Charles Dickens' Children Stories Part 8

After they had gone a little way the cart stopped, and Peggotty came running up, with a parcel of cakes and a purse for David. After giving him a good hug, she ran off.

Davy found three bright s.h.i.+llings in the purse, and two half-crowns wrapped in paper on which was written, in his mother's hand--"For Davy.

With my love."

Davy shared his cakes with the carrier, who asked if Peggotty made them, and David told him yes, she did all their cooking. The carrier looked thoughtful, and then asked David if he would send a message to Peggotty from him. David agreed, and the message was "Barkis is willing." While David was waiting for the coach at Yarmouth, he wrote to Peggotty:

MY DEAR PEGGOTTY,--I have come here safe. Barkis is willing. My love to mamma.--Yours affectionately."

"_P. S._--He says he particularly wanted you to know _Barkis is willing_."

At Yarmouth he found dinner was ordered for him, and felt very shy at having a table all to himself, and very much alarmed when the waiter told him he had seen a gentleman fall down dead, after drinking some of their beer. David said he would have some water, and was quite grateful to the waiter for drinking the ale that had been ordered for him, for fear the people of the hotel should be offended. He also helped David to eat his dinner and accepted one of his bright s.h.i.+llings.

When they got to Salem House, as the School was called, David found that he had been sent before the holidays were over as a punishment, and was also to wear a placard on his back, on which was written--"Take care of him. He bites." This made David miserable, and he dreaded the return of the boys.

Some of the boys teased David by pretending he was a dog, calling him Towser, and patting and stroking him; but, on the whole, it was not so bad as David had expected. The head boy, Steerforth, promised to take care of him, and David loved him dearly, and thought him a great hero.

Steerforth took a great fancy to the pretty bright-eyed little fellow, and David became a favorite with all the boys, by telling them all he could remember of the tales he had read.

One day David had a visit from Mr. Peggotty and Ham, who had brought two enormous lobsters, a huge crab, and a large canvas bag of shrimps, as they "remembered he was partial to a relish with his meals."

David was proud to introduce his friend Steerforth to these kind simple friends, and told them how good Steerforth was to him, and the "relish"

was much appreciated by the boys at supper that night.

When he got home for the holidays David found he had a little baby brother, and his mother and Peggotty were very much pleased to see him again. Mr. and Miss Murdstone were out, and David sat with his mother and Peggotty, and told them all about his school and Steerforth, and took the little baby in his arms and nursed it lovingly. But when the Murdstones came back they showed plainly they disliked him, and thought him in the way, and scolded him, and would not allow him to touch the baby, or even to sit with Peggotty in the kitchen, so he was not sorry when the time came for him to go back to school, except for leaving his dear mamma and the baby.

About two months after he had been back at school he was sent for one day and told that his dear mamma had died! The wife of the head-master was very kind and gentle to the desolate little boy, and the boys were very sorry for him.

David went home the next day, and heard that the dear baby had died too.

Peggotty received him with great tenderness, and told him about his mother's illness and how she had sent a loving message.

"Tell my dearest boy that his mother, as she lay here, blessed him not once, but a thousand times," and she had prayed to G.o.d to protect and keep her fatherless boy.

Mr. Murdstone did not take any notice of poor little David, nor had Miss Murdstone a word of kindness for the orphan. Peggotty was to leave in a month, and, to their great joy, David was allowed to go with her on a visit to Mr. Peggotty. On their way David found out that the mysterious message he had given to Peggotty meant that Barkis wanted to marry her, and Peggotty had consented. Everyone in Mr. Peggotty's cottage was pleased to see David, and did their best to comfort him. Little Em'ly was at school when he arrived, and he went out to meet her, but when he saw her coming along, her blue eyes bluer, and her bright face prettier than ever, he pretended not to know her, and was pa.s.sing by, when Em'ly laughed and ran away, so of course he was obliged to run and catch her and try to kiss her, but she would not let him, saying she was not a baby now. But she was kind to him all the same, and when they spoke about the loss of his dear mother, David saw that her eyes were full of tears.

During this visit Peggotty was married to Mr. Barkis, and had a nice little house of her own, and Davy spent the night before he was to return home in a little room in the roof.

"Young or old, Davy dear, so long as I have this house over my head,"

said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly every minute. I shall keep it as I used to keep your old little room, my darling, and if you was to go to China, you might think of its being kept just the same all the time you were away."

David felt how good and true a friend she was, and thanked her as well as he could, for they had brought him to the gate of his home, and Peggotty had him clasped in her arms.

How utterly wretched and forlorn he felt! He found he was not to go back to school any more, and wandered about sad and solitary, neglected and uncared for. Peggotty's weekly visits were his only comfort. No one took any pains with him, and he had no friends near who could help him.

At last one day, after some weary months had pa.s.sed, Mr. Murdstone told him he was to go to London and earn his own living. There was a place for him at Murdstone & Grinby's, a firm in the wine trade. His lodging and clothes would be provided for him by his step-father, and he would earn enough for his food and pocket money. The next day David was sent up to London with the manager, dressed in a shabby little white hat with black c.r.a.pe round it for his mother, a black jacket, and hard, stiff corduroy trousers, a little fellow of ten years old to fight his own battles in the world!

His place, he found, was one of the lowest, with boys of no education and in quite an inferior station to himself--his duties were to wash bottles, stick on labels, and so on. David was utterly miserable at being degraded in this way, and shed bitter tears, as he feared he would forget all he had learnt at school. His lodging, one bare little room, was in the house of some people named Micawber, s.h.i.+ftless, careless, good-natured people, who were always in debt and difficulties. David felt great pity for their misfortunes and did what he could to help poor Mrs. Micawber to sell her books and other little things she could spare, to buy food for herself, her husband, and their four children. If he had not been a very innocent-minded, good little boy, he might easily have fallen into bad ways at this time. But G.o.d took care of the orphan boy and kept him from harm.

