There was a back door to the office, and a footpath, winding
among trees and shrubbery, which led from the office to the house.
The morning after they arrived, Forester took Marco out to see the
village. He intended not only to show him the various objects of
interest which were to be seen, but also to explain to him why it was
that such villages would spring up in a farming country, and what were
the occupations of the inhabitants.
"The first thing which causes the commencement of a village in New
England," said Forester, "is a water-fall."
"Why is that?" asked Marco.
"There are certain things," replied Forester, "which the farmers can
not very well do for themselves, by their own strength, particularly
grinding their corn, and sawing logs into boards for their houses.
When they first begin to settle in a new country, they make the houses
of logs, and they have to take the corn and grain a great many miles
on horseback, through paths in the woods, or, in the winter, on
hand-sleds, to get it ground. But as soon as any of them are able to
do it, they build a dam on some stream in the neighborhood, where
there is a fall in the water, and thus get a water power. This water
power they employ, to turn a saw-mill and a grist-mill. Then all the
farmers, when they want to build houses or barns, haul logs to the
mill to get them sawed into boards, and they carry their grain to the
grist-mill and get it ground. They pay the owner of the mills for
doing this work for them. And thus, if there are a great many farms in
the country around, and no other mills very near, so that the mills
are kept all the time at work, the owner gets a great deal of pay, and
gradually acquires property.
"Now, as soon as the mills are built, perhaps a blacksmith sets up a
shop near them. If a blacksmith is going to open a shop anywhere
in that town, it will be better for him to have it near the mills,
because, as the farmers all have to come to the mills at any rate,
they can avail themselves of the opportunity, to get their horses
shod, or to get new tires to their wheels, when they are broken."
"Tires?" repeated Marco. "What are tires?"
"They are the iron rims around wheels. Every wheel must have an iron
band about it, very tight, to strengthen it and to hold it firmly
together. Without a tire, a wheel would very soon come to pieces, in
rattling over a stony road.
"Besides," continued Forester, "there is a great deal of other iron
work, which the farmers must have done.
