Besides, the board made periodical pilgrimages to the farm, and always sent the beadle the day before, to say they were going.

The children were neat and clean to behold, when _they_ went; and what more would the people have! It cannot be expected that this system of farming would produce any very extraordinary or luxuriant crop.

Oliver Twist's ninth birthday found him a pale thin child, somewhat diminutive in stature, and decidedly small in circumference.

But nature or inheritance had implanted a good sturdy spirit in Oliver's breast.

It had had plenty of room to expand, thanks to the spare diet of the establishment; and perhaps to this circumstance may be attributed his having any ninth birth-day at all.