"You'll find London a pretty sight bigger."
"I know London pretty well, though I haven't never been there; for Laddie, he's been up there nigh about fifteen year, and he's told me a deal about it. I know as it's all rubbish what folks say about the streets being paved with gold and such like, though the young folks do get took in; but Laddie, he says to me, 'Mother,' says he, 'London is paved with hard work like any other town; but,' he says, 'good honest work is worth its weight in gold any day;' so it's something more than a joke after all."
The old woman grew garrulous as the train rushed along. Laddie was a subject, evidently, upon which her tongue could not help being eloquent.
"An old hen with one chick," the bricklayer whispered to his wife; but they listened good-naturedly enough to the stories of the wonderful baby, who had been larger, fatter, and stronger than any baby before or since, who had taken notice, begun teething, felt his feet, run off, and said "daddy" at an incredibly early period.
Mrs. Bricklayer nodded her head and said, "Really, now!" and "Well, I never!" inwardly, however, reserving her fixed opinion that the infant bricklayers had outdone the wonderful Laddie in every detail of babyhood.
Father Bricklayer could not restrain a mighty yawn in the middle of a prolonged description of how Laddie's gums were lanced; but at this juncture they reached the station which was the destination of the bricklayer and his family, so the old woman was not wounded by the discovery of their want of thorough interest, and she parted from them with great regret, feeling that she had lost some quite old friends in them. But she soon found another listener, and a more satisfactory one, in a young woman, whom she had hardly noticed before, as she sat in the opposite corner of the carriage with her head bent down, neither speaking nor being spoken to. She had a very young baby wrapped in her shawl; and as one by one the other passengers left the carriage and she was left alone with the old woman, the two solitary creatures drew together in the chill November twilight; and, by and by, the wee baby was in the old woman's arms, and the young mother, almost a child herself, was telling her sad little story and hearing Laddie's story in return. There never had been such a son; he had got on so wonderfully at school, and had been a favorite with every one,—parson and schoolmaster; "such a headpiece the lad had!"
"Was Laddie his real name?"
"Why, no! he was christened John Clement, after his father and mine; but he called himself 'Laddie' before ever he could speak plain, and it stuck to him. His father was for making a schoolmaster of him, but Laddie he didn't take to that, so we sent him into Martel to the chemist there, to be shop-boy; and Mr. Stokes, the gentleman as keeps the shop, took to him wonderful and spoke of him to one and another, saying how sharp he were, and such, till at last one of the doctors took him up and taught him a lot; and when he went up to London he offered to take Laddie, and said as he'd take all the expense, and as he'd made a man of him. He come to see me himself, he did, and talked me over, for I was a bit loath to let him go, for 'twas the year as the master died; he died just at fall and Laddie went at Christmas, and I was feeling a bit unked and lonesome."
"Were that long ago?"
"Yes, 'twere a goodish time. Fifteen year come Christmas."