"What kind of twine do we use, father?" asked Donald, much interested.
"We use a paper twine. Other growers often tie their fleeces with glazed
twine."
"I never should have thought twine could make so much trouble," mused
the lad.
"You would think of it, though, if you had once been set to picking
fiber out of wool as I was when I was a boy!" interrupted Sandy, as he
darted past.
Donald and his father followed at the heels of the young Scotchman as he
went through into another shed where the wool was being packed. Here lay
great piles of tied fleeces and heaps of loose wool. About the shed
stood wooden frames from the center of which swung burlap sacks used for
packing the clip.
"Why do the men first stuff the two lower corners of the bags with wool
and tie them?" the boy asked after he had looked on a few moments.
"We call those corners ears," replied his father. "Sacks of wool are not
only awkward to handle but very heavy, and it is a help to have the
corners, firmly tied, to take hold of."
Donald nodded. He was too busy looking about him to reply.
The men packing the wool took one of the burlap bags, fitted its mouth
over a wooden hoop just the right size, and fastened the bag inside the
frame in such a way that it hung its full length and just cleared the
floor.
Then the packer began tossing wool into the sack.
When it was about half-full he jumped into it and tramped the fleeces
down solidly.
Afterward he climbed out and another man wheeled a truck under the
frame; then the packer freed the sack, and when it dropped it was
promptly sewed up and wheeled to the scales, where it was weighed. Its
weight was entered in a book by a man who kept the tally and the same
figures were also roughly painted on the bag.
"And there's the end of it!" exclaimed Sandy, who came up and stood
beside Donald as Mr. Clark walked away. "Now you know the wool business,
Don!"
Donald shook his head.
"It will take me longer than this to know the wool business," he
answered. "I mean when we get home, though, to get father to tell me the
rest of it--about the selling and manufacturing."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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