Charles Dickens' Children Stories

  POOR JO!

  Jo was a crossing-sweeper; every day he swept up the mud, and begged forpennies from the people who passed. Poor Jo wasn't pretty and he wasn'tclean. His clothes were only a few poor rags that hardly protected himfrom the cold and the rain. He had never been to school, and he couldneither write nor read--could not even spell his own name.

  Poor Jo! He was ugly and dirty and ignorant; but he knew one thing, thatit was wicked to tell a lie, and knowing this, he always told the truth.One other thing poor Jo knew too well, and that was what being hungrymeans. For little Jo was very poor. He lived in Tom-all-Alones, one ofthe most horrible places in all London. The people who live in thisdreadful den are the poorest of London poor. All miserably clad, alldirty, all very hungry. They know and like Jo, for he is always willingto go on errands for them, and does them many little acts of kindness.

  No one in Tom-all-Alones is spoken of by his name. Thus it is that ifyou inquired there for a boy named Jo, you would be asked whether youmeant Carrots, or the Colonel, or Gallows, or young Chisel, or TerrierTip, or Lanky, or the Brick.

  Jo was generally called Toughy, although a few superior persons whoaffected a dignified style of speaking called him "the tough subject."

  Jo used to say he had never had but one friend.

  It was one cold Winter night, when he was shivering in a door-way nearhis crossing, that a dark-haired, rough-bearded man turned to look athim, and then came back and began to talk to him.

  "Have you a friend, boy?" he asked presently.

  "No, never 'ad none."

  "Neither have I. Not one. Take this, and Good-night," and so saying theman, who looked very poor and shabby, put into Jo's hand the price of asupper and a night's lodging.

  Often afterwards the stranger would stop to talk with Jo, and give himmoney, Jo firmly believed, whenever he had any to give. When he hadnone, he would merely say, "I am as poor as you are to-day, Jo," andpass on.

  One day, Jo was fetched away from his crossing to a public-house, wherethe Coroner was holding an Inquest--an "Inkwich" Jo called it.

  "Did the boy know the deceased?" asked the Coroner.

  Indeed Jo had known him; it was his only friend who was dead.

  "He was very good to me, he was," was all poor Jo could say.

  The next day they buried the dead man in the churchyard hard by.

  But that night there came a slouching figure through the court to theiron gate. It stood looking in for a little while, then with an oldbroom it softly swept the step and made the archway clean. It was poorJo; and as he went away, he softly said to himself, "He was very good tome, he was."

  Now, there happened to be at the Inquest a kind-hearted little man namedSnagsby, and he pitied Jo so much that he gave him half-a-crown.

  Jo was very sad after the death of his one friend. The more so as hisfriend had died in great poverty and misery, with no one near him tocare whether he lived or not.

  A few days after the funeral, while Jo was still living on Mr. Snagsby'shalf-crown, he was standing at his crossing as the day closed in, when alady, closely veiled and plainly dressed, came up to him.

  "Are you the boy Jo who was examined at the Inquest?" she asked.

  "That's me," said Jo.

  "Come farther up the court, I want to speak to you."

  "Wot, about him as was dead? Did you know him?"

  "How dare you ask me if I knew him?"

  "No offence, my lady," said Jo humbly.

  "Listen and hold your tongue. Show me the place where he lived, thenwhere he died, then where they buried him. Go in front of me, don't lookback once, and I'll pay you well."

  JO AND THE POLICEMAN. "I'M ALWAYS A MOVING ON."]

  Jo takes her to each of the places she wants to see. Then she draws offher glove, and Jo sees that she has sparkling rings on her fingers. Shedrops a coin into his hand and is gone. Jo holds the coin to the lightand sees to his joy that it is a golden sovereign.

  But people in Jo's position in life find it hard to change a sovereign,for who will believe that they can come by it honestly? So poor littleJo didn't get much of the sovereign for himself, for, as he afterwardstold Mr. Snagsby--

  "I had to pay five bob down in Tom-all-Alones before they'd square itfor to give me change, and then a young man he thieved another fivewhile I was asleep, and a boy he thieved ninepence, and the landlord hestood drains round with a lot more of it."

