"’ I’ve been through the mill, ground, and bolted, and come out a regular-built down-east johnny-cake"

bolt 2
vt.
5ME bulten < OFr buleter, ? dissimilated < *bureter < bure (< VL *bura), coarse cloth; akin to It burattare < buratto, sieve6
1 to sift (flour, grain, etc.) so as to separate and grade
2 [Archaic] to inspect and separate, as good from bad; examine closely

never heard that usage, Bill. interesting.

They just couldn't make fine mesh sifting screens back in the 1830s when this was written.
Another word that caught me by surprise, when I was working in the foundry, what I would have called a sifter for the moulding sand waw called a "riddle". That taught me what the figure of speech was for something shot full of holes being said to be "riddled".

riddle

ah, now that's interesting. I had never thought about that before.

from Webster's 1828:
RID'DLE, n. [See Cradle.]

An instrument for cleaning grain, being a large sieve with a perforated button, which permits the grain to pass through it, but retains the chaff.

RID'DLE, v.t. To separate, as grain from the chaff with a riddle; as, to riddle wheat. [Note. The machines now used have nearly superseded the riddle.]

RID'DLE, n. [See Read.]

1. An enigma; something proposed for conjecture, or that is to be solved by conjecture; a puzzling question; an ambiguous proposition. Judges 14.

2. Any thing ambiguous or puzzling.

RID'DLE, v.t. To solve; to explain; but we generally use unriddle, which is more proper.

Riddle me this, and guess him if you can.

RID'DLE, v.i. To speak ambiguously, obscurely or enigmatically.

and from the Oxford Paperback:
riddle2

/"rd()l/ verb (-ling) 1 (usually + with) make many holes in, esp. with gunshot. 2 (in passive) fill, permeate. 3 pass through riddle. noun coarse sieve.

·verb 1honeycomb, pepper, perforate, pierce, puncture. 3filter, screen, sieve, sift, strain. noun filter, screen, sieve.