a bit. My heart gave a terrible leap when I
saw her face — gray, with a blue look about
her lips. I ran to her, frightened, and
helped her to a chair. She sat there quite
still, not answering me at first, and then
she said in a dull voice, "He's dead. He's
dead. He was dead when I got there. It
can't be true. He's dead."
My father had died suddenly the night before.
There was some confusion about the burial
arrangements. My mother seemed dazed and there
was no money. People came and talked with her
and she did not seem to understand them, but
it seemed that the music-hall people were
making the arrangements, and then that some-
body objected to that and undertook them —
I gathered that it was my father's sister.
...
Then one day my mother and I dressed very
carefully and went to the funeral. It was a
foggy cold day, late in autumn, with drops of
rain falling slowly. At one end of the grave
stood a thin angular woman with her lips
pressed together tight, and my mother and I
stood at the other. My mother held her head
proudly and did not shed a tear, but her hand
in mine was cold. There were several carriages
and people from the music-halls with a few
flowers. When the coffin was lowered into the
grave the thin hard-looking woman dropped
some flowers on it. My mother looked at her
and she looked at my mother coldly. We had
no flowers, but my mother took from my pocket
a little handkerchief of hers which she had
given me — a little handkerchief with an em-
broidered border which I prized very much —
and put it in my hand.
62
"You can put that in," she said, and I dropped
it into the open grave and watched it flutter
down. My heart was almost breaking with grief
for my mother.
Then we went back to our cold room alone, and
my mother went at once at her sewing.
We had no more talks or study, and she did
not seem to hear when I read aloud, so after
a time I stopped. She sat silently, all day,
sewing at the blouses, and I hunted for errands
in the streets, and made the stew, and tried to
get her to eat some. She said she did not care
to eat because her head ached, she would rather
I had it.
At this time I looked everywhere for work, but
could not seem to find any. I was so small and
thin that people thought I could not do it well.
I picked up a few pennies here and there and
learned the ways of the streets, and wished I
were bigger and not so shabby, so that I might
go on the stage. I was sure I could make money
there.
63
Then one day I came home and found my mother
lying on the floor beside her chair, gray and
cold, with blue lips. I could not rouse her.
I screamed on the staircase for the landlady,
and she came up and we worked over my mother
together. After a while the parish doctor came —
a busy bustling little man. He pursed up his
lips and shook his head. "Infirmary case!" he
said briskly. "Looks bad!"
A wagon came and they took my mother away,
still gray and cold. She had not moved or
spoken to me. When she had gone I sat at the
top of the staircase in blank hopeless mis-
ery, thinking of the grave in which they had
buried my father, and that I would never see
my mother again. After a while the landlady
came up with a broom.
"Well, well," she said crossly. "I 'ave my
room to let again. It's a 'ard world. I'm a
poor woman, you know; you can't stay 'ere."
64
"Yes, I know. I have other lodgings," I said
importantly, so that she should not see how
miserable I was. I went into the room with
her and looked around. I had nothing to take
away but a comb and a collar. I put them in
my pocket and left.
"When I was on the stairs the landlady called
to me from the top.
"You know I'd like to keep you 'ere if I
could," she said.
"Yes, I know. But I can look out for myself,"
I said. I put my hands in my pockets and
whistled to show her I needed no pity, and
went out into the street.
CHAPTER VIII
In which I take lodgings in a barrel and find
that I have invaded a home; learn something
about crime ; and forget that I was to share
in nefarious profits.
IT WAS a cold wet evening in the beginning of
winter and the rain struck chilly through my
thin clothes as I walked, wondering where I
could find shelter. Probably in America a
homeless, hungry child of eleven would find
friends, but in London I was only one of thou-
sands as wretched as I. Such poverty is so
common there that people are accustomed to it
and pass by with their minds full of their own
concerns.
I wandered aimlessly about for a long time,
watching the gas lamps flare feebly, one by
one, and make long, glimmering marks on the
wet pavements. I could not whistle any more,
there was such an ache in my throat at the
thought of my mother, and I was so miserable
and forlorn. At last I found an overturned
barrel with a little damp straw in it in an
alley, and I curled up in it and lay there
hearing the raindrops muffled, hollow, beating
above me.
66
After a while I must have fallen into a dose,
for I was awakened by something crawling into
the barrel. I thought it was a dog and put out
my hand, half afraid and half glad of the
company. It was another boy.
