About James Greenwood and Little Rag. About James Greenwood and “Little Raggedy” The main characters are “Little Raggedy” for a reader’s diary

Dickens, by placing a disadvantaged child at the center of the story, opened up a new theme for literature. Among his many followers in England, James Greenwood (1833-1929), in his time a famous journalist and author of numerous novels, stands out. Greenwood’s best book, “The True Story of a Little Raggar” (1866), brought him wide recognition in Russia, which he himself may not have even suspected. “The Little Raggedy One” is an accusatory social and everyday novel, close in theme to Dickens’ “Oliver Twist.” In England, this book was never published for children and is forgotten as firmly as everything written by Greenwood. There is not a single article about his work, his name is not mentioned in biographical dictionaries or even in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

From the 50s of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, Greenwood published about forty books. He wrote in many genres and on different topics: newspaper articles and feuilletons, adventure and humorous stories for youth, stories about animals, accusatory essays, novels from the life of the bottom of London, etc.

Greenwood worked with a group of progressive journalists who challenged the ostentatious prosperity of Victorian England. Once disguised as a tramp, he froze for several hours on the street on a stormy autumn night before he got a place in a shelter. Here he encountered such indescribable filth and stench, such incredible human suffering, that it far exceeded even his darkest assumptions about the horrors of the London slums. He told about everything he saw in essays that excited public opinion. “The picture painted by Greenwood,” said one of the reviews, “is all the more terrible since he himself spent only one night in these conditions, and thousands of our compatriots are forced to spend their whole lives in this way.”

Greenwood's journalistic book "The Seven Plagues of London" is similar in theme to "The Little Rag" and in many ways complements it. Greenwood lists the blatant social ills of the English capital as child homelessness, poverty, vagrancy, alcoholism, criminal offenses, and the existence of brothels and rooming houses. Here is what he writes about street children: “I don’t know exactly where this information came from, but at the present time (we are talking about the 1860s - Eug. B.) it is recognized as a fact that within the vast flourishing London they wander daily , both in summer and winter, up to one hundred thousand boys and girls without supervision, food, clothing or occupation. Excellent candidates for hard labor, the workhouse and, finally, for Portland 2 and exile!

In “The Little Ragged Man,” an artistic analysis of the same phenomena convincingly shows how hopeless need and vagrancy push people to commit criminal offenses. Jim's innate honesty and decency struggle with the evil effects of the horrific conditions in which he has to live. His father's desperate poverty, endless discord in the family, Jim's beatings from his always drunken stepmother - all this forces him to run away from home and become a tramp. A homeless boy spends the night with his comrades in the catacombs or in a carrier's van, and sometimes on damp ground. During the day he trades in the Coventgarden market, stealing whatever he can get his hands on or eating garbage. Only a happy accident helped him get out of the abyss and begin an honest working life.

Greenwood's novel about the plight of the children of English working people is stark and truthful. And yet it does not leave a depressing impression. In his autobiographical story “In People,” M. Gorky recalls how Greenwood’s “Little Raggedy One” excited him as a teenager. In the tragic fate of the London street child, Alyosha Peshkov saw much in common with the vicissitudes of his own wandering life. But Greenwood's book did not dishearten him. Against! She strengthened his faith in man's ability to withstand any challenge.

“A few days later,” Gorky writes, “she (the woman who supplied Alyosha Peshkov with books - Evg. B.) gave me Greenwood’s “The True History of a Little Ragged Man”; The title of the book stung me a bit. But the very first page aroused a smile of delight in my soul - so with this smile I read the entire book to the end, re-reading other pages two or three times... Greenwood gave me a lot of courage..."

In Russia, revolutionary-democratic writer Marko Vovchok was intensively involved in promoting Greenwood’s work. She not only translated his novels and essays, but also published in four books of “Notes of the Fatherland” for 1868-1869 a large journalistic work, “Gloomy Pictures,” with excerpts from his writings. Greenwood and English writers close to him in ideological and creative aspirations. According to Marco Vovchok, Greenwood’s books instill in the reader a healthy doubt, which “washes away false colors from the world around us and gives us the opportunity to call things by their names, without being mistaken about their real qualities... One of the main representatives of this healthy trend in England can, without a doubt, , call Greenwood.”

In the same “Notes of the Fatherland,” Marco Vovchok published in 1868 a complete translation of “The True Story of a Little Raggar,” which later formed the basis for numerous adaptations and retellings of this novel for children of younger and middle age. In pre-revolutionary Russia, the abbreviated translation of A. N. Annenskaya was widespread; in Soviet times, “The Little Rag” was often retold by T. Bogdanovich and K. Chukovsky.

"Little Rag" by Greenwood

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Greenwood James

Little ragamuffin

JAMES GREENWOOD

LITTLE RAG

IN THE RETELLING OF T. BOGDANOVICH AND K. CHUKOVSKY

E. Brandis. About James Greenwood and "Little Raggedy"

I. Stepmother............ II. New torment. - Escape......... III. Evening at Smithfield Market. - I am in serious danger IV. I try to "bark". - My new acquaintances... V. Arches.................. VI. Partnership "Ripston, Mouldy and Co."... VII. I begin to work............ VIII. The little dog. - I am being watched. - An unpleasant night IX. I end up in the workhouse ......... X. I stay alive............ XI. I head towards Turnmill Street once more... XII. I meet two gentlemen.... XIII. I am becoming a street singer. - An old friend XIV. An old friend treats and dresses me..... XV. My new master............ XVI. The spider and his dog. - Mysterious soot.... XVII. My wish comes true.......... XVIII. A scene more terrible than all the performances in the theater XIX. I am running away from the police............ XX I'm Entering a New Path......XXI I Meet George Gapkins...XXII I Meet an Old Friend...XXIII My Intention to Change Is Quickly Disappearing XXIV . Mrs. Gapkins tells me unpleasant things. XXV. I am cheating on George Gapkins. - The curtain falls

