"I've got a father, and mother, and little brother, and you've got nothing but a wicked old grannie. You may have my penny."The girl put it beside the other in her pocket, the only trustworthy article of dress she wore. Her grandmother always took care that she had a stout pocket.
"Is she as cruel as ever?" asked Diamond.
"Much the same. But I gets more coppers now than I used to, and I can get summats to eat, and take browns enough home besides to keep her from grumbling. It's a good thing she's so blind, though.""Why?" asked Diamond.
"'Cause if she was as sharp in the eyes as she used to be, she would find out I never eats her broken wittles, and then she'd know as I must get something somewheres."
"Doesn't she watch you, then?"
"O' course she do. Don't she just! But I make believe and drop it in my lap, and then hitch it into my pocket.""What would she do if she found you out?""She never give me no more."
"But you don't want it!"
"Yes, I do want it."
"What do you do with it, then?"
"Give it to cripple Jim."
"Who's cripple Jim?"
"A boy in the Row. His mother broke his leg when he wur a kid, so he's never come to much; but he's a good boy, is Jim, and I love Jim dearly. I always keeps off a penny for Jim--leastways as often as I can.--But there I must sweep again, for them busses makes no end o' dirt.""Diamond! Diamond!" cried his father, who was afraid he might get no good by talking to the girl; and Diamond obeyed, and got up again upon the box. He told his father about the gentleman, and what he had promised him if he would learn to read, and showed him the gentleman's card.
"Why, it's not many doors from the Mews!" said his father, giving him back the card. "Take care of it, my boy, for it may lead to something.
God knows, in these hard times a man wants as many friends as he's ever likely to get.""Haven't you got friends enough, father?" asked Diamond.
"Well, I have no right to complain; but the more the better, you know.""Just let me count," said Diamond.
And he took his hands from his pockets, and spreading out the fingers of his left hand, began to count, beginning at the thumb.
"There's mother, first, and then baby, and then me. Next there's old Diamond--and the cab--no, I won't count the cab, for it never looks at you, and when Diamond's out of the shafts, it's nobody.
Then there's the man that drinks next door, and his wife, and his baby.""They're no friends of mine," said his father.
"Well, they're friends of mine," said Diamond.
His father laughed.
"Much good they'll do you!" he said.
"How do you know they won't?" returned Diamond.
"Well, go on," said his father.
"Then there's Jack and Mr. Stonecrop, and, deary me! not to have mentioned Mr. Coleman and Mrs. Coleman, and Miss Coleman, and Mrs. Crump. And then there's the clergyman that spoke to me in the garden that day the tree was blown down.""What's his name!"
"I don't know his name."
"Where does he live?"
"I don't know."
"How can you count him, then?"
"He did talk to me, and very kind like too."His father laughed again.
"Why, child, you're just counting everybody you know. That don't make 'em friends.""Don't it? I thought it did. Well, but they shall be my friends.
I shall make 'em."
"How will you do that?"
"They can't help themselves then, if they would. If I choose to be their friend, you know, they can't prevent me. Then there's that girl at the crossing.""A fine set of friends you do have, to be sure, Diamond!""Surely she's a friend anyhow, father. If it hadn't been for her, you would never have got Mrs. Coleman and Miss Coleman to carry home."His father was silent, for he saw that Diamond was right, and was ashamed to find himself more ungrateful than he had thought.
"Then there's the new gentleman," Diamond went on.
"If he do as he say," interposed his father.
"And why shouldn't he? I daresay sixpence ain't too much for him to spare. But I don't quite understand, father: is nobody your friend but the one that does something for you?""No, I won't say that, my boy. You would have to leave out baby then.""Oh no, I shouldn't. Baby can laugh in your face, and crow in your ears, and make you feel so happy. Call you that nothing, father?"The father's heart was fairly touched now. He made no answer to this last appeal, and Diamond ended off with saying:
"And there's the best of mine to come yet--and that's you, daddy--except it be mother, you know. You're my friend, daddy, ain't you?
And I'm your friend, ain't I?"
"And God for us all," said his father, and then they were both silent for that was very solemn.
