THE DEPRIVED... Part 17.

A continuation of my book.

Big John seemed to take a liking to Michael and the next night he had him sit up on the driver’s passenger seat, holding the lamp and ringing the brass bell to let others know the dung-cart was making its rounds. Big John did not talk much, grunting an answer if Michael spoke to him while his hulking mass hunched in the driver’s seat as the cart rolled along. The two horses went at their own pace through the night, as big and broody as the man who drove them.
Joe and the others did not seem to mind Michael’s sudden promotion, seeing it as part of the Irishman’s luck.
“Luck?” had laughed Michael. “I’m not sure if Big John actually likes me or wants to kill me sometime.”
“That’s true enough.” exclaimed Vincent. “You never know what the big brute’s thinking."

Apart from the cleaning for the landlord with Beth, Mary had taken a job as a chicken-plucker, a feather-puller down at the small booth in Whitechapel Market. She sat on a box with Beth and Sam alongside her as she tore the feathers from dead chickens and earning a farthing for each pair of chickens she plucked. The feathers were to stuff mattresses and pillows for those who could afford them with the meat for a Sunday dinner for those who could raise the amount needed to purchase. Each chicken, after plucking had to be gutted with the entrails sold as offal to the poor. In this way, with her wage along with Michael’s earnings, the family fared better than they ever did back on Irish soil. They could afford to eat well and were able to have glass put in the window and to buy clothes from the rag-stall and more blankets and even have another bed alongside their own so that Beth and Sam did not have to sleep on the floor covered by old sacks. Life was good to them and Michael worked hard to enjoy the living they had.
“Here’s another shilling for the rent. I will pay two bob a week for rent and my wife does not work for you any more. She’s not your slave, nor will my children do your bidding any more!”
Michael had knocked loudly on Eli Dolsman’s door one morning and handed over a shilling.
“Find another drudge.” he said as he climbed the stairs.
Eli Dolsman had shrugged as he pocketed the coin.

Michael had been working for Jed Riley for three weeks when Joe asked him if he wanted to do a bit of extra work after he had finished the night round.
“It’s just digging out new cesspits for those who are raising their status. You know, the shop-keepers and small company bosses who have moved out a bit and don’t want their families using the public crap-houses and I don’t blame them neither. We aint rich enough to have our own pit so we have to use the public ones and share with another five hundred or so who want to use them, pouring in their buckets. Soon there won’t be enough room for everyone and that’s why they have started putting in sewage pipes but even they are getting clogged up and running into the River Thames.”
Mary was not happy with the idea of Michael taking on more work.
“You don’t need to do it, Michael.” she said. “Look at you! You’ve lost so much weight lately and you look so pale. I hear you coughing in the night and your breath wheezes out of you. Please say no, Michael.”
“I have to take all the work I can find, Mary.” was Michael’s answer. “I want to give the children the best start in life, not as we had and that’s why we came to London in the first place.”
Mary saw it was no good arguing. And so Michael joined Joe, Lemmy and Vincent each morning after work, digging deep Cesspits in the back yards of the new cottages and houses and then hiring an old horse and cart, to take the soiled earth out to farms where farmers paid well for the manure.

“You look worn out.” said Mary one day when Michael had returned from work.
He had been working four hours each day after his work and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
“I can’t stop now.” replied Michael sleepily. “I am working so that you and the children don’t have to work at plucking chickens for the feathers. You do enough, especially now you don’t have to do the cleaning for the landlord.”
“I don’t mind, Michael. Lots of women work at two jobs and sometimes three if they can get them. I don’t want you to work so hard, it’s draining you and you look so pale.”
Michael said nothing and closed his eyes. It was true, he had been feeling more tired of late and sometimes let the shovel go as he dug. He shrugged the thought from his mind and slept.