ABOUT JAMES GREENWOOD AND "LITTLE RAG"

“Books have a destiny,” says the old saying. How true these words are can be shown by the peculiar history of this very book by the English writer James Greenwood, which is now in front of you, “The Little Ragged One” was first published in London in 1866. Two years later, this book was translated into Russian by Marko Vovchok (the pseudonym of the famous Ukrainian and Russian writer Maria Alexandrovna Markovich).

The story of the bitter childhood and misadventures of a little London tramp was met with great interest by Russian readers. Soon, one after another, abridged translations and adaptations of “The Little Rag” for children began to appear in Russia.

After the Great October Socialist Revolution, it was repeatedly published in the retelling of T. Bogdanovich and K. Chukovsky. In Russian and the languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR, Greenwood’s “Little Rag” went through a total of more than forty editions. It has long been deservedly recognized in our country as a classic work of children's literature.

It is natural to assume that in Greenwood’s homeland, England, his book is as widely known and widespread as it is here in the Soviet Union. But actually it is not.

"The Little Raggedy One" was published in England only twice and was forgotten a long time ago (the second and last edition was published in 1884). In England, "The Little Rag" was never published for children, and English schoolchildren never read it.

You can only regret this. The true and sad story of the little ragamuffin would have revealed to them many useful truths and, undoubtedly, would have awakened in many of them sincere indignation against the unjust conditions under which thousands and thousands of children of English working people were doomed to premature death, hunger and poverty...

Perhaps English teachers and book publishers deliberately did not want to distribute this book, which tells about the terrible and unsightly life of the children of the English poor, among young readers?

Perhaps such a strange fate befell Greenwood’s talented book only in England?

No, it turns out, not only in England. Apart from Russian, “Little Raggedy” has not been translated into any other foreign languages.

All these facts once again confirm with what extraordinary sensitivity and responsiveness Russian readers have always perceived everything new and advanced that appeared in the literature of foreign countries. After all, it has long been the custom in our country that every new work of a foreign author that deserves attention immediately appeared in Russian translation and became widely distributed. It is not for nothing that our great writers, from Pushkin to Gorky, have always admired the “worldwide responsiveness” of Russian literature and Russian readers.

But out of hundreds and thousands of translated books, many are forgotten over time; one might say, they fall out of order, and only some, the best, are destined for a long life and lasting recognition.

One of these best books is “The Little Raggedy One” by James Greenwood. Not only has it stood the test of time, but now, almost a hundred years after its first publication, it remains one of the favorite books of Soviet schoolchildren.

If a book deserves attention, then it is quite appropriate to become interested in its author. Really, what do we know about Greenwood? What was he like as a person and writer? What other works does he have?

These questions are not easy to answer. The name of James Greenwood is forgotten in England as thoroughly as his “Little Ragged One”.

Not a single article has been written about him, there are no mentions of him in the most detailed reference books, biographical dictionaries, or even in the Encyclopedia Britannica. If we didn't know that James Greenwood wrote "The Little Rag", we might think that such a writer did not exist at all.

But one has only to look at the English Book Chronicle * to be convinced that such a writer not only existed, but published his books for more than four decades.

From the late fifties of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, James Greenwood published about forty books. In addition to “The Little Ragged Man,” some of his other works were also translated into Russian at one time.

Greenwood wrote on a variety of topics. A special group consists of his stories and novels for young people - about the adventures of English sailors in tropical countries, most often in Africa.

Greenwood's heroes suffer shipwrecks, wander through deserts and jungles, languish in captivity among savages, hunt wild animals with them, and after many adventures

* "Book Chronicle" - a monthly or annual directory that lists all the books published in the country over a certain period. The Book Chronicle is published in almost all countries.

They eventually return safely to their homeland. Greenwood describes the nature of tropical countries, the life and customs of local residents so colorfully and in detail, as if he himself had visited these countries.

Among such works by Greenwood, an interesting novel should be highlighted - “The Adventures of Robin Davidger, who spent seventeen years and four months in captivity among the Dayaks on the island of Borneo” (1869). This book is in many ways reminiscent of Daniel Defoe's The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.

Another group of Greenwood's works consists of his novels and stories about animals. From these books it is clear that the writer knew the instincts and habits of wild animals very well, and was able to accurately and accurately convey his observations.

