December 24, 1843
London, England

Pre Dawn

The scent of Mama.

Comfortable.

Warm.

The child snuggled closer into the warmth.

Sitting partially in shade, her face and shoulders hidden in shadow, the lower portion of Mama’s body was bathed in brilliant sunlight.

His head nestled in the soft hollow of her bosom, the little boy lay in his Mama’s lap.

“Ah, Zachariah,” she cooed, winding her finger into one of the tight, blonde curls over his ear. “My little Zachariah.”

Moving his face deeper, feeling the coolness of her starched, white apron, breathing deeply the boy smiled as he smelled the sweet, warm scent of his Mama.

“Zachariah!”

Through rapidly thinning layers of joy and warmth and comfort the boy sensed the dual spectrums of cold and loneliness as, burrowing his face lower in the warm valley of his mother’s breasts, he found that by breathing deeply through his mouth the dry vapor of his breath warmed his face but…

“Zachariah! Now!”

But now the warm, sweet scents of Mama merged with a sad, deep longing that came to the boy as strong as physical pain.

“Damn ya, boy!” Lifting his foot… “I want ya up, now!”

Jostled by the toe of a boot shoved roughly into the small of his back, his eyes opening instantly, the boy stared into the dim, smoky light of the smoldering fireplace.

“Off your arse now boy, an’ go an’ give ‘er a few pokes!”

Lifting himself from his pallet, wrapping the course, stained tatter of the blanket around his shoulders, the boy looked longingly at the burlap and rag pillow that was still indented where his head had lain forming a valley, making warm mounds on either side of his face… Mama?

The cold gloom of the one-room shack merged with the dreary luminance of the fireplace and the feeble light of a late December moon that came through the shack’s only window.

In the depressive darkness, the boy’s face was blacker than the wavering shadows. Streaked with varying hues and layers of soot, as though when one layer was washed away it left a vestige of itself to merge with the underlying layer, causing an uneven blackness stippled with gray ringed around his neck and ears with a heavier and deeper blackness.

Closer to the age of nine than eight, the boy, under different circumstances, would be considered a beautiful child, but because he lacked nourishing food he was small and thin with features that were out of proportion and larger than would best be suited for his undernourished face. His small nose turned slightly upward. His mouth was round with full lips. His second set of teeth, due to a meager diet, were slow in coming and intermixed with his smaller first teeth, and the boy’s left upper incisor grew through his gum at a noticeable angle. Shaved at the start of each month, the stubble of hair on his head, if clean, would be tightly curled, light blonde in color.

If one’s eyes are sometimes considered windows to the soul, Zachariah’s eyes might be considered headlamps to his heart.

Beneath delicately shaped blonde lashes, shining through the soot and grime of his face as if beacons in the night and ringed with a darker blue, the irises of the boy’s eyes were light blue with flecks of green, and when smiling the boy’s face would broaden and the little creases at the corners of his eyes and mouth—having been retracted and partially protected from much of the dirt—would come to view.

It was this smile that had caused many a rear door maid to give the boy a desperately needed and so wanted slice of bread, or even—on rare occasions—a biscuit.

Contrary to custom, the boy did his best to keep himself clean, but the only running water in the mud flat, London slum where he lived was at the end of a small gully, about a quarter mile from the hovel he shared with his master.

When he was sent for water—which was near about each night—Zachariah would attempt to rinse the loose soot from his hands and face; and at least once a fortnight, no matter what the weather—unless truly frigid, when the slowly running trickle of water bubbling through the shale from the rocks above was frozen solid—he would stand naked beneath the dribble, goose pimples playing over his thin torso and legs, scrubbing himself with any scrap of lye soap he’d been able to beg or steal.

The cold water and bit of soap did little to remove the soot that had permeated the pores of his skin, but by vigorous scrubbing of his scalp and groin, he had been able to keep his head free of scalp ulcers and his groin free of sooty wart. The boy cleaned his teeth by using his finger and the sandy, granulated gravel he found on the ground under the spring.

