Ten Boys from Dickens

by Kate Dickinson Sweetser

With the tears streaming down her face, and her slight figure trembling with intense agitation, the child hastened to the door, and disappeared as rapidly as she had come.

The poor woman, who had no cause to doubt her son, but every reason for relying on his honesty and truth, was staggered, notwithstanding, by his not having advanced one word in his own defence.

Visions of gallantry, knavery, robbery, flocked into her brain and rendered her afraid to question him. She rocked herself upon a chair, wringing her hands and weeping bitterly. The baby in the cradle woke up and cried; the boy in the clothes-basket fell over on his back with the basket on him, and was seen no more; the mother wept louder yet and rocked faster; but Kit, insensible to all the din and tumult, remained in a state of utter stupefaction.

Of course, after that there was nothing for him to do but to keep as far away as possible from the shop, which he did, except in the evenings, when he often stole beneath Nell's window on a chance of merely seeing her. One night he was rewarded by a scrap of whispered conversation with her from her window. She told him how sick her grandfather had been, and over and over Kit reiterated all there was for him to say—that he had done nothing to cause that sickness.

"He'll be sure to get better now," said the boy, anxiously, "when he does, say a good word—say a kind word for me, Miss Nell!"

"They tell me I must not even mention your name to him for a long, long time," rejoined the child. "I dare not; and even if I might, what good would a kind word do you, Kit? We shall be very poor they say. We shall scarcely have bread to eat, for everything has been taken from us."

"It's not that I may be taken back," said the boy. "No, it's not that. It isn't for the sake of food and wages that I've been waiting about in hopes of seeing you. Don't think that I'd come in a time of trouble to talk of such things as them. It's something very different from that. Perhaps he might think it over-venturesome of me to say—well then,—to say this," said Kit, with sudden boldness. "This home is gone from you and him. Mother and I have got a poor one, and why not come there, till he's had time to look about and find a better? You think," said the boy, "that it's very small and inconvenient. So it is, but it's very clean. Do try, Miss Nell, do try. The little front room upstairs is very pleasant. Mother says it would be just the thing for you, and so it would; and you'd have her to wait upon you both, and me to run errands. We don't mean money, bless you; you're not to think of that! Will you try him, Miss Nell? Only say you'll try him. Do try to make old master come, and ask him first what I have done. Will you only promise that, Miss Nell?"

The street door opened suddenly just then, and, conscious that they were overheard, Nell closed her window quickly, and Kit stole away. And that was his last view of his beloved mistress, for shortly afterwards the Old Curiosity Shop was vacant of its tenants. Little Nell and her grandfather had quietly slipped away, under cover of night, to face their poverty in a new place; where, no one knew or could find out; and all that remained to Kit to remind him of his past, was Nell's bird, which he rescued from the shop, (now in Quilp's hands), took home, and hung in his window, to the immeasurable delight of his whole family.

It now remained for Kit to find a new situation, and he roamed the city in search of one daily. He was quite tired out with pacing the streets, to say nothing of repeated disappointments, and was sitting down upon a step to rest, one day, when there approached towards him a little clattering, jingling, four-wheeled chaise, drawn by a little obstinate-looking, rough-coated pony, and driven by a little placid-faced old gentleman. Beside the little old gentleman sat a little old lady, plump and placid like himself. As they passed where he sat, Kit looked so wistfully at the little turnout, that the old gentleman looked at him. Kit rising and putting his hand to his hat, the old gentleman intimated to the pony that he wished to stop, to which proposal the pony graciously acceded.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said Kit. "I'm sorry you stopped, sir, I only meant, did you want your horse minded."