“’The quick and vigorous growth of the willow renders it easy to provide materials for this branch of industry.  Osier-beds are planted in every suitable place, and here the willow-cutter comes as to an ample store.  Autumn is the season for him to ply his trade, and he cuts the willow rods down and ties them in bundles.  He then sets them up on end in standing water to the depth of a few inches.  Here they remain during the winter, until the shoots, in the following spring, begin to sprout, when they are in a fit state to be peeled.  A machine is used in some places to compress the greatest number of rods into a bundle.

[Illustration:  THE POLLARD WILLOW IN WINTER.]

“’Aged or infirm people and women and children can earn money by peeling willows at so much per bundle.  The operation is very simple, and so is the necessary apparatus.  Sometimes a wooden bench with holes in it is used, the willow-twigs being drawn through the holes.  Another way is to draw the rod through two pieces of iron joined together, and with one end thrust into the ground to make it stand upright.  The willow-peeler sits down before his instrument and merely thrusts the rod between the two pieces of iron and draws it out again.  This proceeding scrapes the bark off one end, and then he turns it and fits it in the other way; so that by a simple process the whole rod is peeled.  When the rods are quite prepared, they are again tied up in bundles and sold to the basket-makers.’”

“But how do they make the baskets?” asked Clara and Edith.  “That is the nicest part.”

“There is little to tell about it, though,” said their governess, “because it is such easy work that any one can learn to do it.  You saw the Indian women making baskets when papa took us to Maine last summer, and you noticed how very quickly they did it, beginning with the flat bottom and working rapidly up.  It is a favorite occupation for the blind, and one of the things which are taught them in asylums.”

“I wonder,” said Malcolm, “if there is anything else that can be done with the willow?”

“Oh yes,” replied Miss Harson; “we have not yet come to the end of its resources.  It makes the best quality of charcoal, and in many parts of England the tree is raised for this express purpose.  ’The abode of the charcoal-burner,’ says an English writer, ’may be known from a distance by the cloud of smoke that hovers over it, and that must make it rather unhealthy.  It is sometimes a small dome-shaped hut made of green turf, and, except for the difference of the material, might remind us of the hut of the Esquimaux.  Beside it stands a caravan like those which make their appearance at fairs, and that contains the family goods and chattels.  A string of clothes hung out to dry, a water-tub and a rough, shaggy dog usually complete the picture.’”

“But how can people live in the hut,” asked Malcolm, “if the charcoal is burned in it?  Ugh!  I should think they’d choke.”