Norwich bulletin., 1913-06-28
HALF CENTURIES CHANGE IN METHODS

CWritten Specially for The Bulletin.)
 I we'll remember when, a small boy of six or eight years. my father took me with him to the PontooSuc Wool en mill For wonder I had been good" and the old folks permitted this adventure into the outside world as a sort of reward for virtue.
 1t was a drive of some dozen miles and return, first lover the mountain, ' where we both walked to save the horse and. incidentally. because it was more comfortable than being jolted heavily from stone to stone up the steep trail that was miSnamed a road. Then we crossed belt of prosperous farm-lands which to my boyish farm accustomed eyes seemed pretty stupid country. Next came the big village. with houses frequent ly so near together that there wasn't room for more than a walk between them, and stores even closer-so close they actually touched. And so finally, on the farther outskirt of the town, to the mill.
 It was perhaps sixty or eighty feet long, three stories high, and of brick, with a smaller annex at the rear to house the big water wheel, whose gurglings and grumblings and splash ings and irregularly swelling roar ings made me snuggle up a little closer to father, as we drove around it to the shed where we hitched Old Doll and poured her oats into the plank trough just under the hitching Ting. The main factory appeared to me as probably the biggest building in the world Moreover. there was a tremendous chatter and whang going ion inside. and I had tos think twice before I consented to enter. even with my hand in fathers. Probably it was all right-but I didn't see anybody lookine out of the windows, and my @nall mind couldn't escape the sus- picion that there might be bears. It was not the governors assurances that finally overcame my objections, but the logical reasoning on my own part that, as there were plenty of whirrings and slamn1ings and such noises but no growls, it might be monkeys. And I wasn't going to miss any chance of seeing the monkeys!
 So we entered a dark, dirty, nar- row lobby. A plank door at the end. A plank door at one side. A board door at the other side with frame of six small. cobwebby panes set in it. That door we tried and found unlocked. It gave on a bare. barn like room with a lot of big boxes ly- ing disorderly on the floor and rough plank table or counter stand ing on trestles in the middle. There
 
 showed, opposite that which we had entered by. Father went over to it and pounded. After some interval 1t opened and a small boy. barefoot, with hair cut short and his clothes covered with flecks of wool stuck out his head and said:
 "Hoojuwant?"
 Being told. he disappeared, and, af- ter a somewhat longer delay, a stout ish, iorid faced. smiling old gentle man came out. He recognized my father. knew at once that we had petition, and was very nice. indeed, going so far as to ask me which reader l was in at school and wheth- CT l preferred stick candy or Jackson about the weather and the crops, and gradually the conversation brought around to jeans" and 'kerseys" ana 'cassimereS" and other things that were all Greek to me. The big boxes were opened and whole rolls brought out for inspection and discussion There was much talk about the warp" and occasional disrespectfuI references to something called "flocks". Finally, after half or three quarters of an hour examination of piece after piece, and repeated con- long strip of what was styled Ken lucky Jane. at least that is what it sounded like to my ears. and a couple of remnants of cassimere.
 Then we drove home. first stopping in the village to buy a. penny's worth of Jackson balls, which I preferred as candy, because they lasted so long.
 
 Later l learned that the stoutish, id-faced old gentleman who had talked crops and cloth and chaffered about prices was the owner of the mill, and that this was the way the mill sold most of its product. directly to farmers who drove in once a year or so and bought what cloth they exI pected to need for the season.
 When we had reached home and mothers critical eye had passed final Judgment on the purchase, I was taken to the local tailor who meas ured me and cut out paper pat tern" For this he charged seventy five cents. No new patterns were needed for father or my older brother as they had stopped growing and the old ones would serve. Then my