1. Harry and Dora once had a great treat.

They went in the holidays to stay with an uncle and aunt who lived at a town where needles were made. We may call it Needle-town.

2. While they were there, they were taken to the mills to see the needles made.

3. The first room into which they went was very warm. It was called the wire-room. A workman who was there told them that it was filled with hot air night and day, so that no damp should come in and spoil the steel.

4. All round the room coils of steel-wire were hanging. They were wrapped up in paper, but the man took some of them down and let them look in. They saw that one coil was of very thick wire, while another was of wire as fine as a hair.

5. 'One of these coils would be more than a mile long if it were stretched out straight,' the man told Harry. 'Would you like to take hold of this one?'

But Harry found it too heavy, and it was hung up again on the wall.

6. Then they went into another room, where a machine was cutting a coil of wire into bits.

'They are much too long for needles,' said Dora, softly, to her uncle; but one of the workmen heard her, and said:

7. 'So they are! Each bit is going to be two needles. The two ends are to be the points, and the heads lie in the middle of the wire.'

8. But no heads were to be seen yet. And the wire was not even straight, for it had long been rolled up in a coil. As the machine went on chopping, and the wire-strips dropped, a man picked them up and put them on a shelf in a sort of oven.

9. There they were kept till they were red-hot, and then they were soft enough to be made straight.