Answer from
The boy grew up with his father and stepmother, who offended him all the time, deprived him of food, lied to his father about him, forced him to do everything himself, and was also a drunkard. One fine day she made him run away. At the market they gave him alms and he ate. In the evening, when he was walking home, his friends tried to seize him, to whom his father had promised a shilling for the capture of his son; he fought off the guys and ran away. Once again at the market, he met homeless guys Ripston and Mouldy, who nicknamed him Smithfield, and they went together to spend the night in a van. The next day, Smithfield learned to steal with the guys, but his conscience still gnawed at him. Day after day everything was the same: the guys got up, had breakfast, worked whatever they had to, or stole and resold stolen goods to one old man, sometimes they ate meat, sometimes a piece of bread for the whole day, sometimes they saved it on straw, sometimes without. During the six months that Smithfield spent in the company of the guys, he went to the theater several times, and spent one night at the police station. One day Smith fell ill, he was brought to the workhouse, where he recovered; to avoid being sent to a terrible place, he ran back to where the guys always spent the night, but they weren’t there. Smith was frozen and decided to return home, but met his father, who almost killed him, and realized that he couldn’t go home. A few days later, he decided to try singing, and one friend recognized him by his voice, she took him to her place, fed him and clothed him. He became an apprentice chimney sweep to earn an honest living. But nothing came of it. He began to steal again, and ended up with the “trainer of thieves” George Gapkins. He met Ripston at the theater, he told him that Mouldy had died, and he himself was now working in a factory, from which Smith’s conscience awoke. He even wanted to ask to work with Ripston, but then they met Gapkins and dissuaded him. Gapkins' wife told Smith what Gapkins was doing with all his past assistants and advised him to get away somewhere. Finally, the day comes when Gapkins tells Smith to buy light shoes for himself, he realizes that there will be a theft, and decides to betray Gapkins. Everything goes well and Smif gets a job at Ripston’s factory. Now everything will be fair and good.

Answer from Konstantin Voropuponin[newbie]
And before that, his real mother died. There are already 2 or 3 chapters written about this. And his stepmother's name was Mrs. Burg

Answer from 2 answers[guru]

Hello! Here is a selection of topics with answers to your question: a summary of the little ragged John Greenwood

Chapter I
Some details about my place of birth and my relationship

I was born in London, at number 19, Freingpen Lane, near Turnmill Street. The reader is probably not at all familiar with this area, and if he decided to look for it, his efforts would remain unsuccessful. It would be in vain for him to make inquiries from various people who, apparently, should know both this street and this alley well. A petty shopkeeper who lived in the alley of the “Turkish Head” twenty steps from my alley would shake his head in bewilderment in response to the questions of an inquisitive reader; he would say that he knows Fringpon Lane and Tommel Street in the neighborhood, but he has never heard those strange names that he is now being told about in his entire life; It would never have occurred to him that his Fringpon and Tommel were nothing more than distorted Fringpen and Turnmill.

However, no matter what the shopkeeper thinks, Fraingpen Lane exists, that is certain. Its appearance is now exactly the same as it was twenty years ago, when I lived there; only the stone step at the entrance to it has been greatly worn out, and the plaque with its name has been renewed; the entrance to it is as dirty as before, and with the same low, narrow arch. This vault is so low that a scavenger with a basket must almost crawl through it on his knees, and so narrow that a shop shutter or even a coffin lid could serve as a gate for him.

As a child, I was not particularly cheerful and carefree happy: I constantly paid my main attention to coffins and funerals. Many funerals pass through our alley, especially in the summer, and therefore it is not surprising if I often thought about coffins: I mentally measured all our neighbors and wondered whether it would be possible to carry their coffins along our cramped alley. I was especially worried about the funerals of two persons; firstly, a fat innkeeper who lived in Turnmill Street and often came into our lane to buy pots and pans, which the neighbors took from him and then forgot to return to him. Alive, he should have walked out of the alley sideways, but what would happen when he died, and suddenly his shoulders got stuck between two walls?

I was even more concerned about Mrs. Winkship's funeral. Mrs. Winkship was an old woman who lived at the entrance to the lane; she was shorter, but for that reason she was even fatter than the innkeeper; In addition, I loved and respected her from the bottom of my heart, I did not want her to be treated disrespectfully even after death, and therefore I thought long and often about how to carry her coffin through the narrow entrance. Mrs. Winkship's business was to rent carts and lend money to the fruit merchants who lived in our lane. She was proud of the fact that for thirty years she had not gone anywhere further than Turnmill Street, only going to the theater, and even then she had knocked out her leg. She used to sit all day long on the threshold of her own house; Instead of a chair, she was served by an overturned coke measure, on which lay a bag of chaff for greater convenience. She sat in this way in order to watch for fruit merchants: she had to demand money from them while they were going home, having sold their goods, otherwise she would often have to suffer losses. In good weather, she had breakfast, lunch, and drank tea without leaving her bag. Her niece lived with her, a young woman, terribly disfigured by smallpox, one-eyed, with hair combed back, ugly, but very good-natured and often fed me delicious dinners. She held the key to the barn where the carts were kept and prepared food for her aunt. What kind of food were they! I have been to many excellent dinners in my life, but none of them could compare with Mrs. Winkship's. Just at one o'clock in the afternoon Mrs. Winkship moved her coke measure from the door to the living room window and asked: Is everything ready, Martha? Bring it on! - Martha opened the window and placed salt, vinegar, pepper and mustard on the windowsill, then took out a large box that replaced the table and covered with a tablecloth white as snow, and finally ran back into the room, from where she served her aunt lunch through the window. How tasty this dinner seemed, how pleasantly it smoked and, most importantly, what an amazing smell it emitted! It has become a saying among us boys and girls of Fraingpen Lane that every day is Sunday at Mrs. Winkship's. In our homes we never ate those delicious dishes that she treated herself to, and we found that there could be nothing better in the world than them. All we got was the smell, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. After dinner Mrs. Winkship usually drank rum and hot water. Did we laugh at the good old lady for this, did we condemn her for her little weakness for wine? Oh no, not at all! We realized early on that this weakness could be to our advantage. Each of us, the boys and girls of the alley, wanted her to send him to the shop for her usual portion of rum. To do this it was necessary to use some tricks. We usually watched vigilantly from the gateways to see how soon the old woman would finish dinner and again carry her bag to the threshold of the house. Then one of us would emerge from the ambush and approach her, yawning around with the most innocent look. Having come quite close, he should have asked if she needed to buy anything?

