They threw rotten vegetables, fruit parings, and scraps from the table into a tub, and gave them to him at the end of a few days.

A sour, nasty mess it always was, and not fit to give any creature.
Sometimes, when he had not many "peelings," he would go to town and get a load of decayed vegetables, that grocers were glad to have him take off their hands.
This food, together with poor hay, made the cows give very poor milk, and Jenkins used to put some white powder in it, to give it "body," as he said.
Once a very sad thing happened about the milk, that no one knew about but Jenkins and his wife.

She was a poor, unhappy creature, very frightened at her husband, and not daring to speak much to him.

She was not a clean woman, and I never saw a worse-looking house than she kept.
She used to do very queer things, that I know now no housekeeper should do.

I have seen her catch up the broom to pound potatoes in the pot.