THE CARDING-MILL
Jonas was often sent away to transact business for the farmer. He was a
very excellent hand to do business. It requires several qualities to
make a boy good at business. He must be gentlemanly in his manners, so
as to speak to the persons that he is sent to, in a respectful and
proper manner; he must be faithful, so as not to neglect what is
intrusted to him; and he must be patient and persevering. Then he must
also have considerable judgment and discretion; for when he is sent away
from home on business, he must often be placed in circumstances that are
unforeseen, and where he must act without instructions. In such cases,
he will have to exercise his own judgment and discretion. Jonas was
placed in such circumstances at one time, when he was sent to the
carding-mill to get some rolls for Isabella.
The rolls which Isabella wanted were rolls of wool, as they are prepared
at the mill ready for spinning. The wool is carded very fine, and then,
by curious machinery, it is rolled out into rolls about three feet long,
and as large round as a whip-handle at the middle. These rolls Isabella
used to spin into yarn, at her spinning-wheel.
Isabella had spun nearly all her rolls, and she wanted Jonas to carry
some wool to the carding-mill, and get some more. The carding-mill was
not in the village upon the outlet stream; but it was upon another
stream, which emptied into the pond, instead of flowing from it. It was
the same stream that flowed by the land which Jonas and Oliver had
cleared when he first came to live with the farmer; only the mill was at
some distance from the mouth of the stream, back towards the high land.
It was more than two miles, by the road, from the farmer's house.
The farmer told Jonas where to get the wool, and then gave him some more
business, at a place in the woods, about two miles beyond the mill.
Oliver wanted to go too, and his father gave him leave. Oliver always
liked to go to the mill, as the machine for carding the wool was a great
curiosity.
Jonas put up the wool in a very large bundle, which almost filled up the
bottom of the sleigh. Jonas himself sat upon the seat, with his feet
under the bundle; but Oliver sat upon the bundle. He said it made a very
soft seat.
They rode along pleasantly towards the mill. The snow-drifts were very
high in some places on each side of the road; and the fences and walls
were almost buried up.
"I wish that Josey was here," said Oliver. "I think that he would like
to see the carding-mill very much indeed."
"Yes," said Jonas.
"Only," replied Oliver, "perhaps it would be dangerous to take him."
"Why?" said Jonas.
"Why, because," said Oliver, "I suppose he would touch the machinery,
and perhaps get his hands torn off."
"Yes," said Jonas, "boys sometimes do get very badly hurt in
mills,--careless and disobedient boys especially."
"I think that he is a careless and disobedient boy," said Oliver.
[Illustration: "He said it made a very soft seat."]
"Yes, but it is his misfortune, rather than his fault," replied Jonas.
"His misfortune?" repeated Oliver.
"Yes," said Jonas; "his father's situation is such, that it is very
unfortunate for him. I expect he is very unhappily situated at home, in
many respects."
"How?" said Oliver.
"Why, in the first place," said Jonas, "he lives, I'm told, in a large
and handsome house."
"Yes," said Oliver.
"And then," continued Jonas, "your aunt, I have heard, is a very fine
woman, and has a great deal of company."
"Well," said Oliver.
"And then," continued Jonas, "they can buy Josey any thing he wants, for
playthings."
"Yes," said Oliver; "he told me he had got a rocking-horse. But I don't
call that being unfortunate."
"It is very fortunate for the father and mother, but such a kind of life
is generally unfortunate for the child. You see, if a man has been
industrious himself, when he was a boy, and has grown up to be a good
business man, and to acquire a great deal of property, and builds a
good house, and has plenty of books, and journeys, it is all very well
for him. He can bear it, but it very often spoils his children."
"Why does it spoil his children?" asked Oliver.
"In the first place, it makes them conceited and vain,--not always, but
often. The children of wealthy men are very often conceited. They wear
better clothes than some other boys, and have more books and prettier
playthings; and so they become vain, and think that they are very
important, when, in fact, they owe every thing to their fathers.
"Then, besides," continued Jonas, "they don't form good habits of
industry. Their fathers don't make them work, and so they don't acquire
any habits of industry, and patience, and perseverance."
"If I was a man, and had ever so much money," said Oliver, "I would make
my boys work."
"That is very doubtful," said Jonas.
"Why is it doubtful?" asked Oliver.
"Because," said Jonas, "you would be very busy, and couldn't attend to
it. It would be a great deal more trouble to make your boys do any
thing, than it would be to hire another man to do it; and so you would
hire a man, to save your trouble."
"Yes; but then, Jonas, farmers are very busy, and yet they make their
boys work."
"True," replied Jonas; "but farmers are busy about such kind of work as
that their boys can help them do it,--so they can keep them at work
without any special trouble. But men of property are employed in such
kind of business as boys cannot do; and so they must work, if they work
at all, at something else; and that makes a good deal of trouble."
