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 down stairs, and Oliver began to walk about the room a little.  There was a window in the back side of the room, which he happened to pass pretty near to, and he stopped to look out at it.  He saw the dam and the waterfall below.  There was a large pond above the fall, which was made by the dam.  The pond was frozen over, and the ice was covered with snow.  The water was open for a short distance above the edge of the fall, and it was also open below the fall, where there was a great foaming, and tumbling, and whirling of currents.

Oliver looked at it a moment, and then he concluded that it would be better for him to go with Jonas.

“I have seen,” said he to himself, “pretty much all of the machinery, and I shall be very tired of waiting here an hour.”

So he concluded that he would run down, quick, and see if Jonas had gone.

When he got down stairs, and out at the door, he found that the sleigh was not at the post.  He ran around the corner, and saw Jonas at some distance, just at the foot of a hill.  He ran after him, calling, “Jo-nas!  Jo-nas!”

Just at this time, Jonas stopped to let his horse walk up the hill, and so he heard Oliver calling; for the bells did not make so much noise when the horse was walking, as they did before.

So Jonas stopped until Oliver overtook him; and they went on the rest of the way together.