bered upon the tail of the wagon and dived
beneath the burlap which covered the load.
47
There, lying in the dimness among green
vegetables, I consumed the brandy-snaps to the
last crumb, listening to the farmer's bewildered
expostulation with the honest dog, which con-
tinued barking at the wagon until the farmer
dismounted and pursued him down the road with
his whip. Then, as the wagon went onward again,
I ate a number of radishes and a raw potato,
and experimentally bit the squash and marrows
until, with a contented stomach, I curled up
among the lettuce and fell asleep.
I was awakened by the stopping of the wagon
and heard the farmer, busied with the horse,
exchanging jovial greetings with other gruff
voices. Undecided what to do, I lay still
until I heard him speaking loudly almost over
my head.
"I lay these are the finest vegetables ever
come to market," he said proudly, and tore the
burlap covering from me. I sat up.
48
There never was a more surprised farmer.
He stood open-mouthed. While the men around
him laughed, I scrambled from among the
vegetables over the wagon's edge and dived
into the uproar of Covent Garden market.
Horses, donkeys, wagons, men, women and
children crowded the place ; on every side were
piles of vegetables and bright fruit, and there
was a clamor of laughter, shouts and the cries
of hucksters.
I ran about, happy in all the confusion, and
glad to feel London about me again. After
a while I met a man who gave me a penny for
helping him unload his vegetables, and I wan-
dered out of the market and down the dirty
cobbled streets outside. There was a barrel
organ which I followed for a time, and then I
met a hokey-pokey man and spent my penny for
his sweets. I felt as rich as a lord as I sat
on the curb in the sunshine eating them.
CHAPTER VI
In which I come home again; accustom myself
to going to bed hungry ; and have an unexpected
encounter with my father.
AS I sat there in the sunshine eating the hokey-
pokey for which I had spent my only penny all
my old dreams came back to me. I imagined my-
self rich and famous, bowing before cheering
audiences, wearing a tall silk hat and a cane,
and buying my mother a silk dress.
It was a rough dirty street, swarming with
ragged children and full of heavy vans driven
by swearing drivers, but reality did not inter-
fere with my dreams. It never has.
When I had licked the last sweetness of the
cream from my fingers I rose and walked with
a haughty swagger, raising my eyebrows dis-
dainfully. It was difficult to look down on
a person whose waistband was on a level with
my eyes, but I managed it. Then I amused
myself walking behind people and imitating
them, until I heard a barrel organ and followed
it, dancing with the other children.
I was adventurous and gay that morning, with
no cares in the world. What did it matter that
I had no food nor shelter nor friends in all
London? I did not think of that.
50
It was late that afternoon, and I had wan-
dered a long way, when my increasing hunger
began to damp my spirits. My feet dragged
before the windows of pastry shops, and the
fruit on the street stands tempted me. When
it grew dark and the gas lamps were lighted
I felt very little and lonely again and longed
to cry. The streets were crowded with people
hurrying home — women with market baskets,
and rough men, but no one noticed me. I was
only a ragged hungry child, and there are
thousands of them in London.
At last I stood forlorn before a baker's win-
dow looking at the cakes and buns inside and
wanting them with all my heart. I stood there
a long time, jostled by people going by, till
a woman stopped beside me to look in also.
Something about her skirt and shoes gave me
a wild hope, and I looked up. It was my
mother. My mother!
I clasped her about the knees and screamed.
Then I felt her arms tight about me and she
was kneeling beside me while we sobbed to-
gether. My mother, my dear mother, at last.
She had not gone away ; she had not forgotten
me ; she wanted me as much as ever. I clutched
her, shaking and sobbing, as if I could never
let go, until, little as she was, she picked me
up and carried me home.
51
She was not living in actors' lodgings any
more; she had a poor little room in Palermo
Terrace, Kensington — a room little better than
the dreadful one where Mr. Hawkins had kept
me — but it was like Heaven to me to be there,
with my mother. I clung to her a long time,
hysterical when she tried to take my arms from
her neck, and we laughed and cried together
while she petted and comforted me.
Neither my father nor Sidney was there, nor
was there any sign that they were expected.
