"'Burled'? What do you mean by that?"
"Why, the knots are all cut off. You see the weavers have to tie their warp on the back side when it breaks, and that is what makes the knots."
"I don't see what harm those little things would do, as you say they are on the back of the cloth."
"They are the worst things there are, for if one of them gets in by accident it is sure to make a hole through the cloth when it runs through the shears."
Thus, with work and talk, the day flew by almost before Fred was aware of it. In fact, the hours seemed shorter to him than any he had passed for weeks. Now there was something new to occupy his attention, and work enough to keep his hands busy. The many curious machines before him, of which Carl had told him a little, interested him much—so much, indeed, that even at the end of the first day he felt no small desire to know more of them.
XVIII.
In the evening, after Fred's second day in the factory, as he sat with his parents in their pleasant home, and the thought of Carl and of his sad deformity and still sadder story recurred to him, he could not help contrasting the circumstances of the little humpback with his own.