The drums were held up with a spacer, so that they could harness one of the bellwethers to a shaft that would turn the drum. The shaft was about five feet long and the large drum about three feet across with a radius of half that. A small boy was initially used to walk the bellwether around in a circle, but that same small boy eventually attached a turnip to a stick and hung it in front of the sheep. The sheep kept chasing the turnip, although he never caught it. As bellwethers were used to walking all day, leading the vast flocks throughout Spain, the sheep took no harm.

The smaller drum turned at a faster pace, of course, and quite a large amount of wool could be gradually placed on it. The teeth from the larger drum picked up and straightened the wool as it came off the smaller drum. Taking the wool off of the larger drum proved to be somewhat problematical in the beginning, but they eventually contrived a tool for that.

***

"Can you spin this, Lucia?" Agustin asked. He presented her with a blanket of wool that was about two inches thick, nearly ten feet long, and about two feet wide.

She looked at it carefully. "I think so. But it's too wide. We need a way to draw it out."

"Into sliver, yes?"

"Pardon?"

"Sliver. Or top. That's what the papers call it. Long, thin ropes of wool are called 'sliver' or 'top.' They call this a 'batt.'"

"Why? If it looks like a rope, why not call it a rope? If it looks like a blanket, why call it a batt?"

At her curious look, Agustin laughed. "I have no idea. But you can read them for yourself." He stopped abruptly. Probably Lucia didn't know how to read. Why would she, living out here in the middle of nowhere?

She didn't get angry as he feared. She just shrugged. "Or you can read them to me, if you think it will do any good. Which I doubt. Meanwhile, let's try this." She took the batt of wool and began to tear it into strips. With care, she could tear a two-inch wide strip of it from the batt without the strip of wool falling apart.