The children of Dickens

AS I have said, almost all the Dickens people lived in London or went up to it sometimes. But all were not born there, and many of them, as children, lived in little villages. When they got to be seventeen or eighteen, they went to the great city to seek their fortunes.

There was Pip. I don’t care so much for him after he grew up. When he got to London he became very much like other folks. I like him best when he was a small boy in the country.

His name was Philip Pirrip. This was hard to pronounce, and puckered up the lips like “Peter Piper picked a peck of peppers.” The best he could make of it was Pip, and so everybody called him that for short.

His father and mother had died, and he was brought up by his older sister, who had married Joe Gargery, the blacksmith. She was twenty years older than Pip and had forgotten how she felt when she was his age. This made trouble for them both.

Pip had a hard time with Mrs. Gargery, and so had Joe, and so they became great chums. Joe was a big man, and his arms were strong, as all blacksmiths’ are, but he had never learned to read and write, though he knew some of the letters of the alphabet and was very proud over that.

The house where the Gargerys lived was in the marsh country near a river. One could look out on a dark flat country with little ditches running through it in every direction. It was a place where one could easily get lost, and where robbers could hide. There was a prison ship down near the mouth of the river, and now and then some of the prisoners would escape and get into the marsh. Pip met two of them once and had an exciting adventure. Down by the river there was a battery, and Pip used to go down with Joe Gargery sometimes and sit on the old cannon, while Joe would tell what fine things they would do if Mrs. Joe would let them. But she never did let them do what they wanted to do if she could prevent it.

Pip went to an evening school taught by an old lady who also kept a little store in the same room. He didn’t learn very much, for the old lady used to go to sleep most of the time. But as she only charged four cents a week, Mrs. Joe thought it was cheap enough. It was in this school that Pip learned the alphabet, and he was very proud when he found that he could put the letters together to make words. He wanted to know whether Joe had learned to read, and Joe did not want him to find out. One night they were sitting in the chimney corner, and with great effort Pip printed a letter which he handed to Joe. He tells how the letter was received.

There was no indispensable necessity for my communicating with Joe by letter, inasmuch as he sat beside me and we were alone. But, I delivered this written communication (slate and all) with my own hand, and Joe received it, as a miracle of erudition.

“I say, Pip, old chap!” cried Joe, opening his blue eyes wide, “what a scholar you are! Ain’t you?”

“I should like to be,” said I, glancing at the slate as he held it: with a misgiving that the writing was rather hilly.

“Why, here’s a J,” said Joe, “and an O equal to anythink! Here’s a J and an O, Pip, and a J-O, Joe.”

I had never heard Joe read aloud to any greater extent than this monosyllable, and I had observed at church last Sunday, when I accidentally held our Prayer-Book upside down, that it seemed to suit his convenience quite as well as if it had been all right. Wishing to embrace the present occasion of finding out whether in teaching Joe, I should have to begin quite at the beginning, I said, “Ah! But read the rest, Joe.”

“The rest, eh, Pip?” said Joe, looking at it with a slowly searching eye. “One, two, three. Why, here’s three J’s, and three O’s, and three J-O, Joes, in it, Pip!”

I leaned over Joe, and, with the aid of my forefinger, read him the whole letter.

“Astonishing!” said Joe, when I had finished. “You ARE a scholar.”

“How do you spell Gargery, Joe?” I asked him, with a modest patronage.

“I don’t spell it at all,” said Joe.

“But supposing you did?”

“It can’t be supposed,” said Joe. “Tho’ I’m uncommon fond of reading, too.”

“Are you, Joe?”

“On-common. Give me,” said Joe, “a good book, or a good newspaper, and sit me down afore a good fire, and I ask no better. Lord!” he continued, after rubbing his knees a little. “When you do come to a J and a O, and says you, ‘Here, at last, is a J-O, Joe,’ how interesting reading is!”

I derived from this last, that Joe’s education, like Steam, was yet in its infancy. Pursuing the subject, I inquired:

“Didn’t you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?”

“No, Pip.”

“Why didn’t you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?”

“Well, Pip,” said Joe, taking up the poker, and settling himself to his usual occupation when he was thoughtful, of slowly raking the fire between the lower bars: “I’ll tell you. My father, Pip, he were given to drink, and when he were overtook with drink, he hammered away at my mother most onmerciful. It were a’most the only hammering he did, indeed, ’xcepting at myself. And he hammered at me with a wigor only to be equalled by the wigor with which he didn’t hammer at his anwil. You’re a-listening and understanding, Pip?”

“Yes, Joe.”