"Hello, 'ere!" he said. "Wot are you up to?
This 'ere is my 'ome!"
"I don't care, I'm here and I'm going to stay
here," I said. "Say what you like about that!"
"Ho, you are, are you? I'll punch your bloomin'
'ead off first!" he answered.
"I won't go, not for twenty punchings," I
said doggedly. There was not room to fight
in the barrel and I was sure he could not get
me out, because I knew by the feel of his wet
shoulder in the dark that he was smaller than I.
...
" 'Ere's a pretty go, a man carn't 'ave 'is
own 'ome!" lie said bitterly, after we had sat
breathing bard for a minute. "Wot's yer
name ?"
I told him who I was and how I had come there
and promised to leave in the morning. He was
much interested in hearing that I had a mother
and asked what she was like, assuming at once
a condescending air. He had never had a mother,
he said importantly ; he knew his way about,
he did.
67
"You can stye 'ere if you like," he said
grandly. " 'Ave you 'ad grub?"
/> I told him no, that I had not been able to find
anything to eat.
" Hi know, the cats get to it first," he said.
"But hi'ave my wye, hi'ave. 'Ere's 'arf a bun
for yer." He put into my hand a damp bit of
bread and I ate it gratefully while he talked.
His name was Snooper, he said, and he could
show me about — how to snatch purses and
dodge the bobbies and have larks.
At last we went to sleep, curled in the damp
straw, with an understanding that the next
day we should forage together for purses.
Next morning I was awakened by a terrific
noise, and crawling from the barrel found
Snooper standing outside kicking it. He was
a wizened, small child, not more than nine
years old, wearing a ragged coat too small
for him and a man's trousers torn off at the
knee. He wore his cap on one side with a
jaunty air and whistled, his hands in the
rents in his coat.
68
We started off together to Covent Garden
market, where he said we would find good pick-
ings, and seeing the knowing cock of his eye
and his gay manner, I too managed to whistle
and walk with a swagger, though my heart was
still heavy with missing my mother, and I was
very hungry. It was early when we came to
the market, but the place was crowded with
farmers' wagons and horses and costers' carts.
We wandered about and Snooper, with great
enterprise, filled the front of his blouse with
raw eggs, which we ate in a near-by alley.
When we returned to the market it was begin-
ning to fill with purchasers. Snooper, with his
finger at his nose and a cock of his eye, pointed
out one of them, a fat woman in black, carry-
ing a big market basket on her arm and clutch-
ing a fat leather purse.
"When I glom the leather you hupset the heggs
at 'er feet," he said to me in a hoarse
whisper, and we edged closer to her through
the crowd. She was standing before a vegetable
stand with a bunch of herbs in her hand arguing
with the farmer.
69
"Thrippence," said the farmer firmly.
"Tuppence ha'penny, not a farthing more,"
she said.. "It's robbery, that's wot it is." We
edged closer.
"Worth fourpence by rights," said the
farmer. "Take 'em for thrippence or leave
'em."
"Tuppence ha'penny," she insisted. "They're
stale. Tuppence ha' — ow!" Snooper had
snatched her purse.
With a yell she leaped after him, stumbled
and fell in the crate of eggs. The farmer, rush-
ing from behind his stand, overturned the
pumpkins, which bounced among the crowd. There
was great uproar. I fled.
Diving under wagons and dodging among the
horses and people, I had gone half-way down
the big market when I encountered a perspiring,
swearing farmer, who was trying to unload his
wagon and hold his horse at the same time.
The beast was plunging and rearing.
"Hi, lad!" the farmer called to me. "Want
a ha'penny? 'Old 'is bloomin' 'ead for me and
I'll gi' you one."
I gladly seized the halter, and a few minutes
later I had the halfpenny and a carrot as well.
I liked the market, with all its noise and bustle
and the excitement of seeing new things, and
while I wandered through the crowd munching
my carrot I decided to stay there. Snooper had
said he would wait for me at the barrel and
divide the contents of the purse, but among all
the interesting sights and sounds of the market
I forgot that, and although I looked for him
several days later, I never saw him again.
70
Before noon I had earned another ha'penny
and an apple, only partly spoiled. I had not
eaten an apple since the old days when I was
very little and mother used to bring home treats
to Sidney and me. The loneliness of my mother
still lay at the bottom of my heart like a dull
ache, and I determined to take the apple to her.
