CHAPTER IX
NORTH AND SOUTH
"Where do you and theCharlottego when you leave here, Frederick?" his sister inquired as the family sat at breakfast the next morning.
"New Orleans, I suppose; we touch there for a cargo of cotton," was the reply.
"Then you'll see the crop gathered, won't you, Uncle Frederick?" Mary put in.
"Hardly that, lassie," replied her uncle kindly. "All the work will be done before I arrive. However, I shall not mind that for I have seen southern cotton fields in their prime before now."
"It grows everywhere in the South, doesn't it?" Mary ventured.
"One could hardly say that, my dear," Captain Dillingham responded with a mild shake of his head. "On the contrary the cotton belt of the United States is comparatively small considering the vast crops it yields."
"Why don't they make it bigger and plant more cotton?" questioned Tim.
"Cotton, as I told you, sonny, has its own ideas as to where it will grow. Let it be planted farther north than forty-five degrees and it will only thrive under glass; or try to cultivate it farther south than the thirty-five degree line and it will also balk. This, you see, leaves a rather narrow zone that answers its demands in the way of temperature and soil. For the kind of soil cotton likes has to be considered also. If the land is too sandy the moisture will soon dry up and the plants shrivel; or if there is an undue proportion of clay the excess moisture will not drain off and the plants will run to wood and leaves. Therefore you have the problem of getting the right proportions of clay, loam and sand in a climate where the temperature holds practically even."
"Why, I shouldn't think any spot on earth would fill that bill," grinned Carl.
"We do succeed in getting just such areas, however," returned Captain Dillingham. "North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Florida, Tennessee, Indian Territory, Missouri, Virginia, Kentucky, Kansas, and Oklahoma all contrive to answer the requirements to a greater or less degree. These States boast soils that are blends of clay, sand, and loam in the desired proportions; and while some of them are better than others both soil and temperature are such that cotton can be grown in them. Given these two assets the rest of the conundrum is up to the planter."
"I should think most of it was answered for him when he has these two important factors," Mrs. McGregor asserted.
"But to have climate and land is not enough," protested her brother. "Once he possesses the land the owner must take care of it. It cannot be allowed to run out but must be plowed up, fertilized, and the crop tended like any other farm product. Before cotton growers realized this, not much attention was paid to these laws and in consequence the crop of many a southern plantation suffered. Now cotton-raising is done far more scientifically. The old stalks are gathered and destroyed; the land is plowed and fertilized, and afterward seed-planting machines go up and down the rows, scattering five or six seeds into each hole, with a space of not more than a foot between the holes. Then the seeds are covered over lightly and left to sprout."
"How long is it before they come up?" interrogated Carl.
"About ten or twelve days," was the reply. "A couple of days later the first leaf appears and then trouble begins. April sees the Carolina planters thinning their shoots in order to have sturdy plants from which to select the ones eventually allowed to grow. States farther south get at the task earlier. After the thinning process is over the plants are hilled up like potatoes and the spaces between the rows, where the last season's crop previously grew, is plowed to keep the soil open and free for drainage. Men afterward travel through the open rows hoeing up the loose soil and heaping it around the young plants to strengthen and protect them; then, since nothing more can be done immediately everybody takes a rest and waits."
"Then what happens?" piped Tim.
"Oh, after a time the same process is repeated. The earth by this time has become crusted over and must be opened up again; the hauling, too, takes place once more. Hauling is the name given to bedding up the plants with loose earth. Often there are four or fivehaulings. By July the plants have grown sufficiently to show which one in each hill is to be the most thrifty and this one is left to grow while the other shoots are pulled up. After that, given sunny days and occasional light showers, the crop should prosper. Should there, however, be too much heat, or too great a quantity of rain, things will not move so successfully."
"How long does cotton have to grow before it is ready for picking?" asked Carl.
"The plants bloom approximately the middle of June—sometimes earlier, sometimes later, according to the climates of the various States. Two months after that the crop is ready to be gathered. You must not, however, run away with the notion that cotton-picking is a hurried process. Often it goes on from the end of August until into November or December. It is a long-drawn-out, tedious, monotonous task. Whole families join in the harvesting for since there is always some low and some tall cotton (some annual and some perennial varieties) the children can share with their elders in the work and thus earn quite a sum of money. In fact, in the old days before child labor laws protected the kiddies, and while cotton-picking was done by slaves, many a poor little mite toiled cruelly long in the fields. Even the older negroes were driven with whips and compelled to keep at work until utterly exhausted."
His audience gasped.
"Yes," nodded their uncle, "I am afraid that urged forward by the desire to garner a big crop before rain should fall and spoil it, the cotton growers practiced much cruelty. No doubt, too, the same tyranny reigned in India. Wherever work must be done by hand and labor is cheap and plentiful, human beings come to be classed to a great extent as machines. Plantation owners become so interested in the money they are to make that they forget everything else. Of course labor was never as cheap in our Southern States even during slave days as in India and therefore until the advent of the cotton gin cotton was not one of our valuable crops."
"You mean because the seeds had to be picked out by hand?" Carl said.
"Yes. There was, to be sure, the primitive kind of gin resorted to in India for cleaning certain black-seed varieties. Two kinds of this black-seed, or long-stapled cotton, grew in the Sea Islands and along the coast from Delaware to Georgia; but it could not be made to thrive away from the moist ocean climate. Hence on inland plantations a different and more vigorous variety of plant (one having green seeds and short staples) was propagated. This kind was known as Upland cotton. It was a troublesome product for the planters, I assure you, for its many seeds clung so tightly to the lint that it was almost out of the question to remove them. The simple little gin copied from India and successfully used on the black seed variety was entirely impracticable on this Upland growth since it tore the fibers all to bits."
