“The way I come to leave this crossing was this here: the road was being repaired, and they shot down a lot of stones, so then I couldn’t sweep no crossing. I looked out for another place, and I went opposite the Duke of Sutherland public-house in the Lorrimore-road. I swept there one Sunday, and I got about one-and-sixpence. While I was sweeping this crossing, a gentleman comes up to me, and he axes me if I ever goes to chapel or church; and I tells him, ‘Yes;’ I goes to church, wot I’d been brought up to; and then he says, ‘You let me see you at St. Michael’s Church, Brixton, and I’ll ’courage you, and you’ll do better if you come up and sweep in front there of a Sunday instead of where you are; you’ll be sure to get more money, and get better ’couraged. It don’t matter what you do,’ he says, ‘as long as it brings you in a honest crust; anythink’s better than thieving.’ And then the gent gives me sixpence and goes away.
“As soon as he’d gone I started off to his church, and got there just after the people was all in. I left my broom in the churchyard. When I got inside the church, I could see him a-sitten jest agin the communion table, so I walks to the free seats and sets down right close again the communion table myself, for his pew was on my right, and he saw me directly and looked and smiled at me. As he was coming out of the church he says, says he, ‘As long as I live, if you comes here on a Sunday reg’lar I shall always ’courage you.’
“The next Sunday I went up to the church and swept the crossing, and he see me there, but he didn’t give me nothink till the church was over, and then he gave me a shilling, and the other people give me about one-and-sixpence; so I got about two-and-sixpence altogether, and I thought that was a good beginning.
“The next Sunday the gen’elman was ill, but he didn’t forget me. He sent me sixpence by his servant, and I got from the other people about two shillings more. I never see that gentleman after, for he died on the Saturday. His wife sent for me on the Sunday; she was ill a-bed, and I see one of the daughters, and she gave me sixpence, and said I was to be there on Monday morning. I went on the Monday, and the lady was much worse, and I see the daughter again. She gave me a couple of shirts, and told me to come on the Friday, and when I went on that day I found the old lady was dead. The daughter gave me a coat, and trousers, and waistcoat.
“After the daughters had buried the father and mother they moved. I kept on sweeping at the church, till at last things got so bad that I come away, for nobody give me nothink. The houses about there was so damp that people wouldn’t live in ’em.
“So then I come up into Lorrimore-road, and there I’ve been ever since. I don’t get on wonderful well there. Sometimes I don’t get above sixpence all day, but it’s mostly a shilling or so. The most I’ve took is about one-and-sixpence. The reason why I stop there is, because I’m known there, you see. I stands there all the week selling highsters, and the people about there give me a good many jobs. Besides, the road is rather bad there, and they like to have a clean crossing of a Sunday.
“I don’t get any more money in the winter (though it’s muddier) than I do in the summer; the reason is, ’cause there isn’t so many people stirring about in the winter as there is in the summer.
“One broom will carry me over three Sundays, and I gives twopence-ha’penny a-piece for ’em. Sometimes the people bring me out at my crossing—’specially in cold weather—a mug of hot tea and some bread and butter, or a bit of meat. I don’t know any other crossing-sweeper; I never ’sociates with nobody. I always keeps my own counsel, and likes my own company the best.
“My wife’s been dead five months, and my mother six months; but I’ve got a little boy seven year old; he stops at school all day till I go home at night, and then I fetches him home. I mean to do something better with him than give him a broom: a good many people would set him on a crossing; but I mean to keep him at school. I want to see him read and write well, because he’ll suit for a place then.