Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1909-01-01

seemed much too dark to be morning. 1t
was, however, and he was quickly
dressed, making his breakfast from the
penny cottage loaf of bread, section of
cream cheese and small bottle of milk,
which We're all he could afford to buy
| from the man who rented him the room
| Then he took the roll of paper marked
with the name of the day from the
drawer of his bureau and counted out
the pennies into his pocket They were
not many; he had to live on seven shil-
lings a week, and he tucked them away
very carefully in pocket lest he lose
them and have to do without his lunch.
! He was not yet due at the backing
| factory, but he hurried away from his
room and Joined the crowd of early
morning people already ON their way to
| work He went down the embankment
along the Thames until he &c me to a
place where bench was set in a corner
j of wall. This was his favorite loung-
/ ing place; London bridge was just be
yond, the river lay in front of him, and
he was far enough away from people to
! ia sIre from llh rr'1ht'ar As h. sat
there watching the bridge and the
| Thames a small girl came to Join him.
Sap was 10 bigger than he. perhaps a
! year or two older, but her face was al
ready shrewd enough for that of a
grown-up woman. She was the maid
of-all-work at a house in the neighbor-
hood and she had fallen into the habit
of stopping to talk for few moments
with the boy on her way to work in the
morning. She liked to listen to his
stories. This was his hour for inventing
them He could spin wonderful tales
about London bridge, the Tower and the
wharves along the river. Sometimes he
made up stories about the people who
| passed in front of them, and they were
such astonishing stories that the girl
remembered them all day as she worked
| in the house. He seemed to believe them
| himself; his eyes would grow far away
and dreamy, and his words would run
on and on until a neighboring clock
brought him suddenly back to lis own
position.
you do know heap O things, don't
| your" said the little girl, lost iE admira-
ton. I'D rather have shillin', though,
than all the fairy tales in the world"
Il wouldn't" said Charles, stoutly
"Pd rather read books than do anything
ese.'
you've got to eat, though" objected
his companion; "and books won't make
you food. 'Tain't common sense" She
relented in an instant. Its fun, though
Charley Dickens. Good bye till tomor-
row."
/ Charles went on down to the old
backing factory by Hungerford stairs,
a ramshackie building almost hanging
over the river, damp and overrun with
rats. His place was in a recess of the
counting room on the first floor, and as
he covered the bottles with the oil -paper
tops and tied them on with string. he
could look from time to time through
/ a window at the slow coal barges swing
| ing down the river.
There were very few boys about the
place. At lunch time he would wander
off by himself, and, selecting his meal
/ from careful survey of several pastry
cooks windows, invest his money for
the day in fancy cakes or a tart. He
missed the company of friends of his
own age. Even Fanny, his oldest sister,
he only saw on Sundays, when she came
| back to the Marshalsea from the place
where she worked to spend the day with
I her family. 1t was only grown-up peo-
Pile that he saw most of the time, and
they were too busy with their own af-
| fairs to take much interest in the small
shabby boy who looked just like any one
of a thousand other children of the
streets. In all the men at the factory it
was only the big, clumsy fellow named
Fagin who would stop to chat with the
lad. So it was that Charles was forced
to make friends with whomever he
could, people of any age or condition,
and was driven to spend much of his
snare time roaming about the streets,
Iounging by the river, reading stray
books by candle in the prison or in
the little attic where he slept 1t was
not a boyhood that seemed to promise
much
| In time the boy left the factory and
tried being lawyers clerk, then a re-
porter, and at last wrote book of his
own. The book was "Pickwick Papers,"
and it was so original that people clam
ored for more. Then the young man
took note of all the strange types of
people among whom he had lived as a
boy, and those days of poverty and
drudgery were turned to wonderful ac-
count because he could write of such
people and such scenes as he remem-
bered them. The little maid of -all.work
became the 'marchioness" in the "Old
Curiosity Shop" Bob Fagin loaned his
name to OLIVER Twist" and in David
Copperfield" we read the story of the
small boy who had to fight his way
through London alone. Those DAYS of
his boyhood had given him a deep in
sight into human nature, into the humor
and pathos of other peoples lives; and
it was that rare insight that enabled
him to become in time one of the great.
est of all English writer's, Charles Dick
ems, the beloved novelist of the Anglo
Saxon people,-Rupert Sargent Holland
in st. Nicholas
IT. Do,.o. e -