East End (London, England) -- Fiction; London (England) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
Every day, that is, but Sunday. On Sunday morning a smell of cooking
floats round the corner from the half-shut baker's, and the little feet
trot down the street under steaming burdens of beef, potatoes, and
batter pudding--the lucky little feet these, with Sunday boots on them,
when father is in good work and has brought home all his money; not the
poor little feet in worn shoes, carrying little bodies in the threadbare
clothes of all the week, when father is out of work, or ill, or drunk,
and the Sunday cooking may very easily be done at home,--if any there be
to do.
On Sunday morning one or two heads of families appear in wonderful black
suits, with unnumbered creases and wrinklings at the seams. At their
sides and about their heels trot the unresting little feet, and from
under painful little velvet caps and straw hats stare solemn little
faces towelled to a polish. Thus disposed and arrayed, they fare gravely
through the grim little streets to a grim Little Bethel where are
gathered together others in like garb and attendance; and for two hours
they endure the frantic menace of hell-fire.
Most of the men, however, lie in shirt and trousers on their beds and
read the Sunday paper; while some are driven forth--for they hinder the
housework--to loaf, and await the opening of the beer-shop round the
corner. Thus goes Sunday in this street, and every Sunday is the same as
every other Sunday, so that one monotony is broken with another. For the
women, however, Sunday is much as other days, except that there is
rather more work for them. The break in their round of the week is
washing day.
No event in the outer world makes any impression in this street. Nations
may rise, or may totter in ruin; but here the colorless day will work
through its twenty-four hours just as it did yesterday, and just as it
will to-morrow. Without there may be party strife, wars and rumors of
wars, public rejoicings; but the trotting of the little feet will be
neither quickened nor stayed. Those quaint little women, the
girl-children of this street, who use a motherly management toward all
girl-things younger than themselves, and toward all boys as old or
older, with "Bless the child!" or "Drat the children!"--those quaint
little women will still go marketing with big baskets, and will regard
the price of bacon as chief among human considerations. Nothing disturbs
this street--nothing but a strike.
Nobody laughs here--life is too serious a thing; nobody sings. There was
once a woman who sang--a young wife from the country. But she bore
children, and her voice cracked. Then her man died, and she sang no
more. They took away her home, and with her children about her skirts
she left this street forever. The other women did not think much of her.
She was "helpless."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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