  As time went on Jo's troubles began in earnest. The police turned himaway from his crossing, and wheresoever they met him ordered him "tomove on."

  Once a policeman, angry to find that Jo hadn't moved on, seized him bythe arm and dragged him down to Mr. Snagsby's.

  "What's the matter, constable?" asked Mr. Snagsby.

  "This boy's as obstinate a young gonoph as I know: although repeatedlytold to, he won't move on."

  "I'm always amoving on," cried Jo. "Oh, my eye, where am I to move to?"

  "My instructions don't go to that," the constable answered; "myinstructions are that you're to keep moving on. Now the simple questionis, sir," turning to Mr. Snagsby, "whether you know him. He says youdo."

  "Yes, I know him."

  "Very well, I leave him here; but mind you keep moving on."

  The constable then moved on himself, leaving Jo at Mr. Snagsby's. Therewas a little tea-party there that evening, and when Jo was at lastallowed to go, Mr. Snagsby followed him to the door and filled his handswith the remains of the little feast they had had upstairs.

  And now Jo began to find life harder and rougher than ever. He lost hiscrossing altogether, and spent day after day in moving on. He remembereda poor woman he had once done a kindness to, who had told him she livedat St. Albans, and that a lady there had been very good to her. "Perhapsshe'll be good to me," thought Jo, and he started off to go to St.Albans.

  One Saturday night Jo reached that town very tired and very ill. Happilyfor him the woman met him and took him into her cottage. While he wasresting there a lady came in and asked him very kindly what was thematter.

  "I'm abeing froze and then burnt up, and then froze and burnt up again,ever so many times over in an hour. And my head's all sleepy, and allagoing round like, and I'm so dry, and my bones is nothing half so muchbones as pain."

  "Where are you going?"

  "Somewheres," replied Jo, "I'm a-being moved on, I am."

  "Well, to-night you must come with me, and I'll make you comfortable."So Jo went with the lady to a great house not far off, and there theymade a bed for him, and brought him tempting wholesome food. Everyonewas very kind to him, but something frightened Jo, and he felt he couldnot stay there, and he ran out into the cold night air. Where he went hecould never remember, for when he next came to his senses he foundhimself in a hospital. He stayed there for some weeks, and was thendischarged, though still weak and ill. He was very thin, and when hedrew a breath his chest was very painful. "It draws," said Jo, "as heavyas a cart."

  Now, a certain young doctor who was very kind to poor people, waswalking through Tom-all-Alones one morning, when he saw a ragged figurecoming along, crouching close to the dirty wall. It was Jo. The youngdoctor took pity on Jo. "Come with me," he said, "and I will find you abetter place than this to stay in," for he saw that the lad was very,very ill. So Jo was taken to a clean little room, and bathed, and hadclean clothes, and good food, and kind people about him once more, buthe was too ill now, far too ill, for anything to do him any good.

  "Let me lie here quiet," said poor Jo, "and be so kind anyone as ispassin' nigh where I used to sweep, as to say to Mr. Snagsby as Jo, wothe knew once, is amoving on."

  One day the young doctor was sitting by him, when suddenly Jo made astrong effort to get out of bed.

  "Stay, Jo--where now?"

  "It's time for me to go to that there burying-ground."

  "What burying-ground, Jo?"

  "Where they laid him as was very good to me, very good to me indeed hewas. It's time for me to go down to that there burying-gro
und, sir, andask to be put along of him. I wants to go there and be buried. Will youpromise to have me took there and laid along with him?"

  "I will indeed."

  "Thankee, sir. There's a step there as I used to sweep with my broom.It's turned very dark, sir, is there any light coming?"

  "It's coming fast, Jo."

  Then silence for a while.

  "Jo, my poor fellow----!"

  "I can hear you, sir, in the dark."

  "Jo, can you say what I say?"

  "I'll say anything you say, sir, for I knows it's good."

  "Our Father."

  "Our Father--yes, that's very good, sir."

  "Which art in Heaven."

  "Art in Heaven. Is the light a-coming, sir?"

  "It's close at hand. Hallowed be Thy name."

  "Hallowed be Thy"--

  The light had come. Oh yes! the light had come, for Jo was dead.