Weighing sixty-four pounds, even though Zachariah was small for his age, one day soon he would be too big to climb the flues. He wondered what his master was going to do with him when that time arrived.

Sighing deeply, vapor coming from his mouth and nostrils, he arose from his pallet of rags, and canvas and burlap soot bags.

The soles of his bare feet burning with cold as he stepped onto the near frozen, raw wood floor, the boy ran to the warmer stones of the hearth. Using the poker, he stabbed at the banked ashes, causing a shower of sparks to fly upward, then he added two large scraps of wood to the now-glowing bed of embers.

Shivering, goose bumps rising along the exposed flesh of his neck and arms, turning his back to the fire, the boy stood as close as possible for as long as he dared without receiving his master’s verbal or physical admonishment, then, after a few moments, leaving the comparative warmth of the fire and going to the table, he poked his finger through the thin, icy crust in the dirty, rusted basin.

Water running through his fingers causing lighter streaks of brown on the undersides of his arms, using his cupped hands he splashed the twice-used water onto his face. Reaching to the filthy rag laying across the back of one of the two chairs in the room, Zachariah briskly dried his hands and face.

The boy struggled with his memory constantly, trying to keep the image of his mother vividly in mind. He thought he remembered her, but to a nearer-nine-than-eight-year-old child dreams and reality became confused, so as time went his memories of his mother became fuzzier and he no longer knew what was real and what was not.

The boy thought he had been with the Master since the age of four, but he was not really sure of that, or his age, because all he knew was what his master had told him, and due to a strong thirst for gin, the Master very often distorted what little he did tell the boy.

*

William Johnson, besides being a drunkard, was a “Master Sweep,” and Zachariah his apprentice.

The door pushed open suddenly, accompanied by a gust of wind that caused the flame in the fireplace to sputter, allowing a puff of dark smoke to roil above the mantel.

“Christ, but it’s cold in the crapper! Just ‘bout froze my arse on the plank.” Coughing, beating his arms about his chest, Johnson rushed to the fireplace. “Get on with ya! Do ya business!” Coughing harder, becoming red in the face, he added, “I’ll get the mush goin’.”

A tall, thin man in his mid-thirties, Johnson’s face was pockmarked with scattering of deep blackheads across his wide forehead, his cheeks and the bridge of his thick, broken nose—a constant reminder of the years of his own youth spent in the tutelage of “Thornton & Son, Chimney Sweeps.” Although Zachariah now did most of the work, caked with soot, all of Johnson’s visible flesh was filthy. As was the custom, he too kept his hair closely cropped. William Johnson had a firm, outstanding chin that was covered with a dark, sparse, scraggly beard. His rheumy eyes closely set, their irises were dark brown, almost black.

A life of subservience had caused Johnson—without being aware of the habit—to never look directly into the eyes of any person that might be on an equal social par with himself and, most certainly, not at anyone on a higher social strata. The few exceptions to this were when he became exceptionally angry—or wanted to be presumed as being exceptionally, rightfully angry—or extremely drunk, when he became a toady to his cronies and obsequious to his customers.

This behavior made him tolerable—barely tolerable—to most of his drinking chums only because Johnson was usually the butt of their practical jokes.

The social system—being what it was in nineteenth century London—allowed Johnson’s customers to accept his subservient conduct as proper, but he was totally disliked by most of the butlers and head maids.

In a number of the larger households the contracting of outside services, such as chimney sweeping, was ordered by these same butlers and maids, and they seldom allowed Johnson back for a second sweep; those that did, did so because of their fondness for Zachariah and looked forward to slipping “the poor child” a sweet or a jellied biscuit.

Because of this lack of repeat business, Johnson was among the lowliest and poorest of his profession. Always on the lookout for a new customer, he would often leave Zachariah at the start of a job that was meant for the labor of two as he went from door to door of the neighboring houses soliciting future business. But no sooner would he contract a future job, than he’d be off to the nearest pub for “a few fast ones.”

