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SENTIMENTAL TOMMY
THE STORY OF HIS BOYHOOD
BY J. M. BARRIE
AUTHOR OF "THE LITTLE MINISTER," "A WINDOW IN THRUMS," ETC.
1896
SENTIMENTAL TOMMY
THE STORY OF HIS BOYHOOD
CHAPTER I
TOMMY CONTRIVES TO KEEP ONE OUT
The celebrated Tommy first comes into view on a dirty London stair, andhe was in sexless garments, which were all he had, and he was five, andso though we are looking at him, we must do it sideways, lest he sitdown hurriedly to hide them. That inscrutable face, which made theclubmen of his later days uneasy and even puzzled the ladies while hewas making love to them, was already his, except when he smiled at oneof his pretty thoughts or stopped at an open door to sniff a potful. Onhis way up and down the stair he often paused to sniff, but he neverasked for anything; his mother had warned him against it, and he carriedout her injunction with almost unnecessary spirit, declining offersbefore they were made, as when passing a room, whence came the smell offried fish, he might call in, "I don't not want none of your fish," or"My mother says I don't not want the littlest bit," or wistfully, "Iain't hungry," or more wistfully still, "My mother says I ain'thungry." His mother heard of this and was angry, crying that he had letthe neighbors know something she was anxious to conceal, but what he hadrevealed to them Tommy could not make out, and when he questioned herartlessly, she took him with sudden passion to her flat breast, andoften after that she looked at him long and woefully and wrung herhands.
The only other pleasant smell known to Tommy was when the water-cartspassed the mouth of his little street. His street, which ended in a deadwall, was near the river, but on the doleful south side of it, openingoff a longer street where the cabs of Waterloo station sometimes foundthemselves when they took the wrong turning; his home was at the top ofa house of four floors, each with accommodation for at least twofamilies, and here he had lived with his mother since his father'sdeath six months ago. There was oil-cloth on the stair as far as thesecond floor; there had been oil-cloth between the second floor and thethird--Tommy could point out pieces of it still adhering to the wood likeremnants of a plaster.
This stair was nursery to all the children whose homes opened on it, notso safe as nurseries in the part of London that is chiefly inhabited byboys in sailor suits, but preferable as a centre of adventure, and hereon an afternoon sat two. They were very busy boasting, but only thesmaller had imagination, and as he used it recklessly, their positionssoon changed; sexless garments was now prone on a step, breeches sittingon him.
Shovel, a man of seven, had said, "None on your lip. You weren't neverat Thrums yourself."
Tommy's reply was, "Ain't my mother a Thrums woman?"
Shovel, who had but one eye, and that bloodshot, fixed it on himthreateningly.
"The Thames is in London," he said.
"'Cos they wouldn't not have it in Thrums," replied Tommy.
"'Amstead 'Eath's in London, I tell yer," Shovel said.
"The cemetery is in Thrums," said Tommy.
"There ain't no queens in Thrums, anyhow."
"There's the auld licht minister."
"Well, then, if you jest seed Trafalgar Square!"
"If you jest seed the Thrums town-house!"
"St. Paul's ain't in Thrums."
"It would like to be."
After reflecting, Shovel said in desperation, "Well, then, my fatherwere once at a hanging."
Tommy replied instantly, "It were my father what was hanged."
There was no possible answer to this save a knock-down blow, but thoughTommy was vanquished in body, his spirit remained stanch; he raised hishead and gasped, "You should see how they knock down in Thrums!" It wasthen that Shovel sat on him.
Such was their position when an odd figure in that house, a gentleman,passed them without a word, so desirous was he to make a breath taken atthe foot of the close stair last him to the top. Tommy merely gapedafter this fine sight, but Shovel had experience, and "It's a kid or acoffin." he said sharply, knowing that only birth or death brought adoctor here.
Watching the doctor's ascent, the two boys strained their necks over therickety banisters, which had been polished black by trousers of thepast, and sometimes they lost him, and then they saw his legs again.
