“One evening at the bend of the road I waited for my mother until it was dark, but she did not come.  Then I went home crying.  I found my mother lying on the bed with her clothes on.  She would not wake up.  I shook her by the arm, I rolled her from one side to the other, but she would not speak; then, I got on my knees and I kissed her—­and her face was very cold.  I was scared.  I went for the old woman who lived next door.  She shook her; then she cried and told me that my mother was dead.

“My mother used to play with me at night and sometimes in the morning, too.  When they told me she was dead, I wondered what I would do without her; but all the neighbours were so kind to me that I forgot a good deal about my mother until they put her in a box and carried her away.  Then one of the neighbour women took me and said I must live with her; so I did.  I sold papers, ran errands, dried the dishes, swept the floor for her; but after a long time she began to speak very crossly to me, and I often trembled with fear.

“One day I decided to run away.  After I sold all my papers, I came to the cottage and slipped all the pennies under the door, and then ran away as fast as I could.  I did not know where I was going, but I had heard so much about London that I thought it must be a very great place and that I could get papers to sell and do lots of other things; so, when a man found me sitting on the side of the road and asked me where I was going, I said, ‘To London.’  He laughed and said: 

“‘Whom do you know there?’

“‘Nobody,’ I replied, ’but there are lots of people there and lots of work, and I don’t like the place where I live.’  The man took me to his house and kept me all night and paid my carfare to London next day.

“Many days and many nights I had no food to eat, nor no place to sleep.  I did not like to beg, not because I thought it wrong, but because I was afraid.  I saw boys carrying packages along the street, found out how they got it to do, and imitated them, earning occasionally a few pennies.  I saved up enough with these pennies to buy a stock of London papers.  By saving these pennies and eating little food, I was able to buy a larger stock of these papers each day.  I had good luck, and by economy I managed to live and save.  In a few days I was able to pay thru’pence a night for a lodging.  One night when I made a big venture in spending all my money on a big stock of papers, I had an accident in which they were all spoiled.  I dropped them in a pool of water—­and I was penniless again!  That night, late, I went up the white stone steps of a big house in Westminster and went to sleep.  I had saved a few of the driest papers and used them as a pillow.

“‘Hi, little cove!’ a policeman said, as he poked his baton under my armpit next morning.  ‘What are you doing here?’ I began to whimper, and he took pity on me and showed me the way to Dr. Barnardo’s Home; but when I got out of his sight, I went off in another direction, for I had heard that many boys got whipped down there.  I got among a lot of boys on the banks of the river.  They were diving for pennies.  I thought it was a very hard way to earn money, but I did it too, and got about as much as the rest.  I did not stay long on the river bank.  The boys were sharper than I was and could cheat me out of my pennies.