“After mother died, sister still kept on making nets, and I lived with her for some time, until she told me she couldn’t afford to keep me no longer, though she seemed to have a pretty good lot to do; but she would never let me go with her to the shops, though I could crochet, which she’d learned me, and used to run and get her all her silks and things what she wanted. But she was keeping company with a young man, and one day they went out, and came back and said they’d been and got married. It was him as got rid of me.
“He was kind to me for the first two or three months, while he was keeping her company; but before he was married he got a little cross, and after he was married he begun to get more cross, and used to send me to play in the streets, and tell me not to come home again till night. One day he hit me, and I said I wouldn’t be hit about by him, and then at tea that night sister gave me three shillings, and told me I must go and get my own living. So I bought a box and brushes (they cost me just the money) and went cleaning boots, and I done pretty well with them, till my box was stole from me by a boy where I was lodging. He’s in prison now—got six calendar for picking pockets.
“Sister kept all my clothes. When I asked her for ’em, she said they was disposed of along with all mother’s goods; but she gave me some shirts and stockings, and such-like, and I had very good clothes, only they was all worn out. I saw sister after I left her, many times. I asked her many times to take me back, but she used to say, ‘It was not her likes, but her husband’s, or she’d have had me back;’ and I think it was true, for until he came she was a kind-hearted girl; but he said he’d enough to do to look after his own living; he was a fancy-baker by trade.
“I was fifteen the 24th of last May, sir, and I’ve been sweeping crossings now near upon two years. There’s a party of six of us, and we have the crossings from St. Martin’s Church as far as Pall Mall. I always go along with them as lodges in the same place as I do. In the daytime, if it’s dry, we do anythink what we can—open cabs, or anythink; but if it’s wet, we separate, and I and another gets a crossing—those who gets on it first, keeps it,—and we stand on each side and take our chance.
“We do it in this way:—if I was to see two gentlemen coming, I should cry out, ‘Two toffs!’ and then they are mine; and whether they give me anythink or not they are mine, and my mate is bound not to follow them; for if he did he would get a hiding from the whole lot of us. If we both cry out together, then we share. If it’s a lady and gentleman, then we cries, ‘A toff and a doll!’ Sometimes we are caught out in this way. Perhaps it is a lady and gentleman and a child; and if I was to see them, and only say, ‘A toff and a doll,’ and leave out the child, then my mate can add the child; and as he is right and I wrong, then it’s his party.
“If there’s a policeman close at hand we mustn’t ask for money; but we are always on the look-out for the policemen, and if we see one, then we calls out ‘Phillup!’ for that’s our signal. One of the policemen at St. Martin’s Church—Bandy, we calls him—knows what Phillup means, for he’s up to us; so we had to change the word. (At the request of the young crossing-sweeper the present signal is omitted.)
“Yesterday on the crossing I got threepence halfpenny, but when it’s dry like to-day I do nothink, for I haven’t got a penny yet. We never carries no pockets, for if the policemen find us we generally pass the money to our mates, for if money’s found on us we have fourteen days in prison.
“If I was to reckon all the year round, that is, one day with another, I think we make fourpence every day, and if we were to stick to it we should make more, for on a very muddy day we do better. One day, the best I ever had, from nine o’clock in the morning till seven o’clock at night, I made seven shillings and sixpence, and got not one bit of silver money among it. Every shilling I got I went and left at a shop near where my crossing is, for fear I might get into any harm. The shop’s kept by a woman we deals with for what we wants—tea and butter, or sugar, or brooms—anythink we wants. Saturday night week I made two-and-sixpence; that’s what I took altogether up to six o’clock.
“When we see the rain we say together, ‘Oh! there’s a jolly good rain! we’ll have a good day to-morrow.’ If a shower comes on, and we are at our room, which we general are about three o’clock, to get somethink to eat—besides, we general go there to see how much each other’s taken in the day—why, out we run with our brooms.