"Hello, it's your old woman!" cried Shovel. "Is she a deader?" he asked,brightening, for funerals made a pleasant stir on the stair.
The question had no meaning for bewildered Tommy, but he saw that if hismother was a deader, whatever that might be, he had grown great in hiscompanion's eye. So he hoped she was a deader.
"If it's only a kid," Shovel began, with such scorn that Tommy at oncescreamed, "It ain't!" and, cross-examined, he swore eagerly that hismother was in bed when he left her in the morning, that she was still inbed at dinner-time, also that the sheet was over her face, also that shewas cold.
Then she was a deader and had attained distinction in the only waypossible in that street. Shovel did not shake Tommy's hand warmly, theforms of congratulation varying in different parts of London, but helooked his admiration so plainly that Tommy's head waggled proudly.Evidently, whatever his mother had done redounded to his glory as wellas to hers, and somehow he had become a boy of mark. He said from hiselevation that he hoped Shovel would believe his tales about Thrums now,and Shovel, who had often cuffed Tommy for sticking to him so closely,cringed in the most snobbish manner, craving permission to be seen inhis company for the next three days. Tommy, the upstart, did not see hisway to grant this favor for nothing, and Shovel offered a knife, but didnot have it with him; it was his sister Ameliar's knife, and he wouldtake it from her, help his davy. Tommy would wait there till Shovelfetched it. Shovel, baffled, wanted to know what Tommy was putting onhairs for. Tommy smiled, and asked whose mother was a deader. ThenShovel collapsed, and his wind passed into Tommy.
The reign of Thomas Sandys, nevertheless, was among the shortest, forwith this question was he overthrown: "How did yer know she were cold?"
"Because," replied Tommy, triumphantly, "she tell me herself."
Shovel only looked at him, but one eye can be so much more terrible thantwo, that plop, plop, plop came the balloon softly down the steps of thethrone and at the foot shrank pitifully, as if with Ameliar's knife init.
"It's only a kid arter all!" screamed Shovel, furiously. Disappointmentgave him eloquence, and Tommy cowered under his sneers, notunderstanding them, but they seemed to amount to this, that inhaving a baby he had disgraced the house.
"But I think," he said, with diffidence, "I think I were once one."
Then all Shovel could say was that he had better keep it dark on thatstair.
Tommy squeezed his fist into one eye, and the tears came out at theother. A good-natured impulse was about to make Shovel say that thoughkids are undoubtedly humiliations, mothers and boys get used to them intime, and go on as brazenly as before, but it was checked by Tommy'sunfortunate question, "Shovel, when will it come?"
Shovel, speaking from local experience, replied truthfully that theyusually came very soon after the doctor, and at times before him.
"It ain't come before him," Tommy said, confidently.
"How do yer know?"
"'Cos it weren't there at dinner-time, and I been here sincedinner-time."
The words meant that Tommy thought it could only enter by way of thestair, and Shovel quivered with delight. "H'st!" he cried, dramatically,and to his joy Tommy looked anxiously down the stair, instead of up it.
"Did you hear it?"
Tommy whispered.
Before he could control himself Shovel blurted out: "Do you think asthey come on their feet?"
"How then?" demanded Tommy; but Shovel had exhausted his knowledge ofthe subject. Tommy, who had begun to descend to hold the door, turnedand climbed upwards, and his tears were now but the drop left in a cuptoo hurriedly dried. Where was he off to? Shovel called after him; andhe answered, in a determined whisper: "To shove of it out if it tries tocome in at the winder."
This was enough for the more knowing urchin, now so full of good thingsthat with another added he must spill, and away he ran for an audience,which could also help him to bait Tommy, that being a game most sportivewhen there are several to fling at once. At the door he knocked over,and was done with, a laughing little girl who had strayed from a morefashionable street. She rose solemnly, and kissing her muff, to reassureit if it had got a fright, toddled in at the first open door to be outof the way of unmannerly boys.