"Then I'd send my boys to some farmer, and let him make them work," said
Oliver.
"Yes," said Jonas, "that would do pretty well."
So saying, Jonas stopped the horse a moment, and stepped out of the
sleigh. He was at the foot of a long, steep hill in the woods. He was
going to walk up. Oliver remained in the sleigh, and rode. When they
reached the top, Jonas got in again, and they rode on.
"But then, Jonas," said Oliver, "there is one thing to be thought of,
and that is, that rich men's sons will not have to work when they grow
up; and so they don't need so much to grow industrious."
"O, yes, they will," said Jonas.
"Why, Josey told me that he didn't expect to work when he should be a
man."
"No, he doesn't _expect_ to work, but he'll find that it is different
from what he had expected, when he grows up."
"How?" said Oliver.
"Why, a great many rich men's boys find, when they get to be twenty-one,
that they have to go out into the world, and earn their own living,
without any money."
"Why?" said Oliver; "won't their fathers give them any money?"
"Their fathers cannot generally give them enough to support them," said
Jonas, "even if they are disposed to do it; because, you see, they have
their own families still to support. Besides, if they were to divide
their property at once among all their children, it would only be a
small portion for each one. It wouldn't be enough for the boys to live
as expensively as they have been living while at home. Therefore, as
fast as they grow up young men, they have to go away into the world,
and earn their own money by some kind of work, head work or hand work."
Jonas would probably have given Oliver some further explanations on this
subject, were it not that about this time they arrived at the mill.
Oliver tied the horse at a post, while Jonas took out the great bundle
of wool, and went in. Oliver followed immediately after him.
The machinery made a heavy, rumbling sound, which grew louder and louder
as the boys went up stairs. Jonas opened a door into a large room, and
at this the noise increased very loudly, so that Oliver and Jonas could
hardly hear each other talk. Jonas put down the bundle of wool by the
door, and then he and Oliver went in among the wheels and machinery.
There were a great many separate machines at different parts of the
room, with girls tending them. There was a large, round beam of wood,
overhead, slowly revolving. There were wheels upon it in different
parts, with straps passing around these wheels, and also around other
wheels connected with the machines below.
Oliver saw Jonas walk to a man who was writing at a desk in the corner
of a room, and say something to him. Oliver could not hear what it was.
Jonas pointed, while he was talking to the man, to the great bundle of
wool. Presently the man came and took the bundle of wool, and dragged it
off to one of the machines, which was not in motion. He called a girl to
come and tend it.
At one end of the machine was a broad band of cloth, passing around two
rollers. One roller was close to the wheels and other large rollers of
the machine itself. The other was back from it a little; and the cloth,
being extended from one of these to the other, formed a sort of flat
table just before the machine.
The girl who came to tend the machine immediately opened the great
bundle of wool, and then she took up a handful of it, and began to
spread it evenly over the cloth. When she had got the cloth pretty
nearly covered she pulled a handle pretty near her, and that, in some
mysterious way or other, set the machinery a-going. The cloth, with all
the wool upon it, began to move towards the great rollers of the
machine. These rollers were covered with card teeth, and the wool, as it
was drawn in between them, was carded fine, and spread evenly over all
the surface; and in a few minutes Jonas and Oliver found that it began
to come out at the other end, in the shape of rolls. One roll after
another dropped out, in a very singular manner. Oliver thought that it
was a very curious machine indeed, to take in wool in that way at one
end, and drop it out in beautiful long rolls at the other.
"Now," said Jonas, after a few minutes, to Oliver, "I am going away
farther, and shall come back here in about an hour. You may go with me,
or you may stay here,--just which you prefer."
"Well," said Oliver, "I'll stay here."
"Good-by, then," said Jonas; "I shall be back again in about an hour."
So Jonas went down stairs, and Oliver began to walk about the room a
little. There was a window in the back side of the room, which he
happened to pass pretty near to, and he stopped to look out at it. He
saw the dam and the waterfall below. There was a large pond above the
fall, which was made by the dam. The pond was frozen over, and the ice
was covered with snow. The water was open for a short distance above the
edge of the fall, and it was also open below the fall, where there was a
great foaming, and tumbling, and whirling of currents.
Oliver looked at it a moment, and then he concluded that it would be
better for him to go with Jonas.
"I have seen," said he to himself, "pretty much all of the machinery,
and I shall be very tired of waiting here an hour."
So he concluded that he would run down, quick, and see if Jonas had
gone.
When he got down stairs, and out at the door, he found that the sleigh
was not at the post. He ran around the corner, and saw Jonas at some
distance, just at the foot of a hill. He ran after him, calling,
"Jo-nas! Jo-nas!"
Just at this time, Jonas stopped to let his horse walk up the hill, and
so he heard Oliver calling; for the bells did not make so much noise
when the horse was walking, as they did before.
So Jonas stopped until Oliver overtook him; and they went on the rest of
the way together.
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