“I don’t see why. There were probably quite a few pairs turned out during the years the Glassworks was in operation.”
Ronnie opened his mouth to protest, and closed it again. There was plenty of time to tell Mr. Caldwell what he knew. He decided to play it safe for the time being. “Yes,” he answered, “yes, I suppose there could be quite a few around, if they haven’t been lost or destroyed.”
A car drew up in the improvised parking lot and came to a stop. Ronnie, looking out the window, saw a man, woman, and two boys leave the car and start toward the office. Ronnie and Bill went out to meet them.
“We’d like to take the tour. Are there guides?”
“Yes, sir,” Ronnie answered. “We’d be glad to take you about.”
The man looked first at Ronnie and then at Bill. He seemed a bit skeptical. “Well, all right,” he said finally. “Where do we begin?”
Ronnie and Bill led them down the path to the cobblestone road. “This is the original road that ran through the center of the village,” he told them. “Some of the cobblestones have been replaced from time to time, but mostly it’s just the way it used to be. Mules used to pull cartloads of sand along this road to be used in making the glass.”
They swung off the cobblestone road and approached the two-story building beside Goose Brook. Bill, slipping up beside Ronnie, whispered: “Hey, you’re doing all right!”
“Now this was the gristmill where all the wheat from the surrounding fields was ground into flour. That overshot water wheel you see there was in running order when my grandfather was a boy. He says our family still used it to grind the grain.”
They visited the main building where the glass had been made and blown. From here they moved to the general store, the blacksmith shop, the smith shop, the carriage buildings, and the workers’ cottages. This brought them in a circle back to their office.