Tommy, climbing courageously, heard the door slam, and looking down hesaw--a strange child. He climbed no higher. It had come.
After a long time he was one flight of stairs nearer it. It was makingitself at home on the bottom step; resting, doubtless, before it camehopping up. Another dozen steps, and--It was beautifully dressed in onepiece of yellow and brown that reached almost to its feet, with a bitleft at the top to form a hood, out of which its pert face peepedimpudently; oho, so they came in their Sunday clothes. He drew so nearthat he could hear it cooing: thought itself as good as upstairs, didit!
He bounced upon her sharply, thinking to carry all with a high hand."Out you go!" he cried, with the action of one heaving coals.
She whisked round, and, "Oo boy or oo girl?" she inquired, puzzled byhis dress.
"None of your cheek!" roared insulted manhood.
"Oo boy," she said, decisively.
With the effrontery of them when they are young, she made room for himon her step, but he declined the invitation, knowing that her design wasto skip up the stair the moment he was off his guard.
"You don't needn't think as we'll have you," he announced, firmly. "Youhad best go away to--go to--" His imagination failed him. "You had bestgo back," he said.
She did not budge, however, and his next attempt was craftier. "Mymother," he assured her, "ain't living here now;" but mother was a newword to the girl, and she asked gleefully, "Oo have mother?" expectinghim to produce it from his pocket. To coax him to give her a sight of itshe said, plaintively, "Me no have mother."
"You won't not get mine," replied Tommy doggedly.
She pretended not to understand what was troubling him, and it passedthrough his head that she had to wait there till the doctor came downfor her. He might come at any moment.
A boy does not put his hand into his pocket until every other means ofgaining his end has failed, but to that extremity had Tommy now come.For months his only splendid possession had been a penny despised bytrade because of a large round hole in it, as if (to quote Shovel) someprevious owner had cut a farthing out of it. To tell the escapades ofthis penny (there are no adventurers like coin of the realm) would beone way of exhibiting Tommy to the curious, but it would be ahard-hearted way. At present the penny was doubly dear to him, havingbeen long lost and lately found. In a noble moment he had dropped itinto a charity box hanging forlorn against the wall of a shop, where itlay very lonely by itself, so that when Tommy was that way he could hearit respond if he shook the box, as acquaintances give each other thetime of day in passing. Thus at comparatively small outlay did he spreadhis benevolence over weeks and feel a glow therefrom, until the glowwent, when he and Shovel recaptured the penny with a thread and a bentpin.
This treasure he sadly presented to the girl, and she accepted it withglee, putting it on her finger, as if it were a ring, but instead ofsaying that she would go now she asked him, coolly,
"Oo know tories?"
"Stories!" he exclaimed, "I'll--I'll tell you about Thrums," and wasabout to do it for love, but stopped in time. "This ain't a good stairfor stories," he said, cunningly. "I can't not tell stories on thisstair, but I--I know a good stair for stories."
The ninny of a girl was completely hoodwinked; and see, there they go,each with a hand in the muff, the one leering, oh, so triumphantly; theother trusting and gleeful. There was an exuberance of vitality abouther as if she lived too quickly in her gladness, which you may rememberin some child who visited the earth for but a little while.
How superbly Tommy had done it! It had been another keen brain pittedagainst his, and at first he was not winning. Then up came Thrums,and--But the thing has happened before; in a word, Bluecher. Nevertheless,Tommy just managed it, for he got the girl out of the street and on toanother stair no more than in time to escape a ragged rabble, headed byShovel, who, finding their quarry gone, turned on their leaderviciously, and had gloomy views of life till his cap was kicked down asewer, which made the world bright again.
