“Mr. Everett didn’t mean a policeman, dear,” explained Mrs. Martin to Trouble. “He means a spark arrester would stop the sparks from flying from the stacks. Arrest means to stop, you know.”
“How do they stop the sparks,” asked Ted.
“Generally they put a piece of wire netting over the top of the chimney or smokestack,” his mother answered. “The smoke can go through the netting, but the sparks can’t. It is the big, red hot sparks, flying from the stack, that do the damage. In most locomotives there are these spark arresters of iron or wire netting.”
“I never saw any,” Janet said.
“That’s because they are set down inside the locomotive smokestack,” was the answer.
The next day the children watched men fasten a heavy piece of wire netting over the top of the sawmill smokestack.
Of all the places about the lumber camp where the Curlytops best liked to be, the sawmill was their choice. They liked to watch the big trees chopped or sawed down, they were fond of lingering near the log chute, and they delighted to see the men build timber rafts on the river and float on them.
But the sawmill they liked best of all. There was a delightfully clean smell about it—a smell of the woods as the logs were cut into boards, the sawdust flying about in a cloud. The saw, too, made such a funny “zipping” sound. First there would be a low hum, as the sharp teeth bit into the end of the log. Then the sound would become higher and shriller as the saw turned faster and faster.
Finally there would sound a whine, like that of some animal, and the saw would come to the end of the log with a “zip,” and then there would be only a low, pleasant hum.
The saw was not the only piece of machinery in the mill that moved. Another piece was the “carriage,” on which the log was carried toward the saw. This carriage was a frame work on which the log rested as it went forward inch by inch and foot by foot to be cut into board lengths. Besides the carriage there was a log chain, winding around a drum.