ECONOMIC CAUSES OF DEPLETION 59 



penter shops the coffins for the dead of the coimtryside 

 were also made, each as sad occasion called. And into 

 the making of each went a loving sympathy unknown in 

 an age of machine-made products. As if it were yester- 

 day there comes back the sense of the mystery of death 

 and of fellow-feeling with bereavement which workman 

 and little boy by his side, permitted to hold and pass the 

 silvered nails, alike felt as the work went on in reverent 

 silence. Another of the local carpenters was then build- 

 ing the spacious village church, portrayed at page 195 

 of this volume, producing every panel and moulding on 

 the spot and by hand, save as a treadmill horse-power, 

 set up temporarily on the premises, lent its aid. From 

 the homes of each of these builders a youth afterwards 

 entered the ministry. Another of our carpenters special- 

 ized in the exact work of the millwright, and showed him- 

 self in various ways a self-taught mathematical genius. 

 In my university days I discovered that he, who had 

 never seen a copy of Euclid, had, Pascal-like, wrought 

 out at his bench many of the problems of Euclid. At 

 the wheelwright shops all vehicles for pleasure-driving 

 as well as for farm use were built. I can recall seeing 

 farmers drive in with loads of split hickory bolts for 

 spokes and rock-elm blocks for hubs, though already the 

 machine-made spoke and hub were competing for favor. 

 The ironwork on these vehicles was no assemblage of 

 machine-madf parts, but the product of genuine crafts- 

 manship, elaborate and ornate. All the smiths of the 

 neighlxjrhood were master craftsmen. One, at Dewitt- 

 ville near by, specialized in forging steel, and for this 

 service burned his own charcoal pits. As a lad of seven 

 or eight I took delight in watching the neat conical piles 