"They did need a cotton gin, didn't they!" Carl ejaculated.
"Very badly, indeed," agreed Captain Dillingham. "Well, the only substitute for machinery was fingers; and when I tell you that it often took an entire day to get out of a three-pound batch of cotton a pound or so that was clear of seeds you will understand what a slow process it was."
"At that rate I shouldn't think it would have paid anybody to raise cotton," sniffed Carl.
"It didn't," returned his uncle. "Moreover it rendered the product very expensive, for it required a great number of slaves to clean any considerable quantity of cotton. I often think of the toil and misery that went into the cotton-growing of those slavery days. After working for a long stretch of hours in the blazing sun the negroes came in at night worn out. But were they allowed to rest? Perhaps some of them who had considerate owners were; but many, many others less fortunate were set to picking out seeds and lest they fall asleep at their task overseers prodded them with whips."
"Gee!"
"That was slavery, son," declared Captain Dillingham. "Do you wonder that Abraham Lincoln thought it would be worth even a war to rid this country of such an evil? Understand, I am not condemning all slave owners. Undoubtedly there were kind and humane ones just as there are to this day employers who are fair with their help. But urged on by commercial greed the temptation of the planters was to force the slaves to do more than was right, and as a result a great deal of cruelty was practiced. Had the primitive method of picking cotton by hand continued it is probable that slavery might have died a natural death without recourse to war, for many of the Southerners were reaching a point where the returns from cotton and tobacco were not sufficient to feed the army of slaves that swarmed over the plantations. To use a common phrase the slaves were eating their heads off. It was just at this juncture, however, that Eli Whitney came along with his cotton gin and in a twinkling the South became revolutionized and the problem of the legion of idle, profitless slaves was settled. They would now be idle and profitless no longer. Vast quantities of cotton could henceforth be planted and the negroes could cultivate and gather it. With Eli Whitney's gin to do the slow and hindering part of the process cotton-raising could be made a paying industry."
"Mr. Whitney bobbed up in the very nick of time, didn't he?" smiled Mary.
"For the financial prosperity of the South he did," her uncle responded. "But to the welfare of the negroes his advent was a fatal stroke. Slaves immediately were more in demand than they ever had been before. No mechanical device could take their place. Cotton must be planted, cultivated, and harvested by hand and the larger the cotton fields became, the harder the slaves were worked. The cotton crop became the staple product of the South. Many a Southerner who took up arms against the Union did so because he honestly believed that to free the slaves would mean the economic ruin of his section of the country."
"I never thought of that side of the question before," Mrs. McGregor murmured thoughtfully.
"Nor I," rejoined Carl.
"Nevertheless it is a fact none of us here in the North should forget," continued Captain Dillingham. "To the southern planter our point of view appeared unfair and grossly one-sided. It was easy enough for the North to say the slaves should be freed. They had no cotton fields and their prosperity was not dependent on the negroes. But to let the slaves go meant ruin for the South. It was not alone, you see, that their owners wished the profit derived from buying and selling them; they needed them to work. Never had the South had such an opportunity to coin wealth as that now opening. What wonder its residents were angry at having this dazzling prospect for fortune-making snatched away? Remember and take these facts into consideration when you think harshly of those who took up arms to defend slavery."
There was an instant's pause.
"Of course, however, none of this justifies slavery or makes it more right. The entire principle of it was wrong; it was un-Christian, unjust, and cruel, and the only honorable thing to do was to bring it to an end in this country. But that is another story altogether. What we are talking about now is the cotton itself; and to get a big view of this subject it is well to consider what was happening in the world just at this time, and why cotton was such a desirable commodity.
"Over across the ocean James Watts's steam engine, combined with the flying shuttle of John Kay, the spinning jenny of Hargreaves, the water-frame of Arkwright, and the self-acting loom of Crompton, was working as great a revolution in England's cloth-making industry as Eli Whitney's cotton gin had done in the South. In other words the hand loom had been supplanted by the more modern device of the steam-driven spinning mill. This meant that in future cloth would no longer be made in small quantities in the homes, women of the families spinning the thread and weaving it whenever they could steal a bit of time from other household duties. No! Cloth was to be made in factories on a much larger scale, and sold to the public."
"No wonder the fact set everybody to raising cotton!" declared Mrs. McGregor.
"No wonder indeed!" nodded her brother. "From a vintage so small that even President Jefferson scarcely knew America had a cotton crop at all this product of the South leaped forward by bounds. The year preceding Eli Whitney's invention the United States exported less than one hundred and forty thousand bales; but the year afterward the shipment had soared to nearly half a million. The following year it was a million and a half; the year after that six million."
"Gee whizz!" commented Carl. "That was some record, wasn't it?"
"Rather!" agreed his uncle.
"How much do we export now, Uncle Frederick?" Mary asked.
"From nine to twelve million bales of five-hundred pounds each are raised annually in the South," returned Captain Dillingham. "Of this about ninety per cent. is Upland cotton, the green seeds of which have to be taken out by a gin similar to the one Eli Whitney invented. Approximately about half this vast crop is exported."
"I had no idea we raised so much cotton," mused Carl.
