Workhouse Characters, and other sketches of the life of the poor.Nevinson, Margaret Wynne
General
Workhouse Characters, and other sketches of the life of the poor.
Nevinson, Margaret Wynne
London (England) -- Social conditions; Poor -- England -- London; Workhouses -- England -- London
"I came straight from the factory, dear. I did not even wait for a cup
of tea or to get washed. Here are some grapes for you."
The grapes were best hot-house--the poor always give recklessly--and
Mrs. Wilson and a bright-eyed little girl who was sweeping up
scholarships and qualifying as a typist and _tisica_ would go short of
food for a week.
Ten years ago Mr. Wilson had grown weary of monogamy and had
disappeared. His wife, scorning charity and the parish, had starved and
fought her own way. Latterly she had found employment at the tooth
factory, but food was not abundant on a weekly wage varying from seven
to fifteen shillings, and the L.C.C. had worked the brains of the
growing children on a diet chiefly of dry bread and tea.
Through the long night she sat by her son--the long night of agony and
suffering which she was powerless to relieve--and the nurse, who was
reputed a hard woman, looked at her with tearful eyes, and muttered to
herself: "Thank God, I never bore a child!"
In the early hours of morning Teddy began to sing, in strange, raucous
fashion, fragments of oratorios. "'My God, my God,'" sang Teddy in the
recitative of Bach's Passion music, "'why hast Thou forsaken Me?' Oh,
mother, don't leave me!"
The next time the nurse came round Teddy lay quiet, and his mother
looked up with eyes tearless and distraught. "He has stopped coughing,"
she said; "I think I am glad."
AN IRISH CATHOLIC
Godliness is great riches if a man be content with that which he
hath.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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