The parish doctor who had taken her away had
said I might be able to see her at the hospital
that afternoon.
I held the apple carefully all the long way
through the London streets to the hospital. It
was a big bare place, with very busy people
coming and going, and for a long time I could
not get anyone to tell me where my mother
was. At last a woman all in black, with a wide,
flaring white cap on her head, took my hand
and led me past a great many beds with moan-
ing people in them to the one where my mother
lay.
71
They had cut away all her beautiful hair,
and her small bare head looked strange upon
the pillow. Her eyes were wide open and
bright, but they frightened me, and though she
was talking rapidly to herself, she did not
say a word to me when I stood beside her and
showed her the apple.
"Mother, mother, see, I've brought you
something," I said, but she only turned her
head restlessly on the pillow.
"One more. Are the buttonholes finished?
Nine more to make the dozen, and then a dozen
more, and that's a half-crown, and thread costs
so much," she went on to herself.
"What's the matter with my mother? Why don't
she speak to me?" I asked the woman in the
white cap.
"It's the fever — she's out of her head, poor
thing," the woman said.
"Won't she ever be able to speak to me?" I
asked her, and something in the way she shook
her head and said she didn't know made me
cold all over. Then she led me out again and
I went back to Covent Garden market.
72
CHAPTER IX
In which I trick a Covent Garden coster ;
get glorious news from Sidney ; and make
another sad trip to the hospital.
I SLEPT that night in Covent Garden market,
cuddled close to the back of a coster's donkey,
which was warm, but caused me great alarm at
intervals by wheezing loudly and making as if
to turn over upon me. Then I scurried out of
the straw and wandered about in the empty,
echoing place, feeling very small in the vast
dimness among the shadows, until the donkey
was quiet again and I could creep back beside
him.
In the strange eery chill of the morning,
while the gas lamps in the streets were still
showing dimly through in the fog, the farmers
began to come in with their wagons. I hurried
about in the darkness of the market, asking
each one if I might help him unload the
vegetables or hold the horse for a halfpenny,
or even for a carrot or raw potato. The horses
were large, heavy-footed beasts and their
broad, huge-muscled chests towered over m
e
as I held the halters, while every toss of their
heads lifted me from the floor. But I held on
bravely, very hungry, thinking of the bun I
might buy with a halfpenny, and indeed, before
the market was light I had two halfpennies and
a small assortment of vegetables.
73
I ate these, and then I went out into the
dirty, cobbled streets about the market where
the heavy vans were already beginning to
rumble by and found an eating-house where,
for my penny, I bought not only two buns, but
a big mug of very hot coffee as well. As I sat
on a stool drinking and taking bites from the
buns, the waiter leaned his elbows on the
counter and asked me where I had come from
and who I was.
"I am an actor," I told him, for this idea
was always in the back of my mind. He laughed
heartily at this, and I swallowed the rest of
the coffee in a hurry, scalding my throat, for
I resented his laughing and wished to get away.
I put the bits of bun in my pocket and slipped
down from the stool, but before I had reached
the door the man came around the counter with
another bun in his hand.
74
" 'Ere, me pore lad, tike this," he said kindly
enough, putting the bun in my pocket. I let
him do it, feeling confused and resentful, and
ate the bun later, sitting on a box in the market,
but I never went back to that eating-house again.
I hated to be pitied.
All the months I lived in Covent Garden
market I was hungry. I ate eagerly every bit
of spoiled fruit or partly decayed vegetable I
could find, and sometimes the farmers, amused
by my dancing for them while they were eat-
ing, would give me crusts from their baskets,
but my stomach was never satisfied. The
people who came to Covent Garden market were
poor, and halfpennies were scarce, though I
hunted all day long for small jobs that I
could do. Very early in the morning when the
farmers first came in was the best time to find
them, but sometimes days went by when all I
could earn was raw vegetables.
After a time, when the market people knew
me, I had permission to sleep in one of the
coster's carts, with a sack over me for warmth,
but at first I curled up in the straw beside
the donkeys. One of the donkeys in particular
was quite sleek and fat. His owner took great
pride in him, feeding him every day a large
portion of carrots, and fondly swearing at him
while he ate them. I used to look enviously at
that donkey and finally I evolved a great plan.
Charlie Chaplins Own Story Page 5
