Jonas on a Farm in Winter, Jacob Abbott [best mystery novels of all time txt] 📗

of land, and illuminated it faintly, but in a very beautiful manner, and showed Jonas which way to drive.

Isabella turned back her head repeatedly, to look at the fire, as they rode on and left it far behind them. It seemed to grow smaller and smaller, as they receded; and at length, when Jonas turned around the point of land, it disappeared entirely. In a few minutes afterward, the moon arose, and lighted them the rest of the way home.

[Illustration]


CHAPTER VIII.


THE CARDING-MILL

Jonas was often sent away to transact business for the farmer. He was a very excellent hand to do business. It requires several qualities to make a boy good at business. He must be gentlemanly in his manners, so as to speak to the persons that he is sent to, in a respectful and proper manner; he must be faithful, so as not to neglect what is intrusted to him; and he must be patient and persevering. Then he must also have considerable judgment and discretion; for when he is sent away from home on business, he must often be placed in circumstances that are unforeseen, and where he must act without instructions. In such cases, he will have to exercise his own judgment and discretion. Jonas was placed in such circumstances at one time, when he was sent to the carding-mill to get some rolls for Isabella.

The rolls which Isabella wanted were rolls of wool, as they are prepared at the mill ready for spinning. The wool is carded very fine, and then, by curious machinery, it is rolled out into rolls about three feet long, and as large round as a whip-handle at the middle. These rolls Isabella used to spin into yarn, at her spinning-wheel.

Isabella had spun nearly all her rolls, and she wanted Jonas to carry some wool to the carding-mill, and get some more. The carding-mill was not in the village upon the outlet stream; but it was upon another stream, which emptied into the pond, instead of flowing from it. It was the same stream that flowed by the land which Jonas and Oliver had cleared when he first came to live with the farmer; only the mill was at some distance from the mouth of the stream, back towards the high land. It was more than two miles, by the road, from the farmer's house.

The farmer told Jonas where to get the wool, and then gave him some more business, at a place in the woods, about two miles beyond the mill. Oliver wanted to go too, and his father gave him leave. Oliver always liked to go to the mill, as the machine for carding the wool was a great curiosity.

Jonas put up the wool in a very large bundle, which almost filled up the bottom of the sleigh. Jonas himself sat upon the seat, with his feet under the bundle; but Oliver sat upon the bundle. He said it made a very soft seat.

They rode along pleasantly towards the mill. The snow-drifts were very high in some places on each side of the road; and the fences and walls were almost buried up.

"I wish that Josey was here," said Oliver. "I think that he would like to see the carding-mill very much indeed."

"Yes," said Jonas.

"Only," replied Oliver, "perhaps it would be dangerous to take him."

"Why?" said Jonas.

"Why, because," said Oliver, "I suppose he would touch the machinery, and perhaps get his hands torn off."

"Yes," said Jonas, "boys sometimes do get very badly hurt in mills,--careless and disobedient boys especially."

"I think that he is a careless and disobedient boy," said Oliver.

[Illustration: "He said it made a very soft seat."]

"Yes, but it is his misfortune, rather than his fault," replied Jonas.

"His misfortune?" repeated Oliver.

"Yes," said Jonas; "his father's situation is such, that it is very unfortunate for him. I expect he is very unhappily situated at home, in many respects."

"How?" said Oliver.

"Why, in the first place," said Jonas, "he lives, I'm told, in a large and handsome house."

"Yes," said Oliver.

"And then," continued Jonas, "your aunt, I have heard, is a very fine woman, and has a great deal of company."

"Well," said Oliver.

"And then," continued Jonas, "they can buy Josey any thing he wants, for playthings."

"Yes," said Oliver; "he told me he had got a rocking-horse. But I don't call that being unfortunate."

"It is very fortunate for the father and mother, but such a kind of life is generally unfortunate for the child. You see, if a man has been industrious himself, when he was a boy, and has grown up to be a good business man, and to acquire a great deal of property, and builds a good house, and has plenty of books, and journeys, it is all very well for him. He can bear it, but it very often spoils his children."

"Why does it spoil his children?" asked Oliver.

"In the first place, it makes them conceited and vain,--not always, but often. The children of wealthy men are very often conceited. They wear better clothes than some other boys, and have more books and prettier playthings; and so they become vain, and think that they are very important, when, in fact, they owe every thing to their fathers.

"Then, besides," continued Jonas, "they don't form good habits of industry. Their fathers don't make them work, and so they don't acquire any habits of industry, and patience, and perseverance."

"If I was a man, and had ever so much money," said Oliver, "I would make my boys work."

"That is very doubtful," said Jonas.

"Why is it doubtful?" asked Oliver.

"Because," said Jonas, "you would be very busy, and couldn't attend to it. It would be a great deal more trouble to make your boys do any thing, than it would be to hire another man to do it; and so you would hire a man, to save your trouble."

"Yes; but then, Jonas, farmers are very busy, and yet they make their boys work."

"True," replied Jonas; "but farmers are busy about such kind of work as that their boys can help them do it,--so they can keep them at work without any special trouble. But men of property are employed in such kind of business as boys cannot do; and so they must work, if they work at all, at something else; and that makes a good deal of trouble."

"Then I'd send my boys to some farmer, and let him make them work," said Oliver.

"Yes," said Jonas, "that would do pretty well."

So saying, Jonas stopped the horse a moment, and stepped out of the sleigh. He was at the foot of a long, steep hill in the woods. He was going to walk up. Oliver remained in the sleigh, and rode. When they reached the top, Jonas got in again, and they rode on.

"But then, Jonas," said Oliver, "there is one thing to be thought of, and that is, that rich men's sons will not have to work when they grow up; and so they don't need so much to grow industrious."

"O, yes, they will," said Jonas.

"Why, Josey told me that he didn't expect to work when he should be a man."

"No, he doesn't expect to work, but he'll find that it is different from what he had expected, when he grows up."

"How?" said Oliver.

"Why, a great many rich men's boys find, when they get to be twenty-one, that they have to go out into the world, and earn their own living, without any money."

"Why?" said Oliver; "won't their fathers give them any money?"

"Their fathers cannot generally give them enough to support them," said Jonas, "even if they are disposed to do it; because, you see, they have their own families still to support. Besides, if they were to divide their property at once among all their children, it would only be a small portion for each one. It wouldn't be enough for the boys to live as expensively as they have been living while at home. Therefore, as fast as they grow up young men, they have to go away into the world, and earn their own money by some kind of work, head work or hand work."

Jonas would probably have given Oliver some further explanations on this subject, were it not that about this time they arrived at the mill. Oliver tied the horse at a post, while Jonas took out the great bundle of wool, and went in. Oliver followed immediately after him.

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