"Broom tools of all kinds are made at Schenectady, but my needles, knives and combs come from Hadley. I will show you the combs pretty soon; the knives you have already seen. Let me see--where did I lay that other needle? No, you need not look for it; I must find it myself. I have to be careful where I leave my things, so that I can put my hand on them the moment I want them. Oh, here it is," picking it up with his long supple fingers, and rolling it securely up in the oiled cloth. "Now you notice I put on this _palm_," and he held up what looked like a mitt just large enough to cover the palm of the hand and the wrist, having a hole to slip the thumb through and leaving that and the fingers free. It was made of cowhide, and sewed together on the back, while in the inside was set a thimble against which the needle was to be pressed in doing the hard sewing, while the leather protected the skin from being fretted by the broom. "It is not just like a sail-maker's palm," he added. "I have one of those which a man gave me, and I will show it to you." So going again to his dark closet, he groped for it among his multifarious things, and came back with one similar, except that it was of raw-hide, and the thimble was a little projection looking like a pig's toe. [Illustration: "PLANT THE BROOM!"] He sewed the broom through and through, producing the three pink rows. Then he said he would comb it to clear away the loose and broken stems; and so he passed through it a sort of hetchel made of thirty small knife-blades set in a frame, "which cost me," said he, "more than you would think--that comb was five dollars; and now I comb it out with this one to remove the small stuff and the seeds." And releasing it from the clamp, he took down a fine comb from a nail, and repeated the process. "And now it is ready to be trimmed. I lay it on this hay-cutter, which some friends bought cheap for me at a fair, and answered my purpose after a few alterations, and I trim it off, nice and even at one end--and now it is done. You have seen a broom made." That was true. Our only regret was that we could not have that same broom to take away; but on our zig-zag journey, when we were likely enough to stop over or turn off anywhere, that was an absurdity not to be thought of. We did, however, "buy a broom" that we _could_ take--and an excellent one it proved--and we accepted a small package of broom-corn seed which the blind workman was anxious we should have, "to plant in some spare spot just to see how it looks when growing."