The doctor began to put on his coat.“The baby is weak and will probably have difficulties,” he said.“If so,give it a little milk to keep it quiet.” Then he looked at the dead woman.“The mother was a goodlooking girl.Where did she come from?”
“She was brought here last night,” replied the old woman.“She was found lying in the street.She’d walked some distance,judging by her shoes,which were worn to pieces.Where she came from,where she was going to,or what her name was,nobody knows.”
The doctor lifted the girl’s left hand.“The old story,” he said sadly,shaking his head.“No wedding ring,I see.Ah! Good night.”
And so Oliver was left with only the drunken nurse.Without clothes,under his first blanket,he could have been the child of a king or a beggar.But when the woman dressed him later in rough cotton clothes,yellow with age,he looked exactly what he was—an orphan in a workhouse,ready for a life of misery,hunger,and neglect.
Oliver cried loudly.If he could have known that he was a workhouse orphan,perhaps he would have cried even more loudly.
There was no one to look after the baby in the workhouse,so Oliver was sent to a special “baby farm” nearby.There,he and thirty other children rolled around the floor all day,without the inconvenience of too much food or too much clothing.Mrs Mann,the old woman who “looked after” them,was very experienced.She knew what was good for children,and a full stomach was very dangerous to their health.She also knew what was good for herself,so she kept for her own use the money that she was given for the children’s food.The board responsible for the orphans sometimes checked on the health of the children,but they always sent the beadle,a kind of local policeman,to announce their visit the day before.So whenever the board arrived,of course,the children were always neat and clean.
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