Jonas on a Farm in Winter

by Jacob Abbott

The machinery made a heavy, rumbling sound, which grew louder and louder as the boys went up stairs. Jonas opened a door into a large room, and at this the noise increased very loudly, so that Oliver and Jonas could hardly hear each other talk. Jonas put down the bundle of wool by the door, and then he and Oliver went in among the wheels and machinery. There were a great many separate machines at different parts of the room, with girls tending them. There was a large, round beam of wood, overhead, slowly revolving. There were wheels upon it in different parts, with straps passing around these wheels, and also around other wheels connected with the machines below.

Oliver saw Jonas walk to a man who was writing at a desk in the corner of a room, and say something to him. Oliver could not hear what it was. Jonas pointed, while he was talking to the man, to the great bundle of wool. Presently the man came and took the bundle of wool, and dragged it off to one of the machines, which was not in motion. He called a girl to come and tend it.

At one end of the machine was a broad band of cloth, passing around two rollers. One roller was close to the wheels and other large rollers of the machine itself. The other was back from it a little; and the cloth, being extended from one of these to the other, formed a sort of flat table just before the machine.

The girl who came to tend the machine immediately opened the great bundle of wool, and then she took up a handful of it, and began to spread it evenly over the cloth. When she had got the cloth pretty nearly covered she pulled a handle pretty near her, and that, in some mysterious way or other, set the machinery a-going. The cloth, with all the wool upon it, began to move towards the great rollers of the machine. These rollers were covered with card teeth, and the wool, as it was drawn in between them, was carded fine, and spread evenly over all the surface; and in a few minutes Jonas and Oliver found that it began to come out at the other end, in the shape of rolls. One roll after another dropped out, in a very singular manner. Oliver thought that it was a very curious machine indeed, to take in wool in that way at one end, and drop it out in beautiful long rolls at the other.

"Now," said Jonas, after a few minutes, to Oliver, "I am going away farther, and shall come back here in about an hour. You may go with me, or you may stay here,—just which you prefer."

"Well," said Oliver, "I'll stay here."

"Good-by, then," said Jonas; "I shall be back again in about an hour."

So Jonas went down stairs, and Oliver began to walk about the room a little. There was a window in the back side of the room, which he happened to pass pretty near to, and he stopped to look out at it. He saw the dam and the waterfall below. There was a large pond above the fall, which was made by the dam. The pond was frozen over, and the ice was covered with snow. The water was open for a short distance above the edge of the fall, and it was also open below the fall, where there was a great foaming, and tumbling, and whirling of currents.

Oliver looked at it a moment, and then he concluded that it would be better for him to go with Jonas.

"I have seen," said he to himself, "pretty much all of the machinery, and I shall be very tired of waiting here an hour."