Holes were bored, and a square mortise cut in the centre of the two blocks, and the spindle squared near the lower end, and the pulley fitted on to it. The top of the spindle was also squared for the other block. This was done in order that neither the pulley nor the wheel might turn on the spindle: then a score was cut in the edge of the pulley to receive a band. The frame of the bench was now boarded on top, the spindle put in its place, and the upper wheel put on. Their tools were few, and the boys without practice in using them; yet, though the work was rough, the bench was level, and the spindle plumb, although made of an ash-sprout, the bark still adhering to portions of it. The pulley and clay wheel were also true circles, as they struck them out with Harry's large compasses, and cut to the scratch.
A serious consultation was now held in respect to the manner in which they should avail themselves of the flax-wheel.
After a long consideration, arising from the fact that the flax-wheel was not theirs, and that they could do nothing to unfit it for future use in spinning, Sammy knocked the legs out carefully from the bench, and placed the latter upon its edge, upon the floor, with the wheel and posts attached, and at a proper distance from the spindle; then put under the posts a flattened piece of wood just thick enough to bring it up to a level, and drove into it two pins each side of the post to keep them in place, and short enough for the wheel to play over them.
Flat stones were laid against the other end of the bench, to keep it from moving; a band passed round both the flax-wheel and the spindle, and the bearings greased. Some method must now be devised to turn the large wheel; and this was not an easy matter. This wheel had on it a short crank, to which (when the parts of the machine were all in place) the treadle was attached; and on this crank a tang half an inch long, with a button on the end, to keep the treadle from slipping off. This affair, especially the button, was much in the way of putting any thing on the wheel by which to turn it, and was not large enough to be made useful of itself; for it could only be held betwixt the finger and thumb, it was so very short.
The rim of this wheel was three inches in depth, and there were sixteen spokes quite near together. Archie proposed boring a hole in this rim, and putting a pin into it; but Sam said that would never do, because it would injure the wheel, and he had promised Prudence Holdness he would leave it as good as he found it.
He tried to fit a wooden handle to the tang of the crank, but the button on the end prevented.
These boys, it is true, possessed little knowledge of things in general: yet they had read the woods pretty thoroughly, and were aware that the roots of the alder, hazel, and wild cherry, inclined to run for some distance near the surface, and then throw up shoots at right angles with the root from which they sprung.
They found a wild cherry nearly two inches in diameter, that sprang up from a long naked root, cut the top off within eighteen inches of the ground, and then dug it up. They now cut one arm of the root close to the stem, leaving the other a foot in length, flattened the under side, placed the end of the root towards the hub of the wheel, and lashed it firmly to a spoke. This was a handle by which to turn the wheel, and did not injure it in the least. They found, by getting on their knees and turning the flax-wheel, the spindle revolved steadily but not very fast.
"It don't go so fast as mother's flax-wheel," said Sam.
"Not a quarter so fast as my mother's big wheel: the spindle of that'll whirl so you can't hardly see it, when she's a mind to make it," said Archie.