; the irregular sound shows her
intermittent industry. The father is setting fresh teeth in a wool-card,
while the boys are whittling hand-reels and loom-spools.

One of the household implements used in wool manufacture, the wool-card,
deserves a short special history as well as a description. In early days
the leather back of the wool-card was pierced with an awl by hand; the
wire teeth were cut off from a length of wire, were slightly bent, and
set and clinched one by one. These cards were laboriously made by many
persons at home, for their household use. As early as 1667 wire was made
in Massachusetts; and its chief use was for wool-cards. By
Revolutionary times it was realized that the use of wool-cards was
almost the mainspring of the wool industry, and L100 bounty was offered
by Massachusetts for card-wire made in the state from iron mined in what
they called then the "United American States." In 1784 a machine was
invented by an American which would cut and bend thirty-six thousand
wire teeth an hour. Another machine pierced the leather backs. This gave
a new employment to women and children at home and some spending-money.
They would get boxes of the bent wire teeth and bundles of the leather
backs from the factories and would set the teeth in the backs while
sitting around the open fire in the evening. They did this work, too,
while visiting--spending an afternoon; and it was an unconscious and
diverting work like knitting; scholars set wool-cards while studying,
and schoolmistresses while teaching. This method of manufacture was
superseded fifteen years later by a machine invented by Amos Whittemore,
which held, cut, and pierced the leather, drew the wire from a reel, cut
and bent a looped tooth, set it, bent it, fastened the leather on the
back, and speedily turned out a fully made card. John Randolph said this
machine had everything but an immortal soul. By this time spinning and
weaving machinery began to crowd out home work, and the machine-made
cards were needed to keep up with the increased demand. At last machines
crowded into every department of cloth manufacture; and after
carding-machines were invented in England--great rollers set with
card-teeth--they were set up in many mills throughout the United States.

Families soon sent all their wool to these mills to be carded even when
it was spun and woven at home. It was sent rolled up in a homespun sheet
or blanket pinned with thorns; and the carded rol