for machines, our clothes would cost much more than they do. Think of all the people who help to give us our cotton clothes, from the planter who sows the seed to the manufacturer whose men prepare and weave it. Have you ever visited a cloth factory and seen the many machines and heard the great buzzing noise which they make? It is a busy place. Some factories make only warp, or filling, yarns. They are called spinning factories or mills (Fig. 46). They send their product to the other manufacturers who have only weaving machines for making the yarns into cloth. It is about 130 years (1789) since the first cotton mill was started in the United States, and only a few years longer since the first mill was started in England. Before that time, people of different countries made their own looms according to the ways they thought out. As men felt the need of clothing to wear, they tried to make cloth; and we find all kinds of primitive looms as their invention. Can you look up the meaning of primitive? Notice the two pictures (Figs. 43 and 44) of primitive people weaving. The Indian girl is holding the shuttle in her right hand; the loom is fastened to something and is also attached at her belt. In that way the warp threads are held securely while she passes the filling back and forth. On page 136 you will find a picture (Fig. 81) of a Japanese girl weaving silk. Notice the loom; find the roller holding the warp yarn. Find the shuttle which she uses to throw the filling yarn. Can you tell where she rolls the cloth as it is woven? Under her elbows in the picture is a cloth roller on which she rolls up the woven cloth as she weaves and unrolls the warp from the warp roller. Isn't this a wonderful story? We have not yet learned how the cotton is made into the warp and filling ready to be woven. We shall save that part of the story for to-morrow. The Pleasant Valley girls and boys enjoyed this part of the story about cotton and are anxious for Miss James to tell some more. [Illustration: _Courtesy of Draper Co., Hopedale, Mass._ FIG. 40.--"In days gone by."] [Illustration: FIG. 41.--The shuttle holding the bobbin of yarn.] [Illustration: _Courtesy of Draper Co., Hopedale, Mass._ FIG. 42.--A weaving room in a modern factory.] [Illustration: _Courtesy of Smithsonian Institute, Bureau of American Ethnology._ FIG. 43.--Indian girl weaving a belt by hand.] [Illustration: FIG. 44.--Another primitive loom and a girl spinning. The distaff with the wool for spinning is held under the girl's arm.] EXERCISES AND PROBLEMS 1. Try to make a simple loom. Take a piece of cardboard 10 × 12 inches. Make a row of holes about ¼-inch apart one inch from the top; another row ¼-inch apart one inch from bottom. String the warp back and forth from hole to hole so it looks like the picture (Fig. 39). Weave a piece of cloth with the filling thread which goes over and under. 2. Visit a weaving factory if you can.