-Are you talking to me, boy? - Mrs. Winkship was usually surprised.

“Yes, sir, I’m going to Tommel Street to get some molasses for my mother, I was wondering if you needed tea or something else.”

- No, thanks, boy; I’ve already bought myself some tea, and they’ll bring me milk now; it seems like I don’t need anything else.

Both she herself and each of us knew very well what she needed. But it would be a disaster if some awkward boy decided to hint about rum! He would never have to run errands for the old lady again! After Mrs. Winkship’s answer, you should have simply bowed politely and walked past, then she would probably call you over and say:

- Listen, boy, you don’t care, just run to Mr. Pigot, you know?

- Of course, sir, I know, this is the Dog in the Fence tavern.

“Well, yes, buy me threepence of the best rum and a piece of lemon there.” Here's to you for your efforts!

She gave the clever boy a small coin and after that he had only to watch her while she drank; after the last sip she became unusually kind, and often one or two more coins were given to those who approached her at that time. She was especially fond of me, and one evening I managed to get four halfpence from her.

However, I was busy all the time nursing my little sister, and I rarely had the opportunity to enjoy Mrs. Winkship’s favors, so I was not at all worried about her death out of selfish goals. I never got to see this sad event. When I ran away from Freyngpen Lane, the kind old lady was sitting calmly on her coke measure, and when I returned from Australia as an adult, tanned man, it turned out that no one living in Clerkenwell parish knew anything about her.

In all other respects, upon returning from distant lands, I found our lane exactly as I had left it. As before, from one window there was a garland of onions strung on a string, from another there were strips of dry cod, and on the third there were fresh herrings. It was still laundry day for some of the alley's residents; tattered curtains, tatters of colorful blankets, mended shirts and flannel sweatshirts were still drying on lines nailed to the walls of houses or tied to floor brushes.

As before, at the end of the alley there was a large leaky water barrel, into which water from the reservoir ran every morning for three-quarters of an hour, and as before around this barrel there was a hustle, bustle and squabble. Here stood large, bony, unkempt women in shoes on their bare feet, with disheveled hair, with buckets, which they waved menacingly at anyone who dared to come up for water before them; there stood a huge, clumsy Irishman with a saucepan in his hands; he pushed with his elbows and with his whole body the little girls who came for water with their pots and kettles, and in order to get forward, he trampled their poor, bare toes with the prickly nails of his heavy boots; there was even a strong man, just like “dashing Jack,” who inspired both fear and respect in me as a child, and in front of this strong man, not only poor, barefoot girls, but even the clumsy Irishman, even angry women, timidly shunned. Everything, everything remains the same, although many years have passed since I lived here as a child. I began to look around the houses. My eyes fell on house No. 19. Everything is the same, even, it seems, the same sugar paper, the same old rags replace the glass in many windows! And if now, right now, one of these windows opened, a red, tousled head would stick out, and a sharp voice would be heard: “Jimmy! Ugly boy, I’ll beat you until you bleed if you don’t get off these stairs and get the girl,” I wouldn’t be at all surprised. I was caressed, I was given instructions, I was scolded hundreds of times from this very window. In the room it illuminates, my sister Polly was born when I was a little over five years old. In this same room, my mother died a few minutes after the birth of my sister.

Don't think that the red-haired woman with the shrill voice was my mother, no, it was my stepmother. All I remember about my mother is that she was a woman with dark hair and a pale face. She must have been kind to me because I loved her dearly and still do. Her father treated her rudely and unkindly. He often scolded her, often even beat her, so that she screamed throughout the street. I felt very sorry for the poor mother, and I did not understand why my father did not love her so much, and yet he really loved her, he did not expect that his beatings would do her any harm, and did not even change his treatment when she started to get sick.

Chapter II
What happened one Friday

One Friday afternoon, having played enough on the street, I returned home; Having ascended the stairs, I was preparing to open the door to our room, when Mrs. Jenkins suddenly stopped me; she lived with her husband one floor below us, but this time she found herself doing something in our room. She stuck her head out onto the stairs, in an angry voice told me to go play outside and locked the door under my very nose. This really offended and angered me. I began to roar at the top of my lungs, knocking and breaking on the door. I asked my mother to throw nasty Jenkins out and give me some bread and molasses. In response to my screams, my mother came to the door.

“Don’t make so much noise, Jimmy,” she told me in a gentle voice: “I’m sick, I have a headache, here, go buy yourself a pie!”

I heard a metallic sound at my feet; I bent down and saw that my mother had slipped me a coin through the crack under the door. I grabbed a coin and ran to buy myself a pie.

I played on the street for a long time, but finally I got bored and returned home again. Before I could reach the first floor along our stairs, a tall gentleman all in black overtook me; He was apparently in a hurry, walked up two or three steps and knocked on our door. They opened the door for him, and he again locked the door behind him. I sat down on the step of the stairs and waited for him to leave. But he didn’t leave, and I waited until I fell asleep. My father, who returned that evening later than usual and drunk, found me sleeping on the stairs and began to loudly scold my mother for not taking care of me.

“Mother has someone, father,” I noted.

- Is there anyone?

- Who it? - asked the father.

- Some gentleman with such a white thing on his neck, and his boots squeak. Mrs. Jenkins is there too.

