-wheel, small wheels of various shapes, some being like a
flax-wheel, but more simple in construction. The quill or bobbin is a
small reed or quill, pierced from end to end, and when wound is set in
the recess of the shuttle.

When the piece is to be set, a large number of shuttles and spools are
filled in advance. The full spools are then placed in a row one above
the other in a spool-holder, sometimes called a skarne or scarne. As I
have not found this word in any dictionary, ancient or modern, its
correct spelling is unknown. Sylvester Judd, in his _Margaret_, spells
it skan. Skean and skayn have also been seen. Though ignored by
lexicographers, it was an article and word in established and universal
use in the colonies. I have seen it in newspaper advertisements of
weavers' materials, and in inventories of weavers' estates, spelled _ad
libitum_; and elderly country folk, both in the North and South, who
remember old-time weaving, know it to-day.

It seems to me impossible to explain clearly in words, though it is
simple enough in execution, the laying of the piece, the orderly placing
the warp on the warp-beam. The warping-bars are entirely detached from
the loom, are an accessory, not a part of it. They are two upright bars
of wood, each holding a number of wooden pins set at right angles to
the bars, and held together by crosspieces. Let forty full spools be
placed in the skarne, one above the other. The free ends of threads from
the spools are gathered in the hand, and fastened to a pin at the top of
the warping-bars. The group of threads then are carried from side to
side of the bars, passing around a pin on one bar, then around a pin on
the opposite bar, to the extreme end; then back again in the same way,
the spools revolving on wires and freely playing out the warp-threads,
till a sufficient length of threads are stretched on the bars. Weavers
of olden days could calculate exactly and skilfully the length of the
threads thus wound. You take off twenty yards of threads if you want to
weave twenty yards of cloth. Forty warp-threads make what was called a
bout or section. A warp of two hundred threads was designated as a warp
of five bouts, and the bars had to be filled five times to set it unless
a larger skarne with more spools was used. From the warping-bars these
bouts are carefully wound on the warp-beam.

Without attempting to explain farther, let us consider the yarn-beam
neatly wound with these warp-th