"We raise quantities of it, son," Uncle Frederick said. "Now you can understand better why the South was so resentful at being compelled to free the slaves. With cotton so much in demand the prices of slaves had greatly increased. The planters had untold wealth almost within their grasp. It was all very well for the North to assert that slavery was a barbarous practise. Who was to tend the cotton fields when the slaves were gone?"
"The South did have something on its side, didn't it?" Mary ventured.
"A great deal, when once you put yourself in the Southerner's place. We in the North are liable to emphasize only the cruelty of slavery and are often unable to understand how enlightened and Christian men could keep slaves and fight to keep them. You see there were reasons."
Mary nodded.
"Of course, as I said before, all the cotton-raising in the world could not make the thing right. It was wrong from start to finish. Nevertheless it does explain why some of our people felt the freeing of the slaves so unjust and such a blow to their prosperity that they threatened secession from the Union."
"And it was because Abraham Lincoln would not allow them to secede that the war was fought!" announced Carl triumphantly.
"Precisely! You cannot allow part of a country to rise up and walk out any more than you can let some of the wheels of a watch announce they are not going to turn any more," laughed his uncle. "It requires every part to make the watch go; and it takes the united strength of a people to make a nation. North and South were all beloved children of one land, and Abraham Lincoln, like the father of a big family, was not going to let any of the household break away from the organization to which it belonged. It meant a struggle to do the two things necessary—free the slaves and preserve the Union; but quarrels are sometimes necessary in families. After they are over there is a more perfect understanding. So it has been with this one. Both sides paid a fearful price but as a result we now haveone nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
"That's the oath of allegiance!" cried Carl, Mary, and Tim in chorus, as they leaped to their feet and stood at salute.
"We say it at school every morning," continued Tim, "but I never knew before what it meant."
"You will know better now, won't you?" Captain Dillingham replied. "Every time you say those words remember the brave men of the South who really believed they had a right to establish a government of their own and protect the prosperity of their part of this great land. If you do this you will learn to honor both sides alike, each of which fought so devotedly for the cause he cherished. And now that the war is over the entire country has the South to thank for one of its greatest sources of wealth—cotton. The South raises it; the North, with its many mills, transforms the raw product into a finished commodity. How is that for team work? Could there be better proof of how vitally each section needs the other?"
CHAPTER X
A LESSON IN THRIFT
That evening Carl resumed the cotton-raising subject by idly remarking, "I suppose since the invention of the cotton gin and the abolition of slavery most of the drudgery connected with the cotton industry has disappeared."
His uncle smiled.
"Hardly that, I am afraid, sonny," replied he. "Even under the best possible conditions the cultivation and gathering of the cotton crop entails drudgery. This cannot be helped. In the first place cotton demands steady heat to make it grow; and you know what it means to work all day in the broiling sun. Of course the negroes are to a certain degree accustomed to this; and moreover they belong to a race that finds hot weather less hard to bear than do many other persons. Nevertheless heat is heat, and say what you may, a hot sun pouring down on one's head does not make for comfort. In addition there is the monotony of the harvesting. As I told you before, this has to be done by hand—there is no escape from that; and since it must be, the dullness of the task is an unavoidable evil."
Carl mused thoughtfully for a moment.
"I don't see," observed he presently, "that after all the negroes are much better off than they were in slave days."
"Oh, yes, they are," Captain Dillingham instantly responded. "Remember they now receive wages; their hours of work have also been shortened and regulated; and overseers have become more humane and now invent little ways of breaking the monotony and making the time pass more pleasantly."
"How?"
"Oh, there are various things that can be done to achieve this end. Sometimes fresh buttermilk or some other refreshing drink is passed down the rows; or on a cool day hot coffee is served. Any little change such as singing or whistling interrupts the sleepy effect of one continual process and shifts the mood and spirits of those toiling into another groove. This is very beneficial. All our students of industrial methods will tell you that the worst flaw of our present system is the effect monotony has on the minds of those constantly subjected to it. Performing without deviation the same mechanical act day after day deadens the brain and even, in certain cases, produces insanity. It also kills ambition and creates hopeless, indifferent persons. Therefore, made wiser by psychology we realize the importance of stirring the mind out of a fixed rut, or rather a stupidity that verges on somnambulism, and keeping it alert and active. Sheep growers, for example, try in every way to divert the minds of their shepherds lest the continual watching of a slowly moving flock paralyze their minds and get themlocoed."
"Really?"
"Your mother will tell you that. That is why a shepherd's pipe is such a splendid thing. To pick out a tune and listen to it starts the mind out of its trance and promotes mental exercise. It does what gymnastics do for the body."
"But all our factories keep men at a single task," Carl objected.
"You mean the piece-work system? Aye, I know," nodded his uncle. "And as we grow wiser, and come to care more for our fellows, we begin to wonder whether so much specializing is as fine a notion as we at first thought it. It makes for efficiency, for without question a man who does just one thing over and over becomes expert at his particular job; but does he not in time, because of his very expertness, lapse into a machine whose hands move automatically and whose mind is idle? Such a result is fatal both to his intellect and his will. He becomes passive until at length all initiative is destroyed. For many years the colored people of the South reaped precisely this harvest of mental inertia. Now, thank heaven, they are rousing out of the lethargy that has been their inheritance and their brains are getting to work. It will, however, take years, perhaps generations, for some of them to work up to a normal mental activity and intelligence; but if they persist results will surely come. Many of them have already shaken off their intellectual fetters so that not only are their bodies free but their minds are also. That is why I feel that all our citizens should do everything in their power to help them, and try and make up to them for the injustices they have suffered. It is not enough to take them out of physical slavery; we should break the chains of their mental imprisonment as well by giving them schools, trades, and such other training as is within their mental scope."
