About this story
After class Louisa asks to see the circus, and at the lodging you find your father gone, his act and his dog missing too. Gradgrind offers you a home if you give up the circus entirely, and only a bottle of horse liniment is left in your hand to decide with.
How it opens
Whitewashed walls enclosed the schoolroom, where identical desks faced a blackboard ruled into squares.
Factory smoke dimmed the high windows and settled as grit along every wooden sill.
Thomas GradgrindFacts are the only nourishment these children require, Mr M'Choakumchild.
Mr M'ChoakumchildDefine a horse, Cecilia Jupe, and omit everything you merely feel about one.
Choose
A horse is the animal my father trusts with his life.
I know how to tend one, sir, but not how to reduce one to words.