Operation Red Book

Chapter 453 Little Jacob

Jacob's mother died on the coldest snowy night in 1965. Jacob was seven years old at that time and was just a child who could barely remember things.

His mother was not kind to him, and this was a fact he had accepted since childhood.

After begging each time, little Jacob would obediently hand over all the change he had collected that day, and his mother would choose to drink or gamble depending on the actual situation at home.

In fact, a large part of it was gambling. Jacob saw it and kept it in mind. There was no difference between the two for him.

Because whether it was drinking or gambling, little Jacob would always be beaten by his mother.

The first turning point occurred in the hot summer of 1965.

That day, he was kneeling on a street in London as usual, staring at the change in the broken copper jar in a daze. It was almost evening when a very familiar girl sat down next to him.

She was ragged and dusty, but she had a round head and a round face, and was always smiling.

"Hello, my name is Anna!"

"My name is Jacob."

"My parents died because the fields were barren due to famine. During that time, we could only eat rats and tree roots to survive."

Anna said, looking up at the sky.

"It was not until the villagers came to my house with knives, intending to kill me for soup, that my parents worked together to lift little me onto the train to London."

"But my parents didn't make it. They were caught in the train tracks and turned into eight small pieces of meat. I counted them while sitting on top of the coals of the train."

After saying that, Anna lowered her head, and Jacob couldn't see the expression on her face through her fluffy brown curly hair.

"how about you?"

Anna suddenly turned around and asked about Jacob without blinking.

"My mother said that my father was a high-ranking official in London. He was greedy for money and lustful. He deceived my mother, who was a kitchen maid at the time. After giving birth to me, my mother did not get the money and status promised by my father. Instead, he drove my mother and me out of the mansion."

"So, it's all because of me that my mother has fallen to this point today."

Jacob said without reservation that this was the news he had heard since he was a child.

He listened to it once when his mother was drunk and beat him; he listened to it once when his mother beat him because he lost money in gambling; he listened to it once when his mother beat him because he was hungry; he listened to it again when he accidentally fell ill and had a fever and beat him.

After so many years, he has long been accustomed to the normal situation.

"Oh my god, look at your arms!"

Anna suddenly pointed at the bruises on Jacob’s arm and screamed exaggeratedly.

"This one……"

Jacob quickly covered it up with his clothes, but Anna grabbed his wrist the moment he was about to touch it.

"Please give us some money! If we can't get another penny, we will be beaten to death by the drunkard fathers in the streets! Please have mercy on us! We are good people who are going to get promoted, get rich and have great luck!"

"Help me!"

"Give my brother a penny!"

"A moldy bread will do!"

That day, Jacob begged for more money than ever before, even two pounds he had never touched before.

After getting the money, Anna took Jacob to a beautifully decorated restaurant.

At that time, Jacob was only wearing a ragged old piece of cloth, and his body was covered with sores and lice, and it smelled terrible.

Strangely, the restaurant waitress did not chase them out with a broom, but took the two children to the泔水桶 at the back of the restaurant.

There, Jacob tasted roast beef for the first time.

He squatted in the corner, eating voraciously. When he choked, he drank some dirty water on the ground. After that, he continued to lick the remaining bones on the plate.

When Anna and the maid came over with two bottles of hot milk, Jacob was already in tears with bones bigger than his face.

“This is all the money I have.”

Jacob knelt on the ground, took out all the coins he had begged for today and put them on the edge of the worker's skirt.

His little hands were pitch black and there was not a single clean spot on his body.

Jacob knew that he was lowly and dirty, but he was unwilling to corrupt his self-proclaimed noble and pure soul, and he still had the proper manners.

"Need not!"

The female worker picked up the coin covered in plaster with her bare hands and tried to put it back into Jacob's hand.

But Jacob did not accept it. When the worker was about to touch his dirty little hands, he stood up and ran away quickly.

Of course, Jacob didn't get any money and was beaten by his angry mother.

This was the most severe beating he had ever received. One of his eyes was bruised and there was blood at the corner of his mouth.

But he was happy, he had never been happier.

He thought he had met two kind angels, and all this was thanks to the holy new church.

“I love that church.”

About three months later, Jacob said to Anna and the worker named Evelyn on a sultry afternoon.

They had a very happy time together during this March.

Anna would beg on the street with Jacob every day. With her loud voice, Jacob would receive a lot of donations every day.

They were not greedy. Every time they collected five pounds, Anna would urge Jacob to run to the beautiful restaurant together.

There, Evelyn always greeted these two special guests with a smile.

Next to the familiar swill bucket, Jacob could get a plate of roast beef and garlic bread piled high.

He started out kneeling and gradually changed to sitting cross-legged, and his skinny body was slowly covered by growing flesh.

Jacob was no longer afraid of the boils on his body and the lice on his head, because Evelyn would use her soft hands to wash and squeeze them for him, and even use the bottle of expensive ointment for him.

To him, Anna is the little sunshine in his life, and Evelyn is the breeze on his life path.

"You've become more cheerful, and you don't speak in the weak voice of those country girls anymore!"

Anna said to Jacob with a smile as she was washing the dirt off her face with warm water.

After washing, her face was rosy, like a red apple growing on a high wall.

"You know that new Christian church that opened in the first half of the year? I go there every week to listen to the people singing, sitting outside at the foot of the wall, of course."

Jacob sat on the ground obediently and continued.

"Can you sing?"

"We don't believe in God, dear."

Evelyn poured out the gray muddy water and replied with a smile.

"how is this possible?"

Jacob tilted his head in confusion. It was a universally acknowledged fact that almost every British person believed in Christianity.

"Before eating, have we ever said thank you to God? Before going to bed, have we ever lit a candle and prayed to God? Have we ever worn a cross or held a thick Bible?"

Evelyn asked back as she helped Anna clean her hair and didn't respond to the topic of God.