“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 runn’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 it, but this was too much of a good thing.  So I got up before sunrise, 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 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 arter him.  And I had to climb up the heap for nothing, though I had marked the place vere 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 anything 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 threescore 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.”