FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127  
128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   >>   >|  
en we reached the common the child should be called 'Deliverance.' I have been told that this sounds like the name of a new ironclad, and perhaps it would have done as well for one as for the other. The tents were much of a character--some kind of stitched-together rags thrown over sticks. Our visit was made on a fine day, when it was not particularly cold, and the first tent we came to had been opened at the top. We looked over (these tents are only about five feet high), and beheld six children, the eldest being a girl of about eight or ten. The father was anywhere to suit the imagination, and the mother was away hawking. These children, sitting on the ground with a fire in the middle of them, were making clothes-pegs. The process seemed simple. The sticks are chopped into the necessary lengths and put into a pan of hot water. This I suppose swells the wood and loosens the bark. A child on the other side takes out the sticks as they are done and bites off the bark with its teeth. Then there is a boy who puts tin round them, and so the work goes on. When the day is done they look for the mother coming home from hawking with anything she may have picked up. When they have devoured such scraps and pickings as are brought, they lie down where they have worked and as they are, and go to sleep. It is a wonderful and mysterious arrangement of Providence that they can sleep. They have only a rag between them and the snow. A good wind would blow their homes over the trees. I do not wish to make any particularly violent remarks, but I should like some of the comfortable clergymen of your neighbourhood, when they have done buying their toys and presents for young friends at Christmas, to walk to Mitcham Common and see how the children are there. They would then find out what humbugs they are, and how it is they do the work of the Master. One tent is very much like another. We visited about half-a-dozen, and we then went to name the child. We stayed in this tent for about ten minutes. It was inhabited by two families, numbering in all about twenty. I talked a little time with the woman lying on the ground, and she uncovered the baby to show it to me. I do not know whether it is a boy or a girl, but 'Deliverance' will do for either one or the other. She asked me to write the name on a piece of paper, and I did so. With a few words, as jolly as we could make them, we crawled out, thanks and blessings following
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127  
128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

sticks

 
children
 

ground

 
mother
 
Deliverance
 

hawking

 

buying

 

neighbourhood

 
Master
 
presents

humbugs
 

Mitcham

 

Common

 

clergymen

 

friends

 

Christmas

 

remarks

 

Providence

 
stitched
 
wonderful

mysterious

 

arrangement

 

character

 

violent

 

comfortable

 

visited

 
crawled
 
blessings
 

stayed

 
minutes

inhabited

 
families
 

uncovered

 
talked
 
numbering
 

twenty

 
making
 

clothes

 

process

 
middle

sitting

 

simple

 

lengths

 

chopped

 

beheld

 

opened

 
looked
 

eldest

 

father

 

imagination