The father suddenly became meek.

We went downstairs and knocked on old Jenkins' door. He came out to us sleepy, rubbing his eyes, and immediately dragged his father into his room.

“Were you upstairs, Jim?” – he asked in an alarmed voice.

“No,” answered the father: “what happened there?”

- It's rubbish! – the old man said in the same alarmed voice. “My old woman didn’t tell me to let you in there.” She also sent for the doctor, many women were found there, but the doctor kicked them all out, saying they needed peace and quiet.

“Doctors always say that,” my father said calmly.

This calmness did not seem to please Mr. Jenkins.

- He doesn’t understand anything! – he grumbled through his teeth. - Well, how can I cook it little by little? - and then, turning to his father, he said in a decisive voice:

“You need to know, Jim, that it’s bad there, really bad!” – he pointed his finger at the ceiling.

It was not so much Mr. Jenkins' words that affected my father as the tone in which they were spoken. He was apparently so shocked that he could not speak. He took off his hat and sat down on a chair near the window, holding me on his lap.

“She’s been waiting for you,” Jenkins said after a minute’s silence: “the outer door will knock a little, she’ll be there now: that’s my Jim!” That's his walk! I know!

– Was she waiting for me? Did you want to see me? How strange! - the father cried.

“She said even stranger things,” Jenkins continued: “she said: “I want to kiss him, I want him to hold my hand, I want to make peace with him before I die!”

Father quickly jumped up from his chair, walked around the rooms two or three times - so quietly that you could barely hear his forged boots touching the floor - stopped with his back to Jenkins and facing the paintings hanging on the wall, and stood there for several minutes .

“Jenkins,” he finally said, continuing to look at the picture: the doctor drove everyone away from there... I’m afraid to go there... You go and call your wife!

Jenkins apparently was unpleasant about fulfilling this order, but he did not want to disturb his already upset father with his refusal. He left the room, and soon we heard the sound of his footsteps going up the stairs. A few seconds later Mrs. Jenkins herself entered the room along with her husband. Seeing us, she clasped her hands, fell on a chair and began to sob loudly. I was terribly scared.

- Why is mom up now? – I asked her.

-Are you up? No, my poor lamb,” she answered, choking with tears: “no, poor orphan!” She will never get up again.

For a moment the father took his eyes off the picture and looked at Mrs. Jenkins, as if he wanted to say something, but said nothing.

“She's dying, Jim,” Jenkins continued. The doctor said there was no hope of saving her!

And Mrs. Jenkins began to sob again. Her old husband walked around her and tried to calm her down. I didn’t understand well what she said, but for some reason her words frightened me greatly, I ran up to her and hid my head in her lap. Father didn't seem to pay any attention to us. He leaned his forehead against the wall, and suddenly I heard a strange sound: pit, pat, pit. The picture, which he had looked at so carefully before, was glued to the wall only with its upper part, its lower corner was curled up, and, probably, his father’s tears, falling on this corner, made a strange sound: pit, pat.

Suddenly he made an effort, wiped his eyes with a handkerchief and turned to us.

- Doctor, upstairs? - he asked.

- Yes, of course, would I really leave her alone!

“No, don’t go, Jim,” Jenkins urged: “the doctor says that she needs peace, that any excitement increases her suffering.”

“I’m telling you that I’ll go,” the father repeated. - Poor thing! She wants to hold the hand that hit her so often! She asks me to make peace:

Wait here, Mrs. Jenkins, maybe she needs to tell me something in confidence.

He left the room, but at that very moment the doctor’s impatient voice came from above.

- Mrs., how are you? Come here quickly! She needed to leave right now!

Mrs. Jenkins jumped up and ran upstairs, followed by her father.

He didn't stay upstairs for long. Soon his steps were heard again along the stairs, and he returned to us.

He took me on his lap, leaned his elbows on the table, covered his face with his hands and did not say a word.

It was mid-September; the evenings became dark and cold. All three of us sat in silence. Old Jenkins was making a canary cage.

Suddenly the father started up and suddenly shouted: “Oh my God, Jenkins, how hard it is for me, I can’t stand it anymore, it’s suffocating me!”

He untied his thick neckerchief.

“I can’t stand another minute.” By God, I can’t!

“If I were you, Jim, I’d walk a little along the street, about ten minutes.” Come on, I'll go with you!

- And the boy? - asked the father.

“It’s okay for him to sit here for a minute, right, Jimmy?” He will watch how the squirrel runs in a wheel.

I said that I would sit, that it was nothing, but in fact I thought differently; they left, and I was left alone in the room. At this time it became darker and darker, and finally it was almost completely dark. I didn't really like Mrs. Jenkins, so I almost never went to her room. Now I had already spent more than an hour in it, but I was always busy with what was being said and done around me, so I did not have time to see the things that were in this room. Left alone, I began to look at this. Several bird cages were placed along the wall; birds were sitting in them, but all of them, with the exception of the blackbird, were already asleep, hiding their heads under their wings. Drozd sat quietly, only his eyes sparkled and blinked every time I looked at him. In addition to the thrush and the squirrel, in the room on a small table lay a whalebone and there was a pot-bellied jug with a human head, its mouth wide open, from which a stream of water was ready to pour out. The darker it became, the stranger everything around me seemed to me: I even became afraid to look around; I fixed my eyes on the squirrel’s cage and began to follow the little animal, which was running quickly in its wire wheel.

