J. Cole

J. Cole, by Emma Gellibrand

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Title: J. Cole
Author: Emma Gellibrand
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one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on April 20,
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Language: English
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[Illustration: "'WHO ARE YOU, MY CHILD?' I SAID'--Page 3
(Frontispiece)]

J. COLE
BY
EMMA GELLIBRAND

J. COLE.
"HONNERD MADAM,
"Wich i hav seed in the paper a page Boy wanted, and begs to say J.
Cole is over thertene, and I can clene plate, wich my brutther is under a
butler and lernd me, and I can wate, and no how to clene winders and
boots. J. Cole opes you will let me cum. I arsks 8 and all found. if you
do my washin I will take sevven. J. Cole will serve you well and opes
to giv sattisfaxshun. i can cum tomorrer. J. COLE.
"P.S.--He is not verry torl but growin. My brutther is a verry good hite.
i am sharp and can rede and rite and can hadd figgers if you like."

* * * * * * *
CHAPTER I.
I had advertised for a page-boy, and having puzzled through some
dozens of answers, more or less illegible and impossible to understand,
had come to the last one of the packet, of which the above is an exact
copy.
The epistle was enclosed in a clumsy envelope, evidently home-made,
with the aid of scissors and gum, and was written on a half-sheet of
letter-paper, in a large hand, with many blots and smears, on pencilled
lines.
There was something quaint and straightforward in the letter, in spite of
the utter ignorance of grammar and spelling; and while I smiled at the
evident pride in the "brutther" who was a "verry good hite," and the
offer to take less wages if "I would do his washin," I found myself
wondering what sort of waif upon the sea of life was this not very tall
person, over thirteen, who "would serve me well."
I had many letters to answer and several appointments to make, and had
scarcely made up my mind whether or not to trouble to write to my
accomplished correspondent, who was "sharp, and could rede and rite,
and hadd figgers," when, a shadow falling on the ground by me as I sat
by the open window, I looked up, and saw, standing opposite my chair,
a boy,--the very smallest boy, with the very largest blue eyes I ever saw.
The clothes on his little limbs were evidently meant for somebody
almost double his size, but they were clean and tidy.
In one hand he held a bundle, tied in a red handkerchief, and in the
other a bunch of wild-flowers that bore signs of having travelled far in
the heat of the sun, their blossoms hanging down, dusty and fading, and
their petals dropping one by one on the ground.
"Who are you, my child?" I said, "and what do you want?"
At my question the boy placed his flowers on my table, and, pulling off

his cap, made a queer movement with his feet, as though he were trying
to step backwards with both at once, and said, in a voice so deep that it
quite startled me, so strangely did it seem to belong to the size of the
clothes, and not the wearer,--
"Please'm, it's J. Cole; and I've come to live with yer. I've brought all
my clothes, and every think."
For the moment I felt a little bewildered, so impossible did it seem that
the small specimen of humanity before me was actually intending to
enter anybody's service; he looked so childish and wistful, and yet with
a certain honesty of purpose shining