"I'm afraid I never thought of the negroes that way," confessed Carl.
"A great many persons older than you do not," Captain Dillingham returned kindly. "But when you do think of them from that angle you cannot but honor the more highly those colored persons who have achieved positions of importance. There are now in our country colored lawyers, doctors, teachers, poets, and writers. Who can tell what their background has been or measure the mental exertion that has brought them where they are to-day? Wherever we meet them we should give them a hand up. We owe it to them because of our own greater opportunity."
The little man stopped to light his pipe.
"Now see where talking about picking cotton has led me," grumbled he whimsically. "A pretty distance I've wandered from my subject! Well, you mustn't touch me off on the topic of the colored race again. I have seen many abuses of the negroes in my day, both on shipboard and ashore, and the subject turns me hot. Just how the evils of cotton-gathering are to be avoided I do not know. We must wait, I fear, until some clever individual bobs up with a scheme that does away with hand harvesting of cotton. In the meantime the only remedy left us is to vary the work of the men and women who toil at it as much as is possible."
"I wish, Uncle Frederick, you would tell us just how the cotton is gathered," said Mary, who had joined the group.
Captain Dillingham flashed the girl one of his rare smiles.
"I don't know, my dear, just how much more there is to tell," declared he. "Of course, if you have ever picked currants or blackberries you will realize something of the constant bending and stooping that goes with the industry and will understand how hard it is on the back. Then there is the continual standing, a tiresome business at best. Besides, mechanically as the task is rated, it is not such an easy one after all, for the cotton fibers stick firmly to the inside of the pods and as a result the unskilled person who tries to detach them in a hurry will probably succeed only in extricating a bare half of what is inside. And like as not he will break the fibers he does get out so that their value will be sadly decreased. The trade has its tricks, you see. Furthermore an amateur generally has fragments of husks and leaves scattered through his cotton, all of which have to be removed and make extra work later on."
"Then cotton-gathering is not really such brainless work as it might be, is it, Uncle Frederick," Mary asserted.
"Oh, it requires a knack that comes through practice," conceded her uncle quickly. "As soon as the pods crack open and show white it is a sign the workers must be on hand for the picking, and early in the morning they assemble that they may have a long day to work while the sun is on the crop. For as I told you there can be no cotton-harvesting without sun to dry off the night's moisture. The moment a bag or basket is filled it is emptied into something larger and the picker starts afresh. Before evening comes and the dew falls, the day's crop is hurried under cover that it may not absorb any dampness. Here it is packed into receptacles banded with the owner's name or private mark, and made ready to be carried to the ginning factory."
The cotton is sent to factories to be ginned."The cotton is sent to factories to be ginned."Page129.
"Don't the planters have their own cotton gins?" queried Carl in surprise.
"Oh no, son! That would be an unnecessary and expensive luxury. Just as corn is sent to the miller to be ground, so the cotton is sent to factories to be ginned, weighed, and baled for shipment. You see the cotton grown on any one plantation and cultivated under uniform conditions will be practically of the same ripeness and weight; it will also be, in all probability, of the same variety. This fact is important when ginning and selling it, and greatly increases its value. Such conditions, however, do not always prevail for there are districts (and also countries) where small cotton farms exist whose output is not large enough to make an entire bale. In such cases the product of several farms has to be combined and this makes a bale mixed in quality. This is true of part of the cotton that comes from India. There many of the natives, owing to lack of commercial and industrial enterprise, raise small batches of cotton. Often it takes a great many of these little lots to make up a bale."
"Do the natives of India take the seeds out of their own cotton?" asked Mary.
"Some of them do, using the primitive gins so long known in India. The Chinese also gin much of their own cotton by amateur gins. But it goes without saying that much of the cotton fiber is broken by these methods. For the more perfect the gin the less loss results. Even with our best machinery however, a certain amount of injury is done which cannot be avoided."
"Then Eli Whitney's gin isn't so perfect," ventured Carl.
"Its method is as perfect a one as we have," answered Captain Dillingham, "and up to date nothing better has been found. Those handling large quantities of cotton are almighty thankful to have anything as good, I can tell you. In India, China, and oriental countries, though, where the lots are small the people, as I say, still cling to their primitive foot gins. Here in America we have several types of gin all made on the same general principle but differing slightly as to detail. Some of these are better than others. By this I mean some are less brutal and cause a smaller degree of waste. Indeed I believe Whitney's own gin and those of its kind known as saw gins are considered to do the most damage to the fiber. This sort of gin consists of a series of circular saws set into a revolving shaft in such a way that the cotton fed into the machine is separated from its seeds in an incredibly short space of time. Afterward a whirling brush cleans the saws of the fiber clinging to them. It is an effectual system but a merciless one and is best adapted to short staple cotton which is strong and does not snarl. The best gins use only long, smooth blades to clear the cotton and it follows that these do the fiber far less injury."
"How does a ginning factory look, Uncle Frederick?" Carl inquired.
"You mean the inside? I never went through but one. I was waiting for a cargo at Norfolk once and as there happened to be a ginning plant near where I was staying I visited it. Generally peaking I suppose they are pretty much alike. The cotton is brought to them, as I said, in clearly marked, or branded bags or baskets, and is tossed from the wagons directly into hoppers. Afterward the contents of the hoppers is loaded into freight elevators and shot to one of the upper stories of the factory, there to be piled up and await its turn for ginning.
