The Old Man in the Corner; or, the Pedler’s Pack,
NO. II.
THE STORY OF THE COTTON-WOOL.
Several weeks ago I took a ramble through the beautiful town of Dorchester. In the course of my perambulation, I came to a paper-mill, and being attracted by the stirring sound of the machinery within, I entered and looked around me. In one place I saw an immense bin of rags, of all sizes and shapes, and of all hues, and apparently gathered from the four quarters of the globe. Never did I see such a motley congregation, crowded together in one place. As I was looking on the heap, the thought occurred to me that if each rag could speak and tell the adventures of its existence, we should have a collection of romances equal in extent, and perhaps rivalling in wonders, the thousand and one tales of the Arabian Nights.
While I was gazing at the heap of rags, which, by the by, was in a dim and dusky room, I thought I saw something rise up in the midst, looking very much like the skinny visage of a very thin, old woman, about to speak. I approached the bin, and looked steadily at the grisly image—but, on closer inspection, it appeared to be only an old rag, which had, accidentally, assumed the questionable shape I have described.
I proceeded to examine the several processes of the mill, and great was my admiration at seeing their magical result. I discovered that the rags of any hue, being put into a vat, were bleached as white as the “driven snow;” that they were then reduced to a kind of pulp, as soft as paste; that this, being mixed with water, produced a liquid like milk; that this liquid passed over a wire cloth, through which the water oozed, leaving a thin, white, even scum, which, settling upon the wire cloth, formed the sheet of paper.
I looked on this beautiful process with wonder and delight. I saw the sheet of paper pass over several cylinders, gradually becoming firmer and firmer, by pressure and heat, until, at last, I could see it coiled up, smooth, white and polished, and several hundred yards in length. I then saw it unrolled, and, by a simple machine, cut into sheets, ready to be sent to market.
I have never seen any manufacture which seemed to me no admirable. When I left the mill, I sauntered along the banks of the river, which turned the wheels of the mill. The place was shady, and, it being summer, I sat down. While I was there, a pretty, black-eyed girl came along, and I beckoned her to me. She came smiling, and we fell into conversation. She asked me to go to her house, and being introduced to her parents, they gave the old man some food, and treated him kindly. “Will you tell me a story?” said the little girl. “I will write you one,” said I—and so we parted.
For some weeks I forgot my promise, when I received a note from the black-eyed girl, refreshing my memory on this point. At evening I sat down to write the tale: but, instead of writing, a drowsiness stole over me, and I fell into a dream. Methought I was at my writing-desk, when I heard a rustling amid a heap of papers on my table, and presently something rose up, and assumed precisely the appearance of the rag in the bin of the paper-mill, which had seemed to me so much like a haggish old woman. A sort of strange fear came over me. I could now see the distinct features of a face, though the general aspect of the horrid visage was that of an old calico rag. There was a long, thin, crooked nose; deep, twinkling, tallow-colored eyes; a pointed chin, and a mouth that seemed capable of uttering unutterable things.
I rose up and stood aloof in fear. I was about to speak, when the ghost put her finger on her lip, and, stepping forward, stood upon the middle of the table. There was something awful about this scene, and I felt chilled, with a creeping horror, to my very heart. The creature reached out a kind of crumpled hand, and in a sort of frenzy I clasped it. But no sooner had I touched it, than the image vanished, and I found in my grasp a roll of paper. This I unfolded, and found it to be an immense sheet, written over in a neat, close hand. Casting my eye at the beginning, I saw that it read as follows:
“THE REMINISCENCES OF A RAG.
“As the rising sun was just peeping over the bosom of the Atlantic, and tinging with gold the waters that play along the borders of Amelia Island, a negro man, named Bob Squash, was seen putting some little seeds into the ground, upon the eastern slope of said island. This event occurred on the 4th of March, 1839, as the wooden clock of the plantation was on the stroke of four.
“The seed was covered up in the ground, but in a few days it shot forth, and, in process of time, it became a large plant, covered with tufts of cotton. These were gathered by Bob Squash, and rolled into a wad and from this time I began to have a consciousness of existence. That ball of cotton was myself. I was packed into a bag with an immense heap of other cotton, and being put into a mill, we were awfully torn to pieces, in order to separate the seeds from the fibres. The teeth of the mill, which consisted of a thousand hooks, went through and through us, and thus we were parted forever from the seeds which had been born and bred with us, and which we had cherished from our infancy. The seeds, however, were black, and the combing process made us look very nice and clean.
“I was now taken, with the rest of the cotton-wool, and put into a large, coarse sack, and, in order to make us lie snug, a little negro got into the sack and trod us down. He didn’t stop to consider how we might like it, but he went on stamping and jumping, and singing Jim Crow, all the time. When the bag was full, the mouth was sewed up, and we were marked as weighing three hundred and seventy-five pounds. In this state we were called a bale of cotton.
“You must know that there are two kinds of cotton—the short staple, or upland cotton, and the long staple, or sea island. The latter is the best, and our bale was of that sort. Of course, we, being of the aristocratic class, were proud of our descent; and, while we supposed the vulgar upland would be worked up into shirtings and sheetings, or, perhaps, cheap calicoes, we expected to be treated according to our quality, by being wrought into delicate muslins or cambrics for the fair. So it chanced, as you shall see, if you will peruse the next chapter.”
[To be continued.]
The Sea.—From the great depths which have been actually ascertained in some places, and the great extent of sea in which no bottom has been found, we may conclude that we are under the estimate when, including banks and shallows, we allow one mile in depth for the whole. Even this gives us a most enormous quantity of water; a quantity which, estimated in tons weight, we have the entire quantity of sea water, with all its saline ingredients, amounting to the enormous weight of 600,000,000,000,000,000, (six hundred thousand billions of tons.) Of this enormous quantity, between three and four per cent. consists of different saline ingredients, and the rest of pure water; so that water in the sea available for the purposes of animal and vegetable life, the supply of springs and rivers, and all other purposes for which water is needed in the economy of the land, amounts to five hundred and eighty thousand billions of tons; and the quantity of salt, at least of saline ingredients, to about twenty thousand billions of tons.