“’Consequence, my mother and me we ran away from my father several times; and then my mother she’d go out to work, and she’d say, ‘Joe,’ she’d say, ‘now, please God, you shall have some schooling, child,’ and she’d put me to school. But my father were that good in his heart that he couldn’t abear to be without us. So, he’d come with a most tremenjous crowd and make such a row at the doors of the houses where we was, that they used to be obligated to have no more to do with us and to give us up to him. And then he took us home and hammered us. Which, you see, Pip,” said Joe, pausing in his meditative raking of the fire, and looking at me, “were a drawback on my learning.”

“Certainly, poor Joe!”

“Though mind you, Pip,” said Joe, with a judicial touch or two of the poker on the top bar, “rendering unto all their doo, and maintaining equal justice betwixt man and man, my father were that good in his heart, don’t you see?”

I didn’t see; but I didn’t say so.

“Well!” Joe pursued, “somebody must keep the pot a-biling, Pip, or the pot won’t bile, don’t you know?”

I saw that, and said so.

“’Consequence, my father didn’t make objections to my going to work; so I went to work at my present calling, which were his too, if he would have followed it, and I worked tolerable hard, I assure you, Pip. In time I were able to keep him, and I kep him till he went off in a purple leptic fit. And it were my intentions to have had put upon his tombstone that Whatsume’er the failings on his part, Remember reader he were that good in his hart.”

Joe recited this couplet with such manifest pride and careful perspicuity, that I asked him if he had made it himself.

“I made it,” said Joe, “my own self. I made it in a moment. It was like striking out a horseshoe complete, in a single blow. I never was so much surprised in all my life—couldn’t credit my own ed—to tell you the truth, hardly believed it were my own ed. As I was saying, Pip, it were my intentions to have had it cut over him; but poetry costs money, cut it how you will, small or large, and it were not done. Not to mention bearers, all the money that could be spared were wanted for my mother. She were in poor elth, and quite broke. She waren’t long of following, poor soul, and her share of peace come round at last.”

Joe’s blue eyes turned a little watery; he rubbed, first one of them, and then the other, in a most uncongenial and uncomfortable manner, with the round knob on the top of the poker.

“It were but lonesome then,” said Joe, “living here alone, and I got acquainted with your sister. Now, Pip”; Joe looked firmly at me, as if he knew I was not going to agree with him; “your sister is a fine figure of a woman.”

I could not help looking at the fire, in an obvious state of doubt.

“Whatever family opinions, or whatever the world’s opinions, on that subject may be, Pip, your sister is,” Joe tapped the top bar with the poker after every word following, “a—fine—figure—of—a—woman!”

I could think of nothing better to say than “I am glad you think so, Joe.”

“So am I,” returned Joe, catching me up. “I am glad I think so, Pip. A little redness, or a little matter of Bone, here or there, what does it signify to Me?”

I sagaciously observed, if it didn’t signify to him, to whom did it signify?

“Certainly!” assented Joe. “That’s it. You’re right, old chap! When I got acquainted with your sister, it were the talk how she was bringing you up by hand. Very kind of her too, all the folks said, and I said, along with all the folks. As to you,” Joe pursued, with a countenance expressive of saying something very nasty indeed: “if you could have been aware how small and flabby and mean you was, dear me, you’d have formed the most contemptible opinions of yourself!”

Not exactly relishing this, I said, “Never mind me, Joe.”

“But I did mind you, Pip. And when I married your sister, I said, ‘Bring the poor little child. There’s room for him at the forge.’ And now when you take me in hand for learning, Mrs. Joe mustn’t see too much of what we are up to. It must be done, as I may say, on the sly. Well you see, Pip, here we are. That’s about where it lights—here we are. And we are ever the best friends; ain’t us?”

PIP AT MR. PUMBLECHOOK’S

THE first time Pip was away from home was when he went to Mr. Pumblechook’s. Mr. Pumblechook lived in a near-by town, where he kept a seed-store in the High Street. He was a big, solemn-looking man and he had an idea that small boys ought to be instructed at all hours. He thought it was good for them. So he kept at mental arithmetic all the time, firing one question after another at poor Pip. When he got up in the morning, Pip said politely, “Good morning, Mr. Pumblechook.”

Mr. Pumblechook answered, “Boy, what is seven times nine?” At the breakfast-table he would say, “Seven? and four? and eight? and six? and two? and ten?” All the time Mr. Pumblechook was eating bacon and hot rolls, while Pip was scared for fear he couldn’t answer the next question. The hardest thing was to remember about shillings and pence. Mr. Pumblechook would begin with twelve pence make one shilling, and keep on to forty pence make three and four pence. No wonder that Pip was glad to get back to the blacksmith-shop!