise. I didn’t know what a daring thing I had done. The master could hardly believe his ears.