out the fat and marrow first, for special use, and the bones are then crushed and sold for manure.
Of “rags,” the woolen rags are bagged and sent off for hop-manure; the white linen rags are washed, and sold to make paper, &c.
The “tin things” are collected and put into an oven with a grating at the bottom, so that the solder which unites the parts melts, and runs through into a receiver. This is sold separately; the detached pieces of tin are then sold to be melted up with old iron, &c.
Bits of old brass, lead, &c., are sold to be melted up separately, or in the mixture of ores.
All broken glass vessels, as cruets, mustard-pots, tumblers, wine-glasses, bottles, &c., are sold to the old-glass shops.
As for any articles of jewelry, silver-spoons, forks, thimbles, or other plate and valuables, they are pocketed off-hand by the first finder. Coins of gold and silver are often found, and many “coppers.”
Meantime, every body is hard at work near the base of the great dust-heap. A certain number of cart-loads having been raked and searched for all the different things just described, the whole of it now undergoes the process of sifting. The men throw up the stuff, and the women sift it.
“When I was a young girl,” said Peg Dotting —
“That’s a long while ago, Peggy,” interrupted one of the sifters: but Peg did not hear her.
“When I was quite a young thing,” continued she, addressing old John Doubleyear, who threw up the dust into her sieve, “it was the fashion to wear pink roses in the shoes, as bright as that morsel of ribbon Sally has just picked out of the dust; yes, and sometimes in the hair, too, on one side of the head, to set off the white powder and salve-stuff. I never wore one of these head-dresses myself – don’t throw up the dust so high, John – but I lived only a few doors lower down from those as did. Don’t throw up the dust so high, I tell ’ee – the wind takes it into my face.”
“Ah! There! What’s that?” suddenly exclaimed little Jem, running as fast as his poor withered legs would allow him, toward a fresh heap, which had just been shot down on the wharf from a dustman’s cart. He made a dive and a search – then another – then one deeper still. “I’m sure I saw it!” cried he, and again made a dash with both hands into a fresh place, and began to distribute the ashes, and dust, and rubbish on every side, to the great merriment of all the rest.
“What did you see, Jemmy?” asked old Doubleyear, in a compassionate tone.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the boy, “only it was like a bit of something made of real gold!”
A fresh burst of laughter from the company assembled followed this somewhat vague declaration, to which the dustmen added one or two elegant epithets, expressive of their contempt of the notion that they could have overlooked a bit of any thing valuable in the process of emptying sundry dust-holes, and carting them away.
“Ah,” said one of the sifters, “poor Jem’s always a-fancying something or other good – but it never comes.”
“Didn’t I find three cats this morning!” cried Jem; “two on ’em white ’uns! How you go on!”
“I meant something quite different from the like o’ that,” said the other; “I was a-thinking of the rare sights all you three there have had, one time and another.”
The wind having changed and the day become bright, the party at work all seemed disposed to be more merry than usual. The foregoing remark excited the curiosity of several of the sifters, who had recently joined the “company,” the parties alluded to were requested to favor them with the recital; and though the request was made with only a half-concealed irony, still it was all in good-natured pleasantry, and was immediately complied with. Old Doubleyear spoke first.
“I had a bad night of it with the rats some years ago – they run’d all over the floor, and over the bed, and one on ’em come’d and guv a squeak close into my ear – so I couldn’t sleep comfortable. I wouldn’t ha’ minded a trifle of at; but this was too much of a good thing. So, I got up before sun-rise, and went out for a walk; and thinking I might as well be near our work-place, I slowly come’d down this way. I worked in a brick-field at that time, near the canal yonder. The sun was just a-rising up behind the dust-heap as I got in sight of it; and soon it rose above, and was very bright; and though I had two eyes then, I was obligated to shut them both. When I opened them again, the sun was higher up; but in his haste to get over the dust-heap, he had dropped something. You may laugh. I say he had dropped something. Well – I can’t say what it was, in course – a bit of his-self, I suppose. It was just like him – a bit on him, I mean – quite as bright – just the same – only not so big. And not up in the sky, but a-lying and sparkling all on fire upon the dust-heap. Thinks I – I was a younger man then by some years than I am now – I’ll go and have a nearer look. Though you be a bit o’ the sun, maybe you won’t hurt a poor man. So, I walked toward the dust-heap, and up I went, keeping the piece of sparkling fire in sight all the while. But before I got up to it, the sun went behind a cloud – and as he went out-like, so the young ’un he had dropped, went out after him. And I had my climb up the heap for nothing, though I had marked the place were it lay very percizely. But there was no signs at all on him, and no morsel left of the light as had been there. I searched all about; but found nothing ’cept a bit o’ broken glass as had got stuck in the heel of an old shoe. And that’s my story. But if ever a man saw any thing at all, I saw a bit o’ the sun; and I thank God for it. It was a blessed sight for a poor ragged old man of three score and ten, which was my age at that time.”
“Now, Peggy!” cried several voices, “tell us what you saw. Peg saw a bit o’ the moon.”
“No,” said Mrs. Dotting, rather indignantly; “I’m no moon-raker. Not a sign of the moon was there, nor a spark of a star – the time I speak on.”
“Well – go on, Peggy – go on.”
“I don’t know as I will,” said Peggy.
But being pacified by a few good-tempered, though somewhat humorous compliments, she thus favored them with her little adventure:
“There was no moon, nor stars, nor comet, in the ’versal heavens, nor lamp nor lantern along the road, when I walked home one winter’s night from the cottage of Widow Pin, where I had been to tea, with her and Mrs. Dry, as lived in the almshouses. They wanted Davy, the son of Bill Davy the milkman, to see me home with the lantern, but I wouldn’t let him ’cause of his sore throat. Throat! – no, it wasn’t his throat as was rare sore – it was – no, it wasn’t – yes, it was – it was his toe as was sore. His big toe. A nail out of his boot had got into it. I told him he’d be sure to have a bad toe, if he didn’t go to church more regular, but he wouldn’t listen; and so my words come’d true. But, as I was a-saying, I wouldn’t let him light me with the lantern by reason of his sore throat —toe, I mean – and as I went along, the night seemed to grow darker and darker. A straight road, though, and I was so used to it by day-time, it didn’t matter for the darkness. Hows’ever, when I come’d near the bottom of the dust-heap as I had to pass, the great dark heap was so zackly the same as the night, you couldn’t tell one from t’other. So, thinks I to myself —what was I thinking of at this moment? – for the life o’ me I can’t call it to mind; but that’s neither here nor there, only for this – it was a something that led me to remember the story of how the devil goes about like a roaring lion. And while I was a-hoping he might not be out a-roaring that night, what should I see rise out of one side of the dust-heap, but a beautiful shining star of a violet color. I stood as still – as stock-still as any I don’t-know-what!
