The Mills Grind Slowly 177 



wives' demand for a Penny Loaf, were making three sorts of 

 bread for the price; a white loaf that weighed six ounces; a 

 whole-wheat loaf of nine and one half ounces weight; and a 

 generous, twelve-and-one-quarter-ounce Household Loaf, of 

 whole-wheat and rye and corn. . . . There was a man and a 

 family with not a word of English to their tongues building a 

 cabin over in Coon Hollow. ... A peddler on his way back 

 from the Carolinas reported that the planters down that way 

 were growing mulberry trees to feed to silkworms "expect 

 to make money at it, too." And Elijah Griffin had stopped by 

 that morning to tell the miller to let folks know he'd caught 

 a pair of dirty-looking Indians hanging round his wood-lot. 

 !< 'Lije's got his eye and his musket on 'em. But best tell your 

 women folks not to go berryin' for a couple o' days." 



The work which the Romans began had succeeded. The 

 mill was a man's world. No woman set foot in it. If a bare- 

 legged girl in a sunbonnet rode up to the door with sixty 

 pounds of corn in a sack slung over her horse for a saddle, she 

 waited shyly outside while the grinding was done. 



Meanwhile, inside the dim, dusty-raftered barn there were 

 the sacks of corn piled and waiting to be ground; there was 

 the pleasant creak of the big wheel outside, and the rumbling 

 of the brook under the flooring; there was the sweet smell of 

 the pale yellow meal running out from under the steadily turn- 

 ing tedder into the bin. 



