Oliver Twist
TREATS OF THE PLACE WHERE OLIVER TWIST WAS BORN AND OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES ATTENDING HIS BIRTH
Among other public in a town, which for many it will be to from mentioning, and to which I will no name, there is one common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this was born; on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, as it can be of no possible to the reader, in this stage of the at all events; the item of name is to the of this chapter.
For a long time after it was into this world of and trouble, by the surgeon, it a of the child would to any name at all; in which case it is more than that these would have appeared; or, if they had, that being a of pages, they would have the of being the most and of biography, in the of any age or country.
Although I am not to maintain that the being in a workhouse, is in itself the most and that can possibly a being, I do to say that in this particular instance, it was the best thing for Oliver Twist that by possibility have occurred. The is, that there was in Oliver to take upon himself the office of respiration,—a practice, but one which has necessary to our easy existence; and for some time he on a little mattress, this world and the next: the being in of the latter. Now, if, this period, Oliver had been by grandmothers, aunts, nurses, and doctors of wisdom, he would most and have been killed in no time. There being nobody by, however, but a old woman, who was by an of beer; and a who did such by contract; Oliver and Nature out the point them. The result was, that, after a struggles, Oliver breathed, sneezed, and to to the of the the of a new having been upon the parish, by setting up as loud a as have been from a male who had not been of that very useful appendage, a voice, for a much longer space of time than three minutes and a quarter.
As Oliver gave this proof of the free and proper action of his lungs, the which was over the iron bedstead, rustled; the of a woman was from the pillow; and a voice the words, “Let me see the child, and die.”
The had been with his the fire: the of his hands a warm and a alternately. As the woman spoke, he rose, and to the bed’s head, said, with more than might have been of him:
“Oh, you must not talk about yet.”
“Lor her dear heart, no!” the nurse, in her pocket a green bottle, the of which she had been in a with satisfaction.
“Lor her dear heart, when she has as long as I have, sir, and had thirteen children of her own, and all on ’em two, and them in the with me, she’ll know than to take on in that way, her dear heart! Think what it is to be a mother, there’s a dear do.”
Apparently this of a mother’s failed in producing its effect. The patient her head, and out her hand the child.
The deposited it in her arms. She her cold white on its forehead; passed her hands over her face; round; shuddered; back—and died. They her breast, hands, and temples; but the blood had stopped forever. They talked of and comfort. They had been too long.
“It’s all over, Mrs. Thingummy!” said the at last.
“Ah, dear, so it is!” said the nurse, up the of the green bottle, which had out on the pillow, as she to take up the child. “Poor dear!”
“You needn’t mind sending up to me, if the child cries, nurse,” said the surgeon, on his with great deliberation. “It’s very likely it will be troublesome. Give it a little if it is.” He put on his hat, and, by the bed-side on his way to the door, added, “She was a good-looking girl, too; where did she come from?”
“She was here last night,” the old woman, “by the overseer’s order. She was in the street. She had walked some distance, for her shoes were to pieces; but where she came from, or where she was going to, nobody knows.”
The over the body, and the left hand. “The old story,” he said, his head: “no wedding-ring, I see. Ah! Good-night!”
The medical walked away to dinner; and the nurse, having once more herself to the green bottle, sat on a low chair the fire, and to dress the infant.
What an excellent example of the power of dress, Oliver Twist was! Wrapped in the which had his only covering, he might have been the child of a or a beggar; it would have been hard for the to have him his proper station in society. But now that he was in the old which had yellow in the same service, he was and ticketed, and into his place at once—a child—the of a workhouse—the humble, half-starved drudge—to be and through the world—despised by all, and by none.
Oliver lustily. If he have that he was an orphan, left to the of church-wardens and overseers, he would have the louder.
