Did you ever wonder how people woke up in time for school or work in the days before alarm clocks? In the early twentieth century, townspeople in England hired "knocker-ups" like Mary Smith for a few pence a week. Mary Smith traveled through predawn streets armed with a peashooter and a pocket watch, waking her clients at whatever hour they requested by plinking dried peas at their bedroom windows.
In rollicking words and pictures, Andrea UβRen re-creates one busy morning in the life of her intrepid true-life subject β a morning when Mary Smith helps her town start its day in timely fashion, only to receive a rude awakening when she comes home. Could it be that the knocker-upβs own daughter has been sleeping in?
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