Part 5 (1/2)

Nan ran into the pa.s.sage and called an old neighbor, and the two together, using all their strength, managed to get him to the bed.

”It's a stroke,” the woman said. ”Lord love you, what'll you do? He can't stay here. He'd better be sent to 'ospital.”

”I'll be 'anged first,” said old Widgeon, who had opened his eyes suddenly and looked at them both. ”I was a bit queer, but I'm right enough now. Who talks about 'ospitals?”

He tried to move and his face changed.

”I'm a bit queer yet,” he said, ”but it'll pa.s.s; it'll pa.s.s. Nan, you'll not mind my being in your way for a night. There's money in me pocket.

Maybe there's another room to be 'ad.”

”There's a bit of a one off me own that was me John's, an' him only gone yesterday,” said the woman eagerly; ”an' a bed an' all, an' openin'

right off of this. The door's behind that press. It's one with this, an'

the two belongs together, an' for two an' six a week without, an' three an' six with all that's in it, it's for anybody that wants it.”

”I'll take it a week,” said old Widgeon, ”but I'll not want the use of it more than this night. I'm a bit queer now, but it'll pa.s.s; it'll pa.s.s.”

The week went, but old Widgeon was still ”a bit queer;” and the doctor, who was at last called in, said that he was likely to remain so. One side was paralyzed. It might lessen, but would never recover entirely.

He would have to be looked out for. This was his daughter? She must understand that he needed care, and would not be able to work any more.

Old Widgeon heard him in silence, and then turned his face to the wall, and for hours made no sign. When he spoke at last, it was in his usual tone.

”I thought to end my days in the free air,” he said, ”but that ain't to be. And I'm thinking the stroke's come to do you a good turn, Nan.

There's the donkey and the barrow, and everybody knowing it as well as they know me. I'll send you to my man in Covent Garden. He's a fair 'un.

He don't cheat. He'll do well by you, an' you shall drive the barrow and see what you make of it. We'll be partners, Nan. You look out for me a bit, an' I'll teach you the business and 'ave an heye to Johnny. What do you say? Will you try it? It'll break me 'art if that donkey and barrow goes to hanybody that'll make light of 'em hand habuse 'em. There hain't such another donkey and barrow in all London, and you're one that knows it, Nan.”

”Yes, I know it,” Nan said. ”You ought to know, if you think I could do it.”

”There's nought that can't be done if you sets your mind well to it,”

said old Widgeon. ”And now, Nan, 'ere's the key, and you get Billy just by the stable there to move my bits o' things over here. That court's no place for you, an' there's more light here. Billy's a good 'un. He'll 'elp you when you need it.”

This is the story of the fresh-faced, serious young woman who drives a donkey-barrow through certain quiet streets in northwest London, and has a regular line of customers, who find her wares, straight from Covent Garden, exactly what she represents. Health and strength have come with the new work, and though it has its hards.h.i.+ps, they are as nothing compared with the deadly, monotonous labor at the machine. Johnny, too, shares the benefit, and holds the reins or makes change, at least once or twice a week, while old Widgeon, a little more helpless, but otherwise the same, regards his ”stroke” as a providential interposition on Nan's behalf, and Nan herself as better than any daughter.

”I've all the good of a child, and none o' the hups hand downs o' the married state,” he chuckles; ”hand so, whathever you think, I'm lucky to the hend.”

CHAPTER X.

STREET TRADES AMONG WOMEN.

”With hall the click there is to a woman's tongue you'd think she could 'patter' with the best of the men, but, Lor' bless you! a woman can't 'patter' any more'n she can make a coat, or sweep a chimley. And why she can't beats me, and neither I nor n.o.body knows.”

”To patter” is a verb conjugated daily by the street seller of any pretensions. The coster needs less of it than most vendors, his wares speaking for themselves; but the general seller of small-wares, bootlaces, toys, children's books, and what not, must have a natural gift, or acquire it as fast as possible. To patter is to rattle off with incredible swiftness and fluency, not only recommendations of the goods themselves, but any side thoughts that occur; and often a street-seller is practically a humorous lecturer, a student of men and morals, and gives the result in shrewd sentences well worth listening to. Half a dozen derivations are a.s.signed to the word, one being that it comes from the rattled off _paternosters_ of the devout but hasty Catholic, who says as many as possible in a given s.p.a.ce of time. Be this as it may, it is quite true that pattering is an essential feature of any specially successful street-calling, and equally true that no woman has yet appeared who possesses the gift.

In spite of this nearly fatal deficiency, innumerable women pursue street trades, and, notwithstanding exposure and privation and the scantiest of earnings, have every advantage over their sisters of the needle. Rheumatism, born of bad diet and the penetrating rawness and fogs of eight months of the English year, is their chief enemy; but as a whole they are a strong, hardy, and healthy set of workers, who shudder at the thought of bending all day over machine or needle, and thank the fate that first turned them toward a street-calling. So conservative, however, is working England, that the needlewoman, even at starvation point, feels herself superior to a street-seller; and the latter is quite conscious of this feeling, and resents it accordingly. With many the adoption of such employment is the result of accident, and the women in it divide naturally into four cla.s.ses: (1) The wives of street-sellers; (2) Mechanics, or laborers' wives who go out street-selling while their husbands are at work, in order to swell the family income; (3) The widows of former street-sellers; (4) Single women.

Trades that necessitate pus.h.i.+ng a heavy barrow, and, indeed, most of those involving the carrying of heavy weights, are in the hands of men, and also the more skilled trades, such as the selling of books or stationery,--in short, the business in which patter is demanded.