Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than
I, and had established a great reputation with herself and the
neighbours because she had brought me up "by hand." Having at that
time to find out for myself what the expression meant, and knowing
her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of
laying it upon her husband as well as upon me, I supposed that Joe
Gargery and I were both brought up by hand.
She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I had a general
impression that she must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand.
Joe was a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his
smooth face, and with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they
seemed to have somehow got mixed with their own whites. He was a
mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear
fellow - a sort of Hercules in strength, and also in weakness.
My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing
redness of skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was
possible she washed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap.
She was tall and bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron,
fastened over her figure behind with two loops, and having a square
impregnable bib in front, that was stuck full of pins and needles.
She made it a powerful merit in herself, and a strong reproach
against Joe, that she wore this apron so much. Though I really see
no reason why she should have worn it at all: or why, if she did
wear it at all, she should not have taken it off, every day of her
life.
Joe's forge adjoined our house, which was a wooden house, as many
of the dwellings in our country were - most of them, at that time.
When I ran home from the churchyard, the forge was shut up, and Joe
was sitting alone in the kitchen. Joe and I being fellow-sufferers,
and having confidences as such, Joe imparted a confidence to me,
the moment I raised the latch of the door and peeped in at him
opposite to it, sitting in the chimney corner.
"Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you, Pip. And
she's out now, making it a baker's dozen."
"Is she?"
"Yes, Pip," said Joe; "and what's worse, she's got Tickler with
her."
At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only button on my
waistcoat round and round, and looked in great depression at the
fire. Tickler was a wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by
collision with my tickled frame.
"She sot down," said Joe, "and she got up, and she made a grab at
Tickler, and she Ram-paged out. That's what she did," said Joe,
slowly clearing the fire between the lower bars with the poker, and
looking at it: "she Ram-paged out, Pip."
"Has she been gone long, Joe?" I always treated him as a larger
species of child, and as no more than my equal.
"Well," said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch clock, "she's been on
the Ram-page, this last spell, about five minutes, Pip. She's a-
coming! Get behind the door, old chap, and have the jack-towel
betwixt you."
I took the advice. My sister, Mrs. Joe, throwing the door wide open,
and finding an obstruction behind it, immediately divined the
cause, and applied Tickler to its further investigation. She
concluded by throwing me - I often served as a connubial missile -
at Joe, who, glad to get hold of me on any terms, passed me on into
the chimney and quietly fenced me up there with his great leg.
"Where have you been, you young monkey?" said Mrs. Joe, stamping her
foot.
