"Mother, mother, I've earned half a sovereign, all of it myself, and it's yours, all yours, every bit yours!"
CHAPTER II AS A CHILD IN THE WORKHOUSE
With an Idiot Boy in the Workhouse—Life in the Poor Law School at Sutton—At Home Once More—A Fashionable Knock for the Casual Ward—A Bread Riot.
But we must go back a few years—to the evil day when, the father being a cripple, the family have to enter the workhouse.
The mother had before this been forced to ask for parish relief. For a time the Guardians paid her two or three shillings a week and gave her a little bread. Suddenly these scanty supplies were stopped. The mother was told to come before the Board and bring her children.
Six of them, clinging timidly to her skirt, were taken into the terrible presence. The Chairman singled out Will, then eight years of age, and, pointing his finger at him, remarked solemnly:
"It's time that boy was getting his own living."
"He is at work, sir," was the mother's timid apology. "He gets up at a quarter to five every morning and goes round with the milkman for sixpence a week."