Much more than ten minutes passed, but my father and Jenkins did not return. It had become completely dark, and out of all the squirrels I saw only a white spot on its chest; her wheel creaked, her claws clicked, the clock ticked non-stop, and upstairs in her mother’s room the creaking of the doctor’s boots could be heard. I became so scared that I couldn’t bear it anymore; I climbed down from the chair onto the floor, closed my eyes so as not to see the terrible blackbird in passing, quietly left the room and, climbing halfway up the stairs, sat down on the step. If Jenkins had been alone with my mother, I would certainly have gone into our room, but the doctor scared me; in his presence I did not dare to open our door. It wasn't very comfortable for me to sit on the hard stairs, but it was still better than staying in Jenkins' scary room. Through the keyhole of our door a bright streak of light appeared, illuminating part of the railing. I sat down on the stairs, as close as possible to this bright spot, grabbed the railing with both hands and soon fell into a deep sleep. I don’t know how long I slept, but my father’s voice woke me up.

- Is that you, Jimmy? - he asked: - why are you here? Are you tired of sitting alone?

“And he must have been sitting at the window, waiting for us,” Jenkins noted, “and when he noticed that we were coming, he immediately ran to open the door for us.”

- No no! - I cried, grabbing onto my father: - Not true at all! I was scared, dad!

My father wanted to answer me something, but remained silent, and we silently entered Jenkins’s room, who had already lit the candle.

Suddenly there was the sound of a door opening upstairs and then the creaking of the doctor's boots on the stairs.

- The doctor is leaving! - said the father in an excited voice: - she must be better!

But the doctor did not leave; on the contrary, he stopped near our door and knocked. Jenkins hurried to open the door for him.

– Your name is Balizet? - the doctor turned to him, - you, husband...

- No, sir, sorry, it’s not me. Jim, come here.

“I am her husband at your service, sir,” said my father, boldly stepping forward and holding me in his arms. – How does she feel now, may I ask?

“Oh, it’s you Mr. Balizet,” the doctor said in a completely different rude voice than he had spoken before. – Is this the boy she was remembering?

- Yes, it must be, sir. Can't we go up and see her now? We wouldn't bother her.

“Well, my friend,” the doctor interrupted, taking my hand with his large black-gloved hand, “your poor mother has passed away, and now you must be a good boy.” You have a little sister and you must take care of her in memory of your mother. Goodbye, my dear. Farewell, Mr. Balizet. Bear your loss with courage, like a man should. Good night!

In response to the doctor’s words, the father silently bowed his head. He was amazed, his eyes wandered around, and he seemed to understand nothing. Only when old Jenkins went to shine a light on the stairs for the doctor did his father regain his ability to think and speak.

- Oh my God! She died! She died! - he said in a dull voice with suppressed sobs.

This is how old Jenkins found him when he returned with a candle; This is how the priest found him, who went to see his mother, probably while I was sleeping on the stairs, and now, returning back, wanted to say a few comforting words to him; This is how Mrs. Jenkins found him and several of the neighbors who entered the room with her. They all tried to tell their father something reassuring, but he did not listen to them. Mrs. Jenkins brought with her some kind of bundle of rags and, unwrapping it, began to ask her father to look at the baby and hold her in his arms. The father held the baby, but paid very little attention to her. I was also allowed to hold my little sister for a little while. The neighbors, noticing that their father did not want to talk to them, little by little they all left; For some reason Mrs. Jenkins was called upstairs, and Jenkins and I were left alone again.

“Take my advice, Jim,” he said, turning to his father: “go to bed with the boy.” There's my son Joe's bed in the back room, he won't come home till morning; lie down, Jim, if you don’t fall asleep, at least calm down!

After several persuasions, my father and I finally agreed to spend the night in Joe's room. This room could not be considered a comfortable bedroom. Joe Jenkins worked at night at a graphite plant, and during the day he was engaged in selling birds, rabbits and dogs, making cages and stuffing birds. The whole room was littered with various things, wires and wooden sticks were sticking out everywhere, in addition, there was a strong smell of some kind of glue. and paints. But the father was unpretentious, and this time he probably would not have slept peacefully in the richest bedroom, on the most comfortable bed. While the people in the house were still awake, while we could hear footsteps up and down the stairs, while we could hear the noise from the street, he lay quite calm. But when little by little the sounds on the streets died down and everything around calmed down, the father began to fidget anxiously in bed. He turned over from side to side, then clasped his hands tightly on his chest, then closed his eyes with them. One thing really surprised me. No matter how much my father tossed and turned, he always carefully tried not to disturb me. With every awkward movement, he gently stroked my shoulder and whispered: shhh, as if afraid that I would wake up. But I didn’t even think about sleeping. I didn't know exactly what happened, but I felt that something terrible had happened. I really wanted to understand what exactly happened to my mother. Mrs. Jenkins said that she was not there, and meanwhile I heard some two women walking and talking quietly upstairs, he must have been there with his mother; But why did he lock the door when he left? I asked Mrs. Jenkins: “Where did mom go, and will she be back soon?” and she answered me: “She will never come back, my poor boy; she went where all good people go and she will never come back.” How long has this “never” been, I asked myself. What is it - a day, a week, a month? What is it - longer than before my birthday or before Christmas? I had often heard the word “never” before, but I did not understand it exactly. I remember once my father said to my mother at breakfast in the morning: “I don’t want to know you!” I will never again eat a piece of bread with you,” and in the evening he came and calmly ate bread and other dishes with his mother. The mother also said once to the father, when he hit her so hard that she fell to the floor: “Jim, I will never, never, as long as I live, forgive you for this!” And, they say, she forgave him, she wanted to kiss him and make peace with him. “Never” must mean different times. What does it mean when they talk about mother? I must definitely ask Mrs. Jenkins tomorrow. Or maybe my father knows, I’d better ask him.

