David's schoolmaster in Dover

Dora Spenlow The daughter of David's employer
and his "child-wife"

DAVID COPPERFIELD

I

DAVID'S EARLY UPS AND DOWNS

There was once a little boy by the name of David Copperfield, whose
father had died before he was born. The night he was born his
great-aunt, Miss Betsy Trotwood--a grim lady with a black cap tied under
her chin and a great gold watch chain--came to the house to ask his
mother to name the baby, which she took for granted was a girl, after
her; but as soon as she found it was a boy she flounced out in anger and
never came back again.

The first thing David remembered was living in a big country house in
England with his pretty, golden-haired mother and with Peggotty, his
nurse, a red-faced, kindly woman, with a habit of wearing her dresses so
tight that whenever she hugged him some buttons would fly off the back.
He loved his mother dearly--so dearly that when a tall, handsome man
named Murdstone began to come to see her in the evenings David was
jealous and sad. Mr. Murdstone acted as if he liked him, and even took
him riding on his horse; but there was something in his face that David
could not like.

One summer day David was sent off with Peggotty for a two weeks' visit
to her brother's house in Yarmouth. Yarmouth was a queer fishing town on
the sea-coast, and the house they went to was the queerest thing in it.
It was made of an old barge, drawn up high and dry on the beach. It had
a chimney on one side and little windows, and there were sea-shells
around the door. David's room was in the stern, and the window was the
hole which the rudder had once passed through. Everything smelled of
salt water and lobsters, and David thought it was the most wonderful
house in the world.

He soon made friends with the family--Mr. Peggotty, a big fisherman with
a laugh like a gale of wind; Ham, his nephew, a big, overgrown boy who
carried David from the coach on his back, and Mrs. Gummidge, who was the
widow of Mr. Peggotty's drowned partner.

And, last of all, there was a beautiful little girl with curly hair and
a string of blue beads around her neck whom they called Little Em'ly.
She was an orphan niece of Peggotty's. None of these people belonged to
Mr. Peggotty, but, though he was only a poor fisherman himself, he was
so kind that he gave them all a home. David played with little Em'ly,
a