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Over the slippery boards, in dance of death, glide jealousies, disappointments, lust, despair. Torn leaves and withered garlands only half hide the ulcered feet. The stench of smoking lamp-wicks almost quenched. Choking damps. Chilliness. Feet still. Hands folded. Eyes shut. Voices hushed. Very long ago the needle was busy. It was considered honorable for women to toil in olden time.
In this patch of light the maids have gathered and are squatting close together, with legs outstretched, rolling cotton waste into lamp-wicks, and chatting in undertones of their village homes. Many such pictures are indelibly printed on my memory.
The wax thus obtained was melted in large kettles, and yards of rags torn into strips and sewn together, then twisted to the size of lamp-wicks, were dipped into the liquid wax, cooled, and dipped again and again until of the right size. These yards of waxed rags were wound around a corncob or a bottle, then clipped, leaving about two yards "closely wound" to each candle.
Beeton would take Dick out with him when he went marketing in the morning to haggle with tradesmen over fish, lamp-wicks, mustard, tapioca, and so forth, while Dick rested his weight first on one foot and then on the other and played aimlessly with the tins and string-ball on the counter. Then they would perhaps meet one of Mr.
George Washington, the eldest blossom, was shearing a resigned kitten; Gusty and Ann Eliza were concocting mud pies in the ashes; Adelaide Victoria was studying the structure of lamp-wicks, while Daniel Webster and Andrew Jackson were dragging one another in a clothes-basket, to the great detriment of the old carpet and still older chariot.
By way of adding to the slender gains of his mother, he extracted the white pith from certain rushes of the region, which made very good lamp-wicks for the kind of lamps then in use in Scotland. These wicks of pith he sold about the town in small penny bundles. In order to get his supply of rushes he was obliged to roam the country far and wide, and along the banks of streams.
"The bo'sun has went and got hisself stabbed and four of the white hands are missin', and we ain't got nobody to work ship but the chinks." "We've got to have a crew, Mr. Harris, and that's all there is to it," said Captain Riggs. "You say the Greek got cut?" "Dead as a door-nail, cap'n. Went out for lamp-wicks and got hisself slit open in a gin-mill, the fool! We're turrible short-handed, cap'n."
There is some hemp, which is manufactured into cloth for sails, &c.; but cables and ropes, very inferior to ours, are made from the bark of a tree called kadyz. This bark likewise supplies materials for thread, lamp-wicks, writing-paper, and the coarse paper used for pocket-handkerchiefs.
The Greeks made lamp-wicks of its dried leaves, and the Romans dipped its dried stalk in tallow for funeral torches. It affects dry uplands in this country, and, as it takes two years to mature, it is not a troublesome weed in cultivated crops. The first year it sits low upon the ground in its coarse flannel leaves, and makes ready; if the plow comes along now, its career is ended.