"When the time comes to gin that particular batch it is heaped into a hopper and borne to the gins below by means of traveling racks."
"How many gins are there to a factory?" questioned Mary.
"That depends on the size of the factory and the amount of work brought there to be done," was the reply. "A fair-sized factory in a busy district will have half-a-dozen gins or more; and when you know that one gin will clean from three hundred to three hundred and fifty pounds of cotton an hour you will see that it will take a pretty big supply to keep such a lot of machinery moving. There is a separate hopper for each gin and if the supply fed into it comes too fast it can be stopped and switched to other gins. Once in the clutch of the relentless knives the cotton is shredded apart and the seeds drop out and fall into a traveling basket. From this basket they are forced through a tube to an oil mill which usually stands in another part of the grounds."
"Cottonseed oil!" murmured Mary, recognizing an old friend. "We often use it to fry things. It's good on lettuce, too. But somehow I never thought that it was really made from the seeds of cotton."
"We often accept terms without thinking much about them, don't we?" Captain Dillingham agreed. "But cottonseed oil is a genuine by-product of cotton."
"What is a by-product?" smiled Mary ingenuously.
"A by-product is something made from the leavings," put in Carl without hesitation. "Hash is a by-product of corned beef."
A laugh greeted the assertion.
"Technically speaking a by-product is something that is turned to account from what would otherwise have been waste. Every person who manufactures on a large scale tries to think what he can do with what is left after he has made the thing he started out to make. This he does for two reasons: first he wishes to turn back into money every ounce of material for which he has paid; secondly he desires to get rid of stuff which would otherwise accumulate and (if not combustible) force him into the added expense of carting it away. In other words he seeks to convert his waste into an asset instead of a liability. Therefore all big producers tax their brains to invent things that can be made from their waste, and such commodities are called by-products. Many of these things require no ingenuity for frequently they are articles much needed in other trades. Masons, for example, are only too thankful to have the hair taken from tanned leather to hold their plaster together; and those who dry and salt fish can easily turn the fish skins into glue. The by-products of great packing houses and tanneries are legion. Often such dealers will have at hand such a supply of usable stuff that they will establish other factories where their unused materials can be converted into cash. The sale of these products often increases very materially the profits of a business. Such a product is cottonseed oil. As millions more seeds mature each year than can possibly be used for planting why not turn them to account? Often there are from sixty-five to seventy-five pounds of seeds to a hundred pounds of cotton. Think how rapidly they would accumulate if something could not be done with them. During the war when we were unable to get olive oil from Italy and fats of all kinds were scarce we were thankful enough to fall back on the cottonseed oil made in our own country. At the oil mills machines are ready to clean the cotton seeds of lint, hull them, separate hull from kernel, and press the oil from the kernel itself. This oil is then bottled, labelled, and shipped for sale, making quite an independent little industry, you see. What is left of the crushed kernels is removed from the hydraulic presses and is remolded into small cakes to be used for——" he paused, glancing quizzically toward Carl and Mary.
"For what?" the boy asked.
"Guess!"
"I've not the most remote idea," Carl returned.
"Nor I!" echoed Mary.
"For cattle to eat," went on Captain Dillingham, completing his unfinished sentence.
"Even the hulls," he continued, "are, I believe, utilized in some way; and as I previously told you the lint which clings to the seeds is passed through a second sort of gin, gathered into a bundle, and afterward put through a carding engine which combs it out and prepares it so it can be made into wadding for coverlids, quilted linings, and quilted petticoats. All the gins then collect whatever material is left and this, being absolutely too poor for any other purpose, is sold as cotton waste to be used for cleaning machinery and polishing brass and nickel trimmings. Were we individuals half as thrifty as are manufacturers in salvaging the odds and ends that come our way we might save ourselves many a penny. Every year we Americans throw away enough food and wearing apparel to maintain a small army. We are, alas, a very wasteful people and are constantly becoming more so. Our ancestors used to lay aside buttons, string, papers, scraps of cloth and use them again. They made over clothing, fashioned rag rugs, conserved everything they could lay hands on. Their attics were museums where were horded every sort of object against the time when it might be needed. But do we follow their example? No, indeed! In fact, we go to the other extreme and hurry out of the house, either to a junk dealer or a rummage sale, everything we cannot find immediate use for. To a certain extent our mode of living has forced us to this course. Most of us reside in cramped city quarters where there are no spacious attics in which to garner up articles against a rainy day. Modern apartment dwellers boast neither attic nor cellar, to say nothing of a farmer's barn loft. Moreover, we all must scramble so fast to earn our daily bread that we have no time to make over the old; it is cheaper, we reason, to purchase new than to fuss with remodelling. Neither are materials what they were in the old days. Few of the fine old silks and woolens that would wear for a generation are to be had at present. Also we have more money than our forebears and this has much to do with our wholesale wastefulness. With plenty of everything at hand, why save? And the policy the individual is following on a small scale the nation is adopting on a much vaster one. We are using up our forests, our mines, all our resources with no thought of the morrow. We ought to stop and think about this before it is too late but I doubt if we ever will."
Captain Dillingham paused.
"There is such a thing," he added, "as people and nations being too prosperous for their own good. But to return to the cotton gin. The cotton, having been cleared of its seeds, is now known as lint, and this is bundled together until enough of it is collected to be properly baled for the spinning mills."
"What isproper baling?" inquired Carl.
"Why, the rough baling simply gathers the cotton together into a big bundle."
"Well, what's the matter with that?"