- Dad, are you sleeping?

- No, Jimmy, I’m not sleeping, so what?

- Dad, what do you mean “never”?

The father rose to his elbow; he must have never expected such a question.

- Shh! Sleep, Jimmy, did you really dream about something?

- No, I haven’t slept yet, that’s why I can’t sleep, I keep thinking about it. Tell me, dad, what is “never”, mom’s “never?”

- Mom’s “never”? - he repeated. “You’re a wonderful boy, I don’t understand what you came up with.”

“And I don’t understand, dad, I thought you would tell me!”

“You better sleep now,” said my father, covering me more tightly: “now all the smart children are sleeping, there’s nothing to think about “never”, it’s never a long day.

- Just a day? Just one long day? I'm so glad! And are you happy, dad?

– Not particularly happy, Jimmy; short or long - a day, I don't care.

- But it’s all the same for mom! If “never” is only one day, then in a day mom will return to us; Will you be happy, dad?

He raised himself even higher on his elbow and looked at me with a sad look, as I could see in the light of the moon looking out the window.

- She died!

- Yes, she died! – the father repeated in a whisper. - There you see the bird on the shelf (it was one of the birds given to Joe for stuffed animals. In the dim light of the month I could see it well; it was scary, without eyes, with a wide open beak and shiny iron wires drawn through the whole body) , you see, Jimmy, this is death. Mom cannot come to life and come to us, just as this bullfinch cannot jump off the shelf and fly around the rooms.

“I thought, Dad, if she died, she left, but Mom didn’t leave?” So she's up there with these sharp things stuck in her?

- Oh, my God, no, what to do with this child! The thing is, Jimmy, that mom can’t see, hear, walk, or feel; even if she was stabbed all over now, she wouldn’t feel it. She's dead, Jimmy, and soon they'll bring the coffin and lay her there and lower her into the pit! My poor Polly! My poor dear! And I didn’t kiss you before I died, as you wanted, no, I said goodbye to you!

The father's voice suddenly broke off, he buried his face in the pillow and sobbed as he had never sobbed. Frightened by this end of our conversation, I, for my part, began to scream and cry. My father, fearing that my scream would wake up all the residents in the house, made an effort to suppress his grief and began to calm me down.

This, however, turned out to be not entirely easy.

The explanations my father gave me scared me terribly. In vain he tried to console me with caresses, threats, and promises. He decided to tell me a fairy tale and began to talk about some terrible cannibal giant who eats boiled children every day at breakfast, but this story alarmed me even more. He groped for a wallet with money from the pocket of his trousers and gave it to me; he promised to take me for a ride in his cart the next morning; knowing that I love herrings, he promised me a whole herring for breakfast if I was a smart boy; I have long asked to buy me one pretty horse, which I saw in the window of a toy store, my father gave his word of honor that he would buy me this horse if I went to bed and stopped screaming.

No no no! I demanded a mother and wanted nothing else. I definitely wanted to go upstairs with my father, where she lay all beaten up like Joe the Bullfinch, and release her to freedom; I asked, begged my father to go upstairs and help my poor mother with something, without this I did not agree to calm down.

My father said this so firmly that I immediately saw the impossibility of achieving anything with my shouting. I agreed to kiss him and be a smart guy on the condition that he would get up right away and light a candle, and that I would see my mother early tomorrow morning. The father was very happy with such easy-to-fulfill conditions, but in reality it turned out that the first of them was not as easy as he thought. Jenkins took the candle away when he left, so he had nothing to light.

“That nasty Jenkins,” he said, thinking of turning the matter into a joke: “he took away all the candles; We’ll ask him tomorrow, what do you think?

I remembered that the women, having been in my mother’s room and going downstairs, had placed a candle and matches right next to the door of Jenkins’ apartment, and I told my father about this. But he, apparently, really didn’t want to take this candle, and he again began to persuade me and promise me various gifts. Instead of any answer, I again started screaming and calling loudly for my mother. The father grumbled a little, quietly went out the door, brought a candle, lit it and put it on the shelf.

At that time I was, of course, too young for any serious thoughts, but later the question often occurred to me about how my father must have felt looking at this burning candle. He might have thought that this candle had been burning all evening in his mother’s room, that her weakening eyes had betrayed her while she was looking at the flame of this very candle! And he fixed his eyes on the fire with an expression of such melancholy, such grief, which I have never seen from him again. I didn't feel anything like that; All I wanted was for the candle to be longer, I was afraid that this small tallow candle would soon burn out, and again I would be left in the dark with those terrible thoughts that came to my mind after my father’s story. Meanwhile, even with a candle, I felt little better: its light fell directly on the unfortunate bullfinch, and I could clearly see his black, spherical head, his wide-open beak, his stiff legs. I felt myself trembling with fear at the sight of this monster, and yet I could not take my eyes off it. But then the burnt out candle began to crackle and flare up, I made an effort over myself, turned my face to the wall and fell asleep. I slept peacefully until the morning I heard the clinking of tea utensils in Jenkins’ room.

James Greenwood

Little ragamuffin

James Greenwood

The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

Converted from English for children by A. Annenskaya

Artist E. Golomazova

© E. Golomazova. Illustrations, 2015

© JSC "ENAS-KNIGA", 2015

Preface from the publisher

James Greenwood (1833–1929), one of England's first professional writers for children, worked in the field of children's literature for more than half a century. He has written almost 40 novels.