When I was quieter, sitting on her lap eating
a bun and tea, my mother said that they were
gone. On the day I ran away with Mr. Hawkins,
Sidney had gone to sea. My mother had a note
from him, telling her about his grand place
as steward's assistant on a boat going to
Africa, and promising to bring her back
beautiful presents and money, she had not
heard from him again.
52
She undressed me with her tiny hands that
reminded me of birds' claws and tucked me
in bed, just as I had dreamed so often, with
her soft hair falling over the pillow, and I
went to sleep, my heart almost bursting with
happiness at being home again.
When I woke in the morning, so early that it
was not yet light, I saw her sitting beside a
lamp, sewing. All my memories of my mother for
weeks after that are pictures of her sitting
sewing, her sweet thin face, with dark circles
under the eyes, bending over the work and her
fingers flying. She was making blouses for
a factory. There were always piles of them,
finished and unfinished, on the table and bed,
and she never stopped work on them. When I
awoke in the night I saw her in the lamp-
light working, and all day long she worked,
barely stopping to eat. When she had a great
pile of them finished I took them to the
factory and brought back more for her to do.
...
I used to climb the long dark stairs to the
factory loft with the bundle and watch the
man who took the blouses and examined them,
hating him. He was a sleek fat man, with
rings on his fingers, and he used to
point out
every stitch which was not just right, and claim
there were spots on the blouses, though there
were none at all, and then he kept out some
of the money. My mother got half a crown
— about fifty cents — for a dozen blouses, and
by working all week without stopping a minute
she earned about five shillings.
53
I would keep out three and six for the rent
money, and then go bargaining at the market
stalls for food. A pound of two-penny bits
of meat, with a pennyworth of pot-herbs, made
us a stew, and sometimes I got a bit of stale
bread besides. Then I came panting up the
stairs to my mother with the bundles, and gave
her the rent money, warm from being clutched
in my hand, and she would laugh and kiss me
and say how well I had done.
The stew had to last us the week, and I know
now that often my mother made only a pre-
tense of eating, so that there would be more
for me. I was always hungry in those days
and used to dream of cakes and buns, but we
were very happy together. Sometimes I would
do an errand for some one and get a penny,
and then I proudly brought it to her and we
would have buns, or even a herring, for supper.
54
But she was uneasy when I was away, and
wanted me to sit by her and read aloud while
she worked, so I did not often leave her.
...
At this time she was passionately eager to
have me study. She had taught me to read
before, and now while she sewed she talked to
me about history and other countries and peo-
ples, and showed me how to draw maps of the
world, and we played little spelling games.
She had me read the Bible aloud to her for
hours at a time. It was the only book we had.
But most of all she taught me acting. I had
a great gift for mimicry, and she had me mimic
every one I saw in the streets. I loved it and
used to make up little plays and act them for
her.
Remembering the first time I had danced on the
stage, and the money I made, I wanted to go back
to the music-halls, but she roused almost into a
fury at the idea. All her most painful memories
were of the music-hall life, and she passion-
ately made me promise never to act in one. I
could not have done it in any case, because
at this time there was a law forbidding child-
ren under fourteen to work on the stage. I was
only eleven.
55
My mother grew thinner and more tired. She
complained sometimes of a pain in her head,
and her beautiful hair, like long, fine silk,
had threads in it that shone like silver. I
loved to watch them when she brushed it at
night. But she was always gay and sweet with
me, and I adored her. I had no life at all
separate from her; all my dreams and hopes
were of making her happy and buying her
beautiful things, and taking her to a place
in the country where she could rest and do
nothing but play with me.
Then one day while I was coming from the
factory with the money clutched in my hand I
passed a barroom. I had never been in one,
or cared to, but something seemed to attract
me to this one. I stood before the swinging
doors, thinking with a fluttering heart of
going in, and wanting to, and not wanting to,
both at once. Finally I timidly pushed the
doors apart and looked in. There, at a little
table, drinking with some men, I saw my father.
CHAPTER VII
In which I see my father for the last time; learn
that real tragedy is silent; and go out into the
world to make my own way.
IT GAVE me a great shock to recognize my father
in the man who sat there drinking. I quivered
as I looked at him. He was changed ; his dark
handsome face had reddened and looked swollen
and flabby; his eyes were bloodshot. He did
not see me at first. The man with him appeared
to be urging something, and my father cried
with an oath that he would not. I caught the
word "hospital," and saw his hands shake as
he pounded the table. Then some one coming
in pushed me into the room and he saw me.