"Nothing—so far as it goes," laughed the Captain. "I should be sorry, however, to see many such bales coming aboard my ship."
"Why?"
"Well, you know what cotton is," answered Uncle Frederick. "After it has been picked to pieces in the gins it comes out a nice, white, fluffy mass that takes up no end of room. Were it to be transported in this condition a few hundred pounds of it would fill a ship or freight car and cost the owner so much that it would not be worth his while to transport it. Moreover, it would be bothersome to handle when it arrived at the spinning mills. Therefore before cotton is shipped it has to be reduced in bulk so that it will not take up so much space."
"But how can it be, Uncle Frederick? asked Mary, open-eyed.
"What do you do when you wish to make some soft material into a small parcel, my dear?"
"Oh, roll it up—squeeze it together," was the instant response.
"Well, there you have your answer!" responded Uncle Frederick. "Balers treat cotton lint in the same fashion; only, as they are not strong enough to accomplish this end with their hands, they resort to powerful machines, or compressors, to carry out the process for them. By means of enormous pressure they crush down the billowing lint until four feet of it can be reduced to a thickness of not more than seven inches."
"I wouldn't want to fall into that machine! chuckled Carl.
"There wouldn't be much left of you if you should, I can assure you of that," Captain Dillingham said. "Cotton, however, does not raise any such protest. It is pressed and pressed and pressed, and while still in the presses iron bands are put round it to hold it so it can be compactly transported. An American bale of some five hundred pounds will usually have six or seven of these iron bands round it. Certain of these bales are merely rough ones; others are cylindrical. I believe the latter sort are more generally preferred. To make them the cotton is gradually pressed and rolled by powerful presses until a bale four feet long and about two feet through is obtained. These cylindrical bales weigh a trifle less than the others—about four hundred and twenty-six pounds—and because they have been pressed so hard they keep in place without either iron bands or cloth covers. When they arrive at the mills the cotton from them can be unrolled and much more easily fed into the machines. If they are covered it is merely to keep them clean."
"Do all bales of cotton have to weigh the same?" inquired Carl.
"You mean is there a standardized weight for all bales?"
"Yes."
"No, there is no universal standard for bales of cotton. The bales from different countries differ quite considerably. For example a Brazilian bale usually weighs only from a hundred and seventy-five to two hundred and twenty pounds; the Turkish from two hundred and fifty to three hundred and twenty-five pounds; those coming from India do better, averaging about three hundred and ninety pounds. Should you handle this imported cotton you would notice that the bales from India are very heavily banded, often as many as thirteen bands encircling them. This is partly because the long staple of this variety of cotton must not be injured by heavy pressure, and partly because they have not in India the excellent facilities for compressing lint that we have here. The Egyptian bales are the largest transported; they run as high as seven hundred pounds and have about eleven bands to hold them."
"It must be a stunt to get them aboard ship," grinned Carl.
"I've taken my turn at the job," responded the captain drily. "We swing them down into the hold by means of cranes and have now learned to land them quite neatly. Nevertheless, even though they are only bundles of cotton wool I should not fancy having one of them drop on my head," concluded he with a twinkle.
CHAPTER XI
A FAMILY CONGRESS
Meantime while the McGregors discussed cotton and the sunny southern fields in which it grew, Christmas was approaching and Baileyville, shrouded in wintry whiteness, began to feel the pulse of the coming holiday. Shop windows along the main street were gay with holly and scarlet. Every alluring object was displayed to entice purchasers and such objects as were not alluring were made to appear so by a garnish of ribbon or flashing tinsel. There were Christmas carpet sweepers, Christmas teakettles, Christmas coal hods and how surprised and embarrassed they must have been to find themselves dragged out of their modest corners and, arrayed in splendor, set forth before the public gaze. Nothing was too mundane to be transformed by the holiday's magic into a thing mystic and unreal. Even such a prosaic article as a washtub, borrowing luster from the season's witchery and in shining blue dress became a thing to covet and dream about.
Then there was the army of foolish trifles that owed their existence merely to the season's glamor and would have had no excuse for being at a time when the purchaser's head was level and his judgment sane. And in addition to all these there were the scores upon scores of gifts useful, fascinating, desirable, but beyond range of possibility at any ordinary period of the year.
Oh, it was a time to keep one's balance, the Christmas holidays! The very stones of the streets glistened golden and the crisp air breathed enchantment. If one's nerves were not frayed and on edge he jostled his neighbor with a smile and took his share of jostling in good part. Was not every man a brother; and did not a great throbbing kindliness emanate from all humanity?
It seemed so to Carl McGregor as the wonderful day of days drew near; and so also it seemed to all the wee McGregors. They were on tiptoe with excitement and could hardly be made to stand still long enough to have their neckties tied or their pinafores buttoned.
"Have you children decided yet what you want to do?" questioned their mother one morning, as she struggled to hold the wriggling Tim until his hair could be made presentable for school. "Christmas is but a week away now and we must come to some decision as to our plans. We can't have everything, you know. Shall it be a turkey and no tree? Or shall it be a tree and no turkey? And if it is a tree shall it be a big or a little one? We must vote on all these questions."
"I want ice-teem," lisped Nell.
"Mercy on us!" ejaculated Mrs. McGregor, in consternation, as this fresh avenue for outlay presented itself. "Nell is for ice cream and a tree too."
"And turkey!" went on the little one imperturbably. "Me wants turkey!"
"Ice-treem! Ice-treem!" cooed James Frederick.
The mother's face clouded. A tree, turkey, ice cream and presents were far beyond the range of the family purse.