Like many other English children's writers, Greenwood paid tribute to the theme of Robinsonade (The Adventures of Robert Deviger, 1869). However, he was not just an “entertaining” writer: the leitmotif of his work was the life of the poor, outcast people, abandoned by society to their fate. The writer dedicated a special book, “The Seven Curses of London” (1869), to the unbearable life of the inhabitants of the London slums.

The writer’s most famous book, “The True History of a Little Rag” (1866), became extremely popular in Russia, going through about 40 editions. The hero of the book, Jim, became for the Russian reader a touching symbol of a young London beggar.

Harassed by his stepmother, the boy leaves his home. But what awaits him is not exciting travel, but half-starved nomadism in the company of street children like him, an eternal search for food, despair and fear. Greenwood depicts to the reader the social swamp in which crime is born, shows how gradually people, driven to despair by hunger and poverty, turn into inhumans.

Greenwood's book has an optimistic ending: the boy manages to escape hopeless poverty. The writer believes in the friendly support of those who, through hard and honest work, establish themselves on earth - and instills in the reader faith in the bright power of friendship and work.

Chapter I. Some details about the place of my birth and about my relationship

I was born in London, at number 19, Freingpen Lane, near Turnmill Street. The reader is probably not at all familiar with this area, and if he decided to look for it, his efforts would remain unsuccessful. It would be in vain for him to make inquiries from various people who, apparently, should know both this street and this alley well. A petty shopkeeper who lived twenty steps from my alley would shake his head in bewilderment in response to the questions of an inquisitive reader; he would say that he knows Fringpon Lane and Tommel Street in the neighborhood, but he has never heard those strange names that he is now being told about in his entire life; It would never have occurred to him that his Fringpon and Tommel were nothing more than distorted Fringpen and Turnmill.

However, no matter what the shopkeeper thinks, Fraingpen Lane exists, that is certain. Its appearance is now exactly the same as it was twenty years ago, when I lived there; only the stone step at the entrance to it has been greatly worn out, and the plaque with its name has been renewed; the entrance to it is as dirty as before, and with the same low, narrow arch. This vault is so low that a scavenger with a basket must almost crawl through it on his knees, and so narrow that a shop shutter or even a coffin lid could serve as a gate for him.

As a child, I was not particularly cheerful and carefree happy: I constantly paid my main attention to coffins and funerals. Our alley passes through, especially in the summer, many funerals, and therefore it is not surprising that I often thought about coffins: I mentally measured all our neighbors and wondered whether it would be possible to carry their coffins along our cramped alley. I was especially worried about the funerals of two persons. Firstly, I was worried about a fat innkeeper who lived in Turnmill Street and often came into our lane to buy pots and pans, which the neighbors took from him and then forgot to return. Alive, he should have walked out of the alley sideways, but what would happen when he died, suddenly his shoulders got stuck between two walls?

I was even more concerned about Mrs. Winkship's funeral. Mrs. Winkship, the old lady who lived at the entrance to the lane, was shorter, but even fatter than the innkeeper. In addition, I loved and respected her from the bottom of my heart, I did not want her to be treated disrespectfully even after death, and therefore I thought long and often about how to carry her coffin through the narrow entrance.

Mrs. Winkship's business was to rent carts and lend money to the fruit merchants who lived in our lane. She was proud of the fact that she had not gone anywhere further than Turnmill Street for thirty years, the only time she went to the theater was to sprain her leg. She used to sit all day long on the threshold of her own house; her chair was an overturned basket, on which lay a bag of chaff for greater convenience. She sat in this way to watch for fruit merchants: she had to demand money from them while they were going home, having sold their goods, otherwise she would often have to suffer losses. In good weather, she had breakfast, lunch, and drank tea without leaving her bag.

Her niece lived with her, a young woman, terribly disfigured by smallpox, one-eyed, with hair combed back, ugly, but very good-natured and often fed me delicious dinners. She kept the key to the barn in which the carts were kept, and prepared food for her aunt. What kind of food were they! I have been to many excellent dinners in my life, but none of them could compare with Mrs. Winkship's.

Just at one o'clock in the afternoon Mrs. Winkship was moving her basket from the door to the drawing-room window and asked:

– Is everything ready, Martha? Bring it on!

Martha opened the window and placed salt, vinegar, pepper and mustard on the windowsill, then took out a large box that served as a table and covered with a tablecloth as white as snow, and finally ran back into the room, from where she served her aunt dinner through the window. How delicious this dinner seemed, how pleasantly it smoked and, most importantly, what an amazing smell it emitted! It has become a saying among us boys and girls of Fraingpen Lane that every day is Sunday at Mrs. Winkship's. In our homes we never ate those delicious dishes that she enjoyed, and we found that there could be nothing better in the world than them.

All we got was the smell, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. After dinner Mrs. Winkship drank rum and hot water. Did we laugh at the good old lady for this, did we blame her for her slight weakness for wine? Oh no, not at all! We realized early on that this weakness could be to our advantage. Each of us, the boys and girls of the alley, wanted her to send him to the shop for her usual portion of rum. To do this it was necessary to use some tricks. We vigilantly watched from the gateway to see how soon the old lady would finish lunch. She was sitting in one place! Then one of us would emerge from the ambush and approach her, yawning around with the most innocent look. When he got quite close, he should have asked if she needed to buy anything.