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Grinning and bobbing, he presented the offerings, and then stepped back to make room for Uncle Tony. "Marse Ab, you'll 'cep' dis bunch o' brooms f'um ole Tony; kaze he wuz yer fus' 'quaintunce when you come ter dis kintry. Dese brooms will 'min' you ob yer ole home; kaze dey's tied wid de same twist an' loop jes' ez dey mek brooms wid in ole Virginny.
Donna Catarussa, who gives evidence, and whom I take to have been a worthless, idle gossip, was one day sitting at her door, when Piero di Trento passed, selling brooms, and said to her, "Madonna, find me some nice girl." To which Donna Catarussa replied, "Ugly fool! do you take me for a go-between?" "No," said Piero, "not that; I mean a girl to be my wife."
At the far end an agitated group, variously armed with canes, brooms and umbrellas, was gathered about a fainting chambermaid supported in the arms of a waiter and fanned by another chambermaid with a brush broom. Just behind her stood the head waiter in his immaculate dress suit, disgust painted on his countenance and a dustpan held aloft in his hand.
Upon his shoulder he carried a bundle of brooms, a pack was slung to his back, while round his neck there dangled a heterogeneous collection of articles ribbons, laces, tawdry neck chains, and the like; indeed, so smothered was he in his wares that, as he stood there, he had more the aspect of some disordered fancy than of a human being.
Like those other wind-gods the psychopomp Hermes and the wild huntsman Odin, he is the prince of the powers of the air: his flight through the midnight sky, attended by his troop of witches mounted on their brooms, which sometimes break the boughs and sweep the leaves from the trees, is the same as the furious chase of the Erlking Odin or the Burckar Vittikab.
"Let's go down to the village and sweep paths for money. Perhaps we could earn enough to buy a chicken." "All right! Where will we go?" "Judge Abbott will pay us, I'm sure, and Mr. Strong would hire us, too, if he hasn't swept his own walks. Maybe Lute Dunbar isn't home yet and we can get their paths." Without further discussion they sped away to town, dragging their brooms behind them.
They boxed the ears of their little boys, drove their little girls to the churning without mercy, clattered the breakfast dishes furiously, and in various ways indicated to their lords and masters that the day belonged to them, to them exclusively, and that no man could hope to remain in peace within range of their mops and brooms till every vestige of summer dust and dirt was removed, every feather bed sunned till it swelled tick tight, every quilt aired, every rug beaten, every floor scoured, and they themselves relaxed, exhausted, purified, and satisfied at the end of the day.
"Take your reward!" cried Vanslyperken, running furiously to cut down the corporal. But his career was stopped by the two brooms, one of which took him in the face, and the other in the chest. The widow and Babette now ranged side by side, holding their brooms as soldiers do their arms in a charge of bayonets. How did the corporal act?
To these they rode from great distances on brooms and dogs, and there they did homage to the prince of hell and offered him sacrifices. In 1836 the populace of Holland plunged into the sea a woman reputed to be a sorceress, and as the miserable woman persisted in rising to the surface, she was pronounced guilty, and was beaten to death.
A detachment of them now joined a band of the crew, who proceeding into the steerage, with buckets and brooms, gave it a thorough cleansing, sending on deck, I know not how many bucketsful of defilements. It was more like cleaning out a stable, than a retreat for men and women.
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