Neither the mill nor the shop could be seen, except in one direction; that is, when you were directly in front, they were so embosomed in foliage, Charlie having left the growth around them, for he was in possession of ideas of taste and beauty, of which neither Captain Rhines, Uncle Isaac, or John had the least conception. It was a pleasant sight, as you sailed away in the summer, to obtain indistinct glimpses of the water between the tree trunks as it poured off the dam, listen to the click of the saw, and catch through the leaves the gleams of the carpenters’ axes; while far beyond, as the land gradually rose, large fields of corn and grain, with their vivid green, presented a most singular and beautiful contrast to the black limbs and barkless trunks of the girdled trees among which they lay, their hollow trunks—some standing upright, others fallen—affording a most excellent roost for the crows, who paid their respects to Charlie’s corn when it was in the blade.
At the lower edge of an immense forest of maple and birch, from which every vestige of underbrush had been removed, were seen the walls of a sap camp; while, instead of a path leading to the house, marked by spotted trees, a carriage road had been made, so that Captain Rhines could ride back and forth in his wagon, and Parson Goodhue in his chaise—for he had arrived to that dignity. It was not, however, much like the vehicle bearing that appellation at the present time. The wheels and arms were large enough for a modern team wagon; the frame of the top was made of iron; instead of leather, it was covered with painted canvas, and on the sides were projections, like the wings of a bird, to throw off the mud.
Charlie and Joe cut a footpath through the forest, between their farms, and put logs across the gullies and sloughs, so that they could go back and forth conveniently.
Two other notable events occurred this year. You know Uncle Isaac was not a whit like most elderly people, any more than chalk is like cheese. There was nothing stereotyped about him. He made a cider mill, to replace his white oak beam and wooden maul. When he went to Thomaston to see General Knox’s mills, he saw a cider press, in which the cheese was pressed with wooden screws. The apples, also, instead of being pounded to pieces in a trough, with a wooden maul, were ground between nuts, made with grooves and projections fitting into each other, and turned by a horse. Uncle Isaac took the pitch of the thread of the screws, and when he came home made press and mill.
Ben also, that fall, brought over to his father and Charlie a bushel of apples apiece, which he had raised from his young orchard.
“What do you think now about making cider on Elm Island?”
Charlie said, “I think, when you get ready, there will be a mill for you;” and told him what Uncle Isaac had done.
Uncle Isaac didn’t stop here. He made his wife and Sally Rhines a cheese-press, with screws. The way they pressed cheese before this was, to put a lever under the sill of the house, place the cheese under it, and then put rocks on the other end of the lever. At Ben’s suggestion, he also made a press to press hay. Before this, they carried it loose on board vessels, and couldn’t take any great amount, although, in Massachusetts, presses had come in use, and Ben had seen them.