The troubles of the Micawbers increased more and more, until at last they were obliged to leave London. The last Sunday the Micawbers were in town David dined with them. After he had seen them off the next morning by the coach, he wrote to Peggotty to ask her if she knew where his aunt, Miss Betsy Trotwood, lived, and to borrow half a guinea; for he had resolved to run away from Murdstone & Grinby's, and go to his aunt and tell her his story. Peggotty wrote, enclosing the half-guinea, and saying she only knew Miss Trotwood lived near Dover, but whether in that place itself, or at Folkestone, Sandgate, or Hythe, she could not tell.

Hearing that all these places were close together, David made up his mind to start. As he had received his week's wages in advance, he waited till the following Sat.u.r.day, thinking it would not be honest to go before. He went out to look for some one to carry his box to the coach office, and unfortunately employed a wicked young man who not only ran off with his box, but robbed him of his half-guinea, leaving poor David in dire distress. In despair, he started off to walk to Dover, and was forced to sell his waistcoat to buy some bread. The first night he found his way to his old school at Blackheath, and slept on a haystack close by, feeling some comfort in the thought of the boys being near. He knew Steerforth had left, or he would have tried to see him.

On he trudged the next day and sold his jacket for one s.h.i.+lling and fourpence. He was afraid to buy anything but bread or to spend any money on a bed or a shelter for the night. After six days, he arrived at Dover, ragged, dusty, and half-dead with hunger and fatigue. But here, at first, he could get no tidings of his aunt, and, in despair, was going to try some of the other places Peggotty had mentioned, when the driver of a fly dropped his horsecloth, and as David was handing it up to him, he saw something kind in the man's face that encouraged him to ask once more if he knew where Miss Trotwood lived.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LITTLE DAVID COPPERFIELD.]

The man directed him towards some houses on the heights, and thither David toiled; a forlorn little creature, without a jacket or waistcoat, his white hat crushed out of shape, his shoes worn out, his s.h.i.+rt and trousers torn and stained, his pretty curly hair tangled, his face and hands sunburnt, and covered with dust. Lifting his big, wistful eyes to one of the windows above, he saw a pleasant faced gentleman with grey hair, who nodded at him several times, then shook his head and went away. David was just turning away to think what he should do, when a tall, erect, elderly lady, with a gardening ap.r.o.n on and a knife in her hand, came out of the house, and began to dig up a root in the garden.

"Go away," she cried. "Go away. No boys here."

But David felt desperate. Going in softly, he stood beside her, and touched her with his finger, and said timidly, "If you please, ma'am--"

and when she looked up, he went on--

"Please, aunt, I am your nephew."

"Oh, Lord!" she exclaimed in astonishment, and sat flat down on the path, staring at him, while he went on--

"I am David Copperfield, of Blunderstone, in Suffolk, where you came the night I was born, and saw my dear mamma. I have been unhappy since she died. I have been slighted and taught nothing, and thrown upon myself, and put to work not fit for me. It made me run away to you. I was robbed at first starting out and have walked all the way, and have never slept in a bed since I began the journey." Here he broke into a pa.s.sion of crying, and his aunt jumped up and took him into the house, where she put him on the sofa and sent the servant to ask "Mr. d.i.c.k" to come down.

The gentleman whom David had seen at the window came in and was told who the ragged little object on the sofa was.

"Now here you see young David Copperfield, and the question is What shall I do with him?"

"Do with him?" answered Mr. d.i.c.k. Then, after some consideration, and looking at David, he said, "Well, if I was you, I would wash him!"

David knelt down to say his prayers that night in a pleasant room facing the sea, and as he lay in the clean, snow-white bed, he prayed he might never be homeless again, and might never forget the homeless.

The next morning his aunt told him she had written to Mr. Murdstone, and at last Mr. and Miss Murdstone arrived.

Mr. Murdstone told Miss Betsy that David was a very bad, stubborn, violent-tempered boy, whom he had tried to improve, but could not succeed. If Miss Trotwood chose to protect and encourage him now, she must do it always, for he had come to fetch him away.

"Are you ready to go, David?" asked his aunt.

But David answered no, and begged and prayed her for his father's sake to befriend and protect him, for neither Mr. nor Miss Murdstone had ever liked him or been kind to him.

"Mr. d.i.c.k," said Miss Trotwood, "what shall I do with this child?"

Mr. d.i.c.k considered. "Have him measured for a suit of clothes directly."

"Mr. d.i.c.k," said Miss Trotwood, "your common sense is invaluable."

Then she pulled David towards her, and said to Mr. Murdstone, "You can go when you like. I'll take my chance with the boy. If he's all you say he is I can at least do as much for him as you have done. But I don't believe a word of it."

Some clothes were bought for him that same day and marked "Trotwood Copperfield," for his aunt wished to call him by her name.

Now David felt his troubles were over, and he began quite a new life, well cared for and kindly treated. He was sent to a very nice school in Canterbury, where his aunt left him with these words, which David never forgot.

"Trot, be a credit to yourself, to me, and Mr. d.i.c.k, and Heaven be with you. Never be mean in anything, never be false, never be cruel. Avoid these three vices, Trot, and I shall always be hopeful of you."

David did his best to show his grat.i.tude to his dear aunt by studying hard, and trying to be all she could wish.

When you are older you can read how he grew up to be a good, clever man, and met again all his old friends, and made many new ones.