"We have been learning today," said Willie, "how linen is made from the flax fibers. Teacher showed us some pieces of fine linen, duck, diaper, huckaback, and damask, and, side by side with them, some of the scutched fibers we were talking about the other day. He said that those beautiful linen goods are called fabrics, because they are made by a skilled workman. We could easily imagine for ourselves how much clever skill is needed in the workman to change the rough fibers into those useful materials for our use.
"Fred, will you tell all about it?" he added. "You will do it better than I can.""Well, let us see where to begin," said Fred, "and I will try.
"Suppose we begin with the scutched fibers, as they are first taken to the mill. The fibers are of different quality in different parts of the stem. Near the root they are coarse and strong, in the middle they are finer, and near the top they are very finebut not very strong. The first business then is to cut the fibers into three lengths, to keep each of them for special fabrics.