Of the tales told by Tommy that day in words Scotch and cockney, ofThrums, home of heroes and the arts, where the lamps are lit by amagician called Leerie-leerie-licht-the-lamps (but he is also friendly,and you can fling stones at him), and the merest children are allowedto set the spinning-wheels a-whirling, and dagont is the swear, and thestairs are so fine that the houses wear them outside for show, and youdrop a pail at the end of a rope down a hole, and sometimes it comes upfull of water, and sometimes full of fairies--of these and otherwonders, if you would know, ask not a dull historian, nor even go toThrums, but to those rather who have been boys and girls there and noware exiles. Such a one Tommy knows, an unhappy woman, foolish, not verylovable, flung like a stone out of the red quarry upon a land where itcannot grip, and tearing her heart for a sight of the home she shall seeno more. From her Tommy had his pictures, and he colored them rarely.
Never before had he such a listener. "Oh, dagont, dagont!" he would cryin ecstasy over these fair scenes, and she, awed or gurgling with mirthaccording to the nature of the last, demanded "'Nother, 'nother!"whereat he remembered who and what she was, and showing her a morsel ofthe new one, drew her to more distant parts, until they were so far fromhis street that he thought she would never be able to find the way back.
His intention had been, on reaching such a spot, to desert her promptly,but she gave him her hand in the muff so confidingly that against hisjudgment he fell a-pitying the trustful mite who was wandering theworld in search of a mother, and so easily diddled on the whole thatthe chances were against her finding one before morning. Almostunconsciously he began to look about him for a suitable one.
They were now in a street much nearer to his own home than the spurtsfrom spot to spot had led him to suppose. It was new to him, but herecognized it as the acme of fashion by those two sure signs; railingswith most of their spikes in place, and cards scored with, the word"Apartments." He had discovered such streets as this before when inShovel's company, and they had watched the toffs go out and in, and itwas a lordly sight, for first the toff waggled a rail that was loose atthe top and then a girl, called the servant, peeped at him from below,and then he pulled the rail again, and then the door opened from theinside, and you had a glimpse of wonder-land with a place for hanginghats on. He had not contemplated doing anything so handsome for the girlas this, but why should he not establish her here? There were manypossible mothers in view, and thrilling with a sense of his generosityhe had almost fixed on one but mistrusted the glint in her eye and onanother when she saved herself by tripping and showing an undarned heel.
He was still of an open mind when the girl of a sudden cried, gleefully,"Ma-ma, ma-ma!" and pointed, with her muff, across the street. The wordwas as meaningless to Tommy as mother had been to her, but he saw thatshe was drawing his attention to a woman some thirty yards away.
"Man--man!" he echoed, chiding her ignorance; "no, no, you blether, thatain't a man, that's a woman; that's woman--woman."
"Ooman--ooman," the girl repeated, docilely, but when she looked again,"
Ma-ma, ma-ma," she insisted, and this was Tommy's first lesson thathowever young you catch them they will never listen to reason.
She seemed of a mind to trip off to this woman, and as long as his ownmother was safe, it did not greatly matter to Tommy whom she chose, butif it was this one, she was going the wrong way about it. You cannotsnap them up in the street.
The proper course was to track her to her house, which he proceeded todo, and his quarry, who was looking about her anxiously, as if she hadlost something, gave him but a short chase. In the next street to theone in which they had first seen her, a street so like it that Tommymight have admired her for knowing the difference, she opened the doorwith a key and entered, shutting the door behind her. Odd to tell, thechild had pointed to this door as the one she would stop at, whichsurprised Tommy very much.
On the steps he gave her his final instructions, and she dimpled andgurgled, obviously full of admiration for him, which was a thing heapproved of, but he would have liked to see her a little more serious.
"That is the door. Well, then, I'll waggle the rail as makes the bellring, and then I'll run."
That was all, and he wished she had not giggled most of the time. Shewas sniggering, as if she thought him a very funny boy, even when herang the bell and bolted.
From a safe place he watched the opening of the door, and saw thefrivolous thing lose a valuable second in waving the muff to him. "Inyou go!" he screamed beneath his breath. Then she entered and the doorclosed. He waited an hour, or two minutes, or thereabout, and she hadnot been ejected. Triumph!
With a drum beating inside him Tommy strutted home, where, alas, a boywas waiting to put his foot through it.