"I'd rather have stockings and turkey," Mary declared.
"And cranberry sauce and nuts," put in Tim.
"And celery and sweet potatoes," added Carl. "A real dinner, Mother."
"Would you rather do that than have the tree?"
Silence greeted the question.
Into every mind flashed the picture of a tree towering to the ceiling and a-glitter with lights and ornaments. Even Carl, despite his fourteen years, could not entirely banish the vision. But the dinner, the dinner! After all the tree would only be a thing to look at; food could be eaten and enjoyed, and Carl was a healthy boy at an age when he was possessed of a particularly healthy appetite. Tempting as was the tree the aroma of browned turkey rose in his nostrils.
"I vote for turkey," announced he at last.
"No tree? No Christmas tree?" murmured Martin, his lip quivering.
"You have a tree at kindergarten, silly, and so does Nell," declared the elder brother quickly.
"'Tain't like having it here—our really own tree," bewailed Martin.
"Couldn't we have a simpler dinner, Mother, and manage to get a tree?" interrogated Mary. "It is fun to trim it and the little children love it so."
"Girls always like things that look pretty," piped Tim in disdain.
"And all boys care about is to eat and eat," Mary shot out with equal scorn.
Hidden away in a corner behind his newspaper Captain Dillingham chuckled. He was vastly amused by this family congress.
Meantime Mrs. McGregor, in order to avert the battle she saw rising, said, "Suppose we put it to vote. Are you ready for the question?"
"Yes!" responded her flock in chorus.
"All right. Shall it be presents and turkey, or presents and a tree?"
"I want mince pie," proclaimed Martin flatly.
"But we are not talking of pie, dear," answered his mother patiently. "It is the turkey we're voting on."
"I want turkeyanda treeandpresentsandice-teemandpie!" Nell asserted shamelessly.
"Stockings and turkey, Ma! Stockings and turkey!" shouted Carl.
"Listen, dears!" began their mother. "As I told you before we can't have everything. I wish we could but we just plain can't, so that ends it. Therefore we must choose what we think we will get the most pleasure out of. Now who is for turkey? Raise your hands!"
Every hand came up.
"And who is for a tree?"
Again every hand was raised.
Helplessly Mrs. McGregor sank back into her chair.
"Oh, dear," sighed she. "Don't you see we are getting nowhere? I told you only a minute ago we couldn't have both."
Uncle Frederick came out from behind his paper.
"See here, you young savages," began he, laughing good-humoredly, "listen to me! If you do not get down to business and use some sense, Christmas will be here and you will have nothing at all."
A wail ascended from Nell and Martin.
"Your mother can give you either turkey or a tree; but she can't give you both. In my opinion she is almighty good to do so much."
He saw the children flush uncomfortably. Carl dropped his eyes and Mary slipped a hand into her mother's.
"Now instead of clamoring at her like a lot of ungrateful little brutes and wanting the whole earth, why don't you show her you are grateful for what she's doing?" went on Captain Dillingham in a sharper tone.
"Oh, it's all right, Frederick," interrupted Mrs. McGregor hurriedly. "I don't want——"
The captain, however, was not to be stopped.
"Your mother is ready to give you turkeyora tree. How many are for turkey?"
Carl and Tim raised their hands.
"And who is for the tree?"
Instantly Mary, Martin, and Nell raised their hands.
"It is the tree, as I see it," acclaimed he.
"But it isn't fair," Tim objected. "James Frederick didn't vote."
At this everybody laughed and whatever tension there was vanished.
"Oh, James Frederick would vote for the tree," Mary said. "He is so little he couldn't eat turkey if we had it, could he, Mother?"
"I'm afraid he couldn't," smiled her mother. "He hasn't teeth enough."
"Then it is a tree! A tree!" cried Martin exultantly.
"Wait!" Captain Dillingham put up his hand. "We haven't finished with this matter yet. You've got your tree from your mother; now I can give you a turkey if you decide you want me to. But first you are to listen to what I have to say. A Christmas tree and a turkey mean a great deal for one family to have in these days when so many people are having so little. The O'Dowds, for example, are to have neither a Christmas dinner nor a tree; I happen to know that. Joey has been sick and there are doctor's bills to pay. Beside that, Mr. O'Dowd has been out of work and has no money to spend this year."
The little McGregors regarded their uncle with solemn faces.
"Oh, dear!" breathed Mary sympathetically.
Carl scowled soberly; then his face glowed with a sudden idea.
"Couldn't we——" he hesitated awkwardly.
"Oh, Uncle Frederick, if youwerereally going to buy a turkey, couldn't we give it to them?" flashed Mary, smiling toward her brother. "Would you mind giving it away to somebody else? You see, if you were going to buy it anyway——" she regarded her uncle timidly, "we could have something else for dinner, couldn't we, Mother? Perhaps corn chowder. We all like that. And maybe we could have a pudding and some nuts."
"Bully, Mary! I'm with you!" Carl rejoined.
"I'd like to do that, too," agreed Martin. "I wouldn't mind so much about the turkey if we had the tree."
"What do you say, Tim?" inquired Captain Dillingham.
"I don't see why we should give our turkey to somebody else," grumbled Tim sullenly. "We never have one all the year—never! You know we don't, Mother."
"No, dear; I'm afraid we don't," Mrs. McGregor said.
"Then why should we give ours away," went on Tim in an argumentative tone. "Don't we want turkey as much as the O'Dowds, I'd like to know?"
"Oh, Timmie!"
