Jonas on a Farm in Winter Part 15

"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 pa.s.sing 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, pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.s 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER IX.

DIFFICULTY

Although it was winter when the boys were taking this ride, yet the sun was shining in a very warm and pleasant manner, and the snow was every where softening in the fields and melting in the roads, indicating that the spring was coming on.

There was a little stream of water, coming down the hill in the middle of the road, and forming a long pool at the bottom. Jonas turned his horse to one side, to avoid this pool of water, and waited until Oliver came up.

"Well, Oliver," said he,--"tired of the mill already?"

"Why, no," said Oliver, "only I thought that, on the whole, I'd rather go with you. I didn't think that you were going to be gone so long."

"It is about two miles," said Jonas.

"Where are you going?" said Oliver.

"O, to see about some logs. I thought you heard your father tell me to go and see about some logs."

"What about the logs?" said Oliver.

"Why, to make the boards of, for the barn."

"O," replied Oliver, "I didn't know that."

"Yes," continued Jonas, "when we want boards, we have to go to somebody who owns some pine timber in the woods, and get him to cut down some of them, and haul them to the mill. Then they saw them up, and make boards."

"What mill?" said Oliver.

"At that saw-mill near the carding-mill. The mill down in the village, you know, is a grist-mill."

By this time, the boys had got to the top of the hill, and they got into the sleigh, and rode along. Presently, they came to a place where Jonas was going to turn off, into a sort of by-road which led away into the woods, where the pine-trees grew. The man that owned the trees lived pretty near, in a farm-house.