r leaning over
the area railings, say among themselves, "She's had a hard life, has Ma
Parker." And it was so true she wasn't in the least proud of it. It was
just as if you were to say she lived in the basement-back at Number 27.
A hard life!...

At sixteen she'd left Stratford and come up to London as kitching-maid.
Yes, she was born in Stratford-on-Avon. Shakespeare, sir? No, people
were always arsking her about him. But she'd never heard his name until
she saw it on the theatres.

Nothing remained of Stratford except that "sitting in the fire-place
of a evening you could see the stars through the chimley," and "Mother
always 'ad 'er side of bacon, 'anging from the ceiling." And there was
something--a bush, there was--at the front door, that smelt ever so
nice. But the bush was very vague. She'd only remembered it once or
twice in the hospital, when she'd been taken bad.

That was a dreadful place--her first place. She was never allowed out.
She never went upstairs except for prayers morning and evening. It was a
fair cellar. And the cook was a cruel woman. She used to snatch away her
letters from home before she'd read them, and throw them in the range
because they made her dreamy... And the beedles! Would you believe
it?--until she came to London she'd never seen a black beedle. Here Ma
always gave a little laugh, as though--not to have seen a black beedle!
Well! It was as if to say you'd never seen your own feet.

When that family was sold up she went as "help" to a doctor's house, and
after two years there, on the run from morning till night, she married
her husband. He was a baker.

"A baker, Mrs. Parker!" the literary gentleman would say. For
occasionally he laid aside his tomes and lent an ear, at least, to this
product called Life. "It must be rather nice to be married to a baker!"

Mrs. Parker didn't look so sure.

"Such a clean trade," said the gentleman.

Mrs. Parker didn't look convinced.

"And didn't you like handing the new loaves to the customers?"

"Well, sir," said Mrs. Parker, "I wasn't in the shop above a great deal.
We had thirteen little ones and buried seven of them. If it wasn't the
'ospital it was the infirmary, you might say!"

"You might, indeed, Mrs. Parker!" said the gentleman, shuddering, and
taking up his pen again.

Yes, seven had gone, and while the six were still small her husband was
taken ill with consumption. It was flour on the lungs, the doctor told
her at the time