"Don't be such a pig, Tim," cut in Carl with brotherly directness. "If we were hard up, wouldn't you like somebody to send you something for Christmas?"
Tim colored, his brother's question bringing home to him uncomfortable possibilities.
"We could have such fun doing it, Timmie," coaxed Mary. "Think how we could trim up the basket, and what a surprise it would be! Why, it would make no end of sport."
Tim's expression softened.
Instantly Mrs. McGregor, who was quick to interpret her children's moods, saw the battle was won.
"We can plan together what shall go into the basket," said she briskly. "Each of us might contribute the thing he likes best."
"The turkey shall be mine!" Uncle Frederick declared.
"I choose cranberry sauce!" Carl announced.
"Celery! Oh, could I put in celery, Mother?" Mary inquired. "The tops are so pretty and I love it so!"
Her mother nodded.
"Somebody must give the plain things so I will donate potatoes, squash, and onions," she said.
"Don't forget nuts! We must have nuts and raisins," Mary added.
"I'd like to give those," Tim whispered.
"You shall, son."
A friendly little glance passed between the boy and his mother.
"Pie! I want pie!" asserted Nell, who although too young to understand what was going on, nevertheless grasped the notion that food was the prevailing topic and plunged into the subject with enthusiasm.
"Bless your heart, dearie, you shall have pie!" laughed her mother. "I'll make a couple of apple pies and they shall be your present."
"There ought to be candy. Please let me send candy! May I?" begged Martin for whom the world held only two articles really worth while—candy and ice cream.
There was general merriment at this suggestion.
"Precious little candy would ever get to anybody else if you had the giving of it, Martie," teased Mary.
"Yes, Martin shall give the candy," Mrs. McGregor consented.
"We'll paste his mouth up before he goes to buy it," Carl drawled.
"Don't you s'pose I could keep from eating it if once I set out to?" scowled Martin defiantly.
"No, I don't!"
"Well, I could, so now!" The boy drew himself up proudly.
"James Frederick ought to send something, Mother," reminded the care-taking Mary. "We don't want him left out."
"Oh, we mustn't leave out the baby!" agreed Captain Dillingham. "He and I will get together and talk the matter over. There are still several things needed."
"Oh, it will be splendid!" cried Mary, clapping her hands. "Do get a real big turkey, won't you, Uncle Frederick? And we'll trim it up with a necklace of cranberries the way they do in the market."
"Huh! There you go again," sniffed Tim. "All girls seem to think of is necklaces and bows of ribbon."
Mary smiled brightly.
"What's the harm in making it pretty if you can just as well?" asked she. "I do love pretty things. Why, I believe I could eat stewed whale if it was on a pretty dish."
"I couldn't; I'd hate whale," responded the stolid Timothy.
"Oh, I didn't mean I'd really eat whale, silly," explained Mary.
"Then what did you say you would for?"
"Mary was just imagining, dear," put in Mrs. McGregor, coming to the rescue.
"She is always imagining," glowered Tim. "Only the other day she was trying to make me imagine my salt fish was chicken."
"I'll bet she didn't succeed," taunted Carl.
"Not on your life she didn't!" was the instant answer. "I know salt fish when I see it."
"No matter, dear," soothed Mrs. McGregor, affectionately touching her daughter's arm. "If her imagining Mary can convert salt fish into chicken it is an asset that will stand her in good stead all through life. And if you, Tim, prefer to keep your salt fish just salt fish, why you have a perfect right to do so. I will say, however, that the person who has the power to make believe has an invaluable gift. Many's the time I've made believe and it has helped me over more than one hard spot. We all have to masquerade to a greater or less degree. It is simply meeting life with imagination and seeing in the humdrum something that associates it with finer and more beautiful things." For a moment she was silent; then she added in her quick, businesslike accents, "And now to this dinner! There must be a basket to hold it, of course."
"A big market basket, Mother, lined with red paper. Do line it with red," pleaded Mary.
"It shall be lined with red, little lady! And trimmed with holly, too!" replied Uncle Frederick. "I will undertake to furnish both decorations along with the turkey."
"Why not put in Santa Claus napkins? I saw some paper ones the other day and they were tremendously festive," suggested Mrs. McGregor.
"I think the best plan is for us all to go together and buy the dinner," the Captain suddenly announced.
Shouts of approval greeted the plan.
"But the baby!" demurred his sister.
"We can wheel James Frederick in the carriage and take turns staying outside the shops with him," said Carl.
"And if we have the carriage we can bring home our stuff in it," put in Tim.
"Poor baby! How would you like to have a big ten-pound turkey piled on top of you?" questioned Mary indignantly.
"Oh, James Frederick won't mind," Tim responded comfortably. "And anyhow, he's got to do his bit toward making other people happy. As far as I can see he isn't denying himself anything, for he couldn't eat a turkey if it was set right under his nose. So it's his part to tote home the parcels in his flivver; he seems to be the only member of the family that has one."
Thus it was agreed and on the day before Christmas it would have done one good to witness the cavalcade of McGregors issuing forth on their altruistic pilgrimage. First went Mary, leading Nell by the hand; then Carl with Martin's mitten firmly clutched in his. Next came Mrs. McGregor with Tim, and bringing up at the rear was Uncle Frederick wheeling his namesake, the baby. What a tour it was! Certainly there never had been such a turkey as the one the reckless captain bought—a turkey so plump of breast, so white of skin, so golden of claw! Why, it was a king of birds! And then the shining coral of the cranberries, the satin gleam of the