Sturdy and Strong: or, How George Andrews Made His Way. Henty George Alfred
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the struggle, and the certainty of rest and food overcame her repugnance to the house. For George's sake too, much as she knew he would feel her having to accept such a refuge, she was glad that the struggle was at an end. The lad had for the last six months suffered greatly for her sake. Every meal to which he sat down at his employer's seemed to choke him as he contrasted it with the fare to which she was reduced, although, as far as possible, she had concealed from him how sore was her strait.
George cried himself to sleep that night, and he could scarce speak when he said good-by to his mother in the morning, for he could not tell when he should see her again.
"You will stop where you are, my boy, will you not?"
"I cannot promise, mother. I don't know yet what I shall do; but please don't ask me to promise anything. You must let me do what I think best. I have got to make a home for you when you are cured. I am fourteen now, and am as strong as most boys of my age. I ought to be able to earn a shilling a day somehow, and with seven shillings a week, mother, and you just working a little, you know, so as not to hurt your eyes, we ought to be able to do. Don't you bother about me, mother. I want to try anyhow what I can do till you come out. When you do, then I will do whatever you tell me; that's fair, isn't it?"
Mrs. Andrews would have remonstrated, but he said:
"Well, mother, you see at the worst I can get a year's character from Dutton, so that if I can't get anything else to do I can get the same sort of place again, and as I am a year older than I was when he took me, and can tie up parcels neatly now, I ought to get a little more anyhow. You see I shall be safe enough, and though I have never grumbled, you know, mother – have I? – I think I would rather do anything than be a grocer's boy. I would rather, when I grow up, be a bricklayer's laborer, or a plowman, or do any what I call man's work, than be pottering about behind a counter, with a white apron on, weighing out sugar and currants."
"I can't blame you, George," Mrs. Andrews said with a sigh. "It's natural, my boy. If I get my eyesight and my health again, when you grow up to be a man we will lay by a little money, and you and I will go out together to one of the colonies. It will be easier to rise again there than here, and with hard work both of us might surely hope to get on. There must be plenty of villages in Australia and Canada where I could do well with teaching, and you could get work in whatever way you may be inclined to. So, my boy, let us set that before us. It will be something to hope for and work for, and will cheer us to go through whatever may betide us up to that time."
"Yes, mother," George said. "It will be comfort indeed to have something to look forward to. Nothing can comfort me much to-day; but if anything could it would be some such plan as that."
The last words he said to his mother as, blinded with tears, he kissed her before starting to work, were:
"I shall think of our plan every day, and look forward to that more than anything else in the world – next to your coming to me again."
At ten o'clock Dr. Jeffries drove up to Mrs. Andrews' humble lodging in a brougham instead of his ordinary gig, having borrowed the carriage from one of the few of his patients who kept such a vehicle, on purpose to take Mrs. Andrews, for she was so weak and worn that he was sure she would not be able to sit upright in a gig for the three miles that had to be traversed. He managed in the course of his rounds to pass the workhouse again in the afternoon, and brought George, before he left work, a line written in pencil on a leaf torn from his pocketbook:
"My darling, I am very comfortable. Everything is clean and nice, and the doctor and people kind. Do not fret about me. – Your loving mother."
Although George's expressed resolution of leaving his present situation, and seeking to earn his living in some other way, caused Mrs. Andrews much anxiety, she had not sought strongly to dissuade him from it. No doubt it would be wiser for him to stay in his present situation, where he was well treated and well fed, and it certainly seemed improbable to her that he would be able to get a better living elsewhere. Still she could not blame him for wishing at least to try. She herself shared to some extent his prejudice against the work in which he was employed. There is no disgrace in honest work; but she felt that she would rather see him engaged in hard manual labor than as a shop boy. At any rate, as he said, if he failed he could come back again to Croydon, and, with a year's character from his present employer, would probably be able to obtain a situation similar to that which he now held. She was somewhat comforted, too, by a few words the doctor had said to her during their drive.
"I think you are fortunate in your son, Mrs. Andrews. He seems to me a fine steady boy. If I can, in any way, do him a good turn while you are away from him, I will."
George remained for another month in his situation, for he knew that it would never do to start on his undertaking penniless. At the end of that time, having saved up ten shillings, and having given notice to his employer, he left the shop for the last time, and started to walk to London. It was not until he began to enter the crowded streets that he felt the full magnitude of his undertaking. To be alone in London, a solitary atom in the busy mass of humanity, is a trying situation even for a man; to a boy of fourteen it is terrible. Buying a penny roll, George sat down to eat it in one of the niches of a bridge over the river, and then kneeling up watched the barges and steamers passing below him.
Had it not been for his mother, his first thought, like that of most English boys thrown on the world, would have been to go to sea; but this idea he had from the first steadily set aside as out of the question. His plan was to obtain employment as a boy in some manufacturing work, for he thought that there, by steadiness and perseverance, he might make his way.
On one thing he was resolved. He would make his money last as long as possible. Three penny-worth of bread a day would, he calculated, be sufficient for his wants. As to sleeping, he thought he might manage to sleep anywhere; it was summer time and the nights were warm. He had no idea what the price of a bed would be, or how to set about getting a lodging. He did not care how roughly he lived so that he could but make his money last. The first few days he determined to look about him. Something might turn up. If it did not he would set about getting a place in earnest. He had crossed Waterloo Bridge, and, keeping straight on, found himself in Covent Garden, where he was astonished and delighted at the quantities of fruit, vegetables, and flowers.
Although he twice set out in different directions to explore the streets, he each time returned to Covent Garden. There were many lads of his own age playing about there, and he thought that from them he might get some hints as to how to set about earning a living. They looked ragged and poor enough, but they might be able to tell him something – about sleeping, for instance. For although before starting the idea of sleeping anywhere had seemed natural enough, it looked more formidable now that he was face to face with it.
Going to a cook-shop in a street off the market he bought two slices of plum-pudding. He rather grudged the twopence which he paid; but he felt that it might be well laid out. Provided with the pudding he returned to the market, sat himself down on an empty basket, and began to eat slowly and leisurely.
In a short time he noticed a lad of about his own age watching him greedily.
He was far from being a respectable-looking boy. His clothes were ragged, and his toes could be seen through a hole in his boot. He wore neither hat nor cap, and his hair looked as if it had not been combed since the day of his birth. There was a sharp, pinched look on his face. But had he been washed and combed and decently clad he would not have been a bad-looking boy. At any rate George liked his face better than most he had seen in the market, and he longed for a talk with someone. So he held out his other slice of pudding, and said:
"Have a bit?"
"Oh, yes!" the boy replied "Walker, eh?"
"No, I mean it, really. Will you have a bit?"
"No larks?" asked the boy.
"No; no larks. Here you are."
Feeling assured now that no trick was intended the boy approached, took without a word the pudding which George held out, and, seating himself on a basket close to him, took a great bite.
"Where do you live?" George asked, when the slice of pudding had half disappeared.
"Anywheres," the boy replied, waving his hand round.
"I