The sawmill was farther down on Pine Brook, where that stream widened out and was dammed up to make a waterfall. Part of the waterfall went through a flume, or sort of wooden canal, and the water, falling down a shaft, or wooden tunnel standing on end, turned a turbine wheel.
A turbine wheel is quite different from the ordinary mill wheel you may have seen. In fact you can not see the turbine wheel at all, for it is closed in at the bottom of the water shaft. It is small, but very powerful, and it was this kind of wheel which turned the saw machinery in Mr. Bobbsey’s Cedar Camp mill.
Before the smaller Bobbsey twins reached the mill they could hear the ripping, tearing sound of the saw as it cut its way through the logs, slicing them into boards as your mother slices the loaf of bread with the carving knife.
“Good morning, Mrs. Bobbsey—also little twins!” called Foreman Tom Case, who had charge of the sawmill. “Did you come to buy some lumber this morning?”
Flossie and Freddie knew Tom Case, for he had, at one time, worked in the lumberyard of their father in Lakeport, so it was meeting an old friend to see him here.
“Do you want one or two million feet this morning, Flossie?” asked the jolly sawman. “And will you take it with you or have it sent?”
“I guess we’ll just take some sawdust for Flossie’s doll,” laughed Freddie. This was a standing joke between the sawmill man and the little twins. Tom Case was always trying to sell a big lot of lumber to Flossie and Freddie, and they always said all they wanted was a little sawdust.
“Oh, shucks! you aren’t any kind of customers to have around a lumber camp,” laughed Mr. Case. “Where’s the rest of the family?” he asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
“Bert and Nan have gone nutting,” their mother answered. “So we came down here to see what was going on.”
“Well, we’re sawing up a lot of logs to-day,” said the head man of the mill. “Here, you twins sit right down on this soft place, and you can watch everything.” Mr. Case spread a horse blanket on top of a pile of soft, fragrant sawdust, and on this Mrs. Bobbsey and the smaller twins sat down.