Fortunately for Johnson, he’d avoided sooty wart. Unfortunately, though, the dust of a thousand sweeps had settled in his lungs and he would often go into tearful, gasping coughing spasms, which he knew was consumption, but would not admit to—not even to himself.

A product of the times, during his period of apprenticeship he was treated in an extremely harsh manner by old man Thornton, but Johnson was one of three apprentices, so the duties—along with the punishments—were equally divided. The broken nose was not due to Thornton himself, but rather to one of his overly zealous sons.

Johnson’s treatment of Zachariah and the life he’d forced on the child were harder then he had ever endured. But ‘tis the only way to treat a ‘prentice, he rationalized, taking his frustrations out on Zachariah—the only person in the world he thought was on a lower plane than himself. Occasionally, though, he wondered, Why’d I do such a mean thing to the lad? ‘e’s a good one. Why’d I say such a thing? At those times the guilt would drop into his stomach as molten lead and he would feel the pain of remorse, yet never would he think of saying, “Zachariah, I’m sorry!” Johnson did not understand his feelings of guilt or remorse and they would quickly be dispensed of and reversed by a trip to a pub, or a swig from a bottle.

Removing a large bowl and a pewter jug from the wooden box on the shelf outside the window, he went to the fireplace, pulled the grate out, and ladled thick gruel from the bowl into a crusted black saucepan, then poured barely usable milk from the jug over it. He pushed the grate and the pot back over the fire to heat, poured a splash of milk into two mugs and set both on the table.

The door opening, shivering, blowing into his cupped hands, saying, “Lordy, it ain’t much warmer in ‘ere!” and rushing to the fireplace, Zachariah held his hands to the heat.

At the table, looking over some scribbled notes he’d taken off the shelf, he said, “Archie, an’…” unable to read his scratchings on the tattered scrap of paper, “the lady, an’ the ol’ bastard…” Muttering to himself, trying to figure what that day’s take should come to, Johnson began to cough. Coughing harder, his face turning red with the effort, the man forced himself to stop.

Taking two wooden bowls off the mantel, looking down, Zachariah scowled, saying, “Damn bug!” Using his finger, he flicked a large, brown cockroach out of one of the bowls.

Sailing through the air, landing on its back on the table, the roach tried to right itself.

Seeing the movement from the corner of his eye, “Damn bug!” reaching, nonchalantly smashing the roach with the palm of his hand, Johnson brushed the corpse onto the floor leaving a wet smear on the surface of the table.

“‘urry up!” Speaking in his usual harsh tone, “we ain’t got all day, ya know!”

Pulling the grate out, using the ladle, the boy stirred the semisolid stuff in the saucepan once, then plopped equal portions of the lumpy gruel into each bowl. Serving Johnson first, Zachariah was careful to give him the bowl that had contained the cockroach.

The bowl on the table before him, eating quickly, noisily, the boy brought spoonfuls of food to his mouth, while, holding the bowl just under his lips, slurping even more noisily, the man shoveled it directly into his mouth.

Waiting till the older man was almost through before making up his mind to speak, he said, “Sir.” Speaking rapidly, as though to forestall a negative answer, “You’ve seen the ol’ gray cat at the wheel factory! Well, Sir, that cat just made a box of baby cats an’ Mr. Archibald, Sir, uh… well, Sir, Mr. Archibald, ‘e said iff’n it were with your ‘proval, ‘e’d let me ‘ave one of ‘em. Ya know’s, Sir, we got a powerful lots’a mice runnin’ ‘bout, an’ Mr. Archibald, ‘e said that the mama cat’s a real good mouser an’ ‘er babies should be real good mousers, too. We do need one ever so much, an’ I’ll care for it, Sir, an’ I’ll even be givin’ it some’a my food to eat. Can we, Sir? Please, Sir!”