...
"Hello, here's the little tike " he cried.
"Blast me, he hasn't grown an inch! Here,
come here to your daddy!"
I went over to the table and stood looking at
him, the bundles under my arm. He was very
boisterous, calling all the men in the bar to
see me, and boasting of how I could dance.
He swung me to the table-top, crying, "Come,
my beauty, show 'em what you can do!" and
they began to clap. I danced for them, and
then I mimicked them one by one until the
room was in an uproar.
57
"He's his father's own son!" they cried.
"Little Charlie Chaplin!"
My father was very proud of me and kept
me at it until I was tired, and, remembering
that my mother was waiting, I climbed down
from the table and picked up my bundles.
...
"Going without a drink?" cried my father,
and offered me his glass, but I pushed it away.
I did not like the smell of it. My father seemed
hurt and angry ; he drained the glass and put it
on the table with a slam, and I saw again how
his hand shook.
"Just like his mother!" he said bitterly.
"Despises his own father! I'm not good enough
for his little highness. She's taught him that."
...
"It's not true!" I cried, enraged. "My
mother never says a word about you!"
"Oh, don't she?" he sneered, but his lip shook.
He stared moodily at the table, drumming on it
with his fingers, and then he turned to me
with a dreary look in his eyes. "Well, then,
come home with me," he said. "I'll take good
care of you and give you a fine start in the
profession and clothes that aren't rags. I
can do that, yet. I'm not done for, whatever
they say. Come, will you do it?"
58
"No," I said. "I want to stay with my mother."
...
"We'll see about that!" he shouted angrily. He
seized my arm and shook it. "You'll come with
me, if I say so. You hear?" He glared at me
and I looked back at him, frightened.
"You hurt! I want to go home to my mother!"
I cried.
He held me a minute and then wearily pushed me
away. "All right, go and be damned !" he said.
"It's a hell of a life." Then, with a sudden
motion, he caught my hand and put a sovereign
in it. I dodged through the crowd and escaped
into the street, eager to take the money to my
mother.
The next week, as we were sitting together, my
mother sewing and I painfully spelling out
long words in my reading, the landlady came
puffing up the stairs and knocked at the door.
...
"Your mister's took bad and in the hospital,"
she said to my mother. "He's sent a message 'e
wants to see you."
59
My mother turned whiter and rose in a hurry
to put on her bonnet, while I picked the bits
of thread from her gown. Then she kissed me,
told me to mind the stew and not go out till
she came back, and went away.
There seemed a horror left in the room when
she was gone. I could not keep my thoughts
from that word "hospital," which all the poor
of London fear and dread. I wandered about the
room, looking from the window at the starving
cats in the court and at the brick wall oppo-
site till it grew dark. Then I ate a small
plate of the stew, leaving some for my mother,
and went miserably to bed.
Late in the night my mother woke me and I saw
that her face was shining almost as it used
to do.
"Oh, my dear!" she cried, hugging me. "It's
all right. We are going to be so happy again!"
She rocked back and forth, hugging me, and
her hair tumbled down about us. Then she
told me that when my father was well we were
all going to leave London and go far away
together — to Australia. We were going to
have a farm there, in the country, with cows,
and I was to have milk and cream and eggs,
and she would make butter, and my father
would never drink again. She poured it all
out, in little bursts of talk, and her warm
tears fell on my face.
60
When at last she left me to brush out her hair
she hummed a little song and smiled at herself
in the tiny mirror.
"I wish my hair was all brown as it used to be,"
she said. "It hurt him so to see it white. I
will get fat in the country. Do you remember
how handsome your father was and how jolly?
Oh, won't it be fun?" After she had put out the
light we lay a long time in the dark talking,
and she told me tales of the pleasant times
they had when I was little and asked if I
remembered them.
After that my mother went every day to the
hospital. She did not sew any more, and she
bought bunches of flowers and fruit for my
father and cakes for me. At night, when she
tucked me in, her face was bright with hope,
and hearing her laugh, I remembered how sel-
dom she had done it lately. We were both
very happy.
61
Then one day she came in slowly, stumbling'
Charlie Chaplins Own Story Page 4
