The Story of Oliver Twist* by Charles Dickens

Some years ago when the poorhouses of England were in a bad state and the poor people housed within them were often ill-treated, a little waif began his life under the roof of one of the worst of them. His mother had wandered there, weak, wretched and without friends, it seemed, for she gave no clue to her identity; and after her little boy was born she had only strength enough to kiss him once before she breathed her last. As no one knew anything about her, the child became a charge upon the parish. He was sent with other orphans and homeless little ones to be cared for by an elderly woman named Mrs. Mann, who received from the parish officers but a scant allowance for the needs of the children, to whom she gave, in the shape of food and attention, a still shorter return.

And so the first years of this child's life were devoted mainly to the struggle to keep body and soul together. He won the fight by the narrowest of margins, and his ninth birthday found him a pale, thin lad, somewhat short in stature and decidedly small in girth. But nature had placed a good sturdy spirit in his breast. It had plenty of room to expand, thanks to the spare diet, else he might not have had any ninth birthday at all.