The boy rarely asked for anything, and now, his spoon to his lips, a trickle of gruel ran down his master’s chin onto his beard and a larger chunk fell onto the table with a soft plop, because, amazement showing on Johnson’s face, somebody had offered to give the boy something! Nobody had ever offered to give Johnson anything! Oh, a drink now and then, but nothing of consequence. Nothing for himself to keep. Yes, a cat would be nice! Johnson thought. Yes, we do ‘ave lots of mice about. The lad’s a good lad. ‘e works ‘ard and ‘e don’t ask for nothin. Never gives me no trouble. Why shouldn’t ‘e ‘ave a cat?

But instead he said, “Your Mister Archibald, ‘e said that to ya, did ‘e? ‘e ‘ad no right to be talkin’ to ya afore talkin’ to me!”

Zachariah did not want Mr. Archibald’s kind gesture returned to him in the form of Johnson’s anger. “Oh, Sir, ‘twas only ‘cause ‘e said I work so well an’ cause tomorrow’s Christmas an’ all. An’ ‘e said t’would be a kindness for me to be ‘avin’ somethin’ of me own to care for.”

‘e’s right, Johnson thought. Archie’s right and so’s the boy. But instead, he said, “‘e said that to ya, did ‘e? That ‘you’re a good worker,’ did ‘e?” Starting to cough, his neck and face become red. “‘e ‘ad no right to be speakin’ to me ‘prentice a’fore speakin’ to me first!” Coughing, he gasped for air… Catching his breath, “Get on with ya!” His tone softening slightly, “An’ I’ll be thinkin’ on the cat,” he said, then remembering that his authority over the boy should be complete, “An’ I’ll be speakin’ to ya Mister Archibald!” Standing suddenly, pushing away from the table, knocking the chair over with a clatter, “We ‘ave a full day’s work ahead!” Once again speaking angrily, “Get on with ya!” And once again, Johnson began to cough.

Gulping the milk down, knowing full well that this might be all the food he’ll have till that night, shoving the last spoonful of gruel into his mouth, he licked the bowl clean with his tongue. Then lifting the saucepan from the fireplace, running his fingers inside, getting every last morsel, Zachariah took the bowls, mugs and spoons outside, returned for the wash basin and, going out again, rinsed the utensils in the same water he’d washed his face in earlier.

Impatient to be gone, “Come on!” Johnson commanded. “Come on, can’t ch’ya!”

Rushing into the shack, putting the pot on the grate, the utensils on the mantle, the boy then finished dressing.

His filthy clothing threadbare, Zachariah wore oversized britches held up by a rope belt tied around his waist, and a patched and re-patched woolen shirt given to him by a customer whose son had outgrown it. He wore no socks, but on his feet were scuffed, badly worn shoes, one of which had a buckle while the other was held closed by a piece of twine. The boy had on a black long-coat that he’d found in the trash behind the establishment of one of their only repeat customers, “Hobbins’ Funeral Parlor.” The coat had hung to his ankles and the sleeves to his knees until a kindly maid made alterations while Zachariah worked on the chimney. Once the odor of embalming fluid and the stains of the undertaker’s trade had been washed away, the black coat became the warmest article of clothing worn by Zachariah. A long, ratty scarf was wrapped about his neck and over his head, and was tucked into the collar of the long-coat. He wore the scarf for three reasons: to keep his head and neck warm, to hide his shaved head and filthy face, and to wrap around his mouth and nose in an effort to keep as much soot and dust as possible from entering his lungs while working.

Watching as the boy dressed, waiting impatiently, Johnson had a toolbox at his feet containing the tools of their trade, a pile of drop cloths, a handful of poles, assorted brushes, and a coil of rope.

Finally dressed, Johnson loaded up Zachariah.

The coil of rope was placed about the boy’s neck and hung from his left shoulder. Four homemade flue brushes of assorted sizes tied together with twine went around his neck and right shoulder, and he carried some of the drop clothes in his arms. The rest of the drop clothes held between his arm and chest, the man easily held the toolbox in one hand, with the poles, slung over his shoulder, in the other.

“Come on!” Prodding the boy with the bundle of poles, Johnson followed Zachariah into the damp, cold day.