lamp-boy

Updated: May 21, 2025

John's family consisted of himself when at home, which, although often, was never for long; his wife fat and fair, capable of being roused, but, on the whole, a good, sensible, loving woman; his eldest daughter, Lucy or Loo nineteen, dark, pretty, and amiable; his youngest daughter, Gertrude, alias Gertie six, sunny and serious, at least as serious as was possible for one so young, so innocent, so healthy, and so happy as she; his son Bob, aged twelve, who was a lamp-boy at the great station not far off, and of whom it may be briefly said that he was "no better than he should be," and, lastly, the baby not yet at the walking period of life, with a round head, round body, round eyes, and a round dozen at least if not more of hairs standing straight up on the top of his bald pate, suggesting the idea that he must at some period of his life have been singed by a passing locomotive an event not by any means beyond the bounds of possibility, for it may be written, with more truth of this, than of any other infant, that he had been born and nurtured amid thunder, smoke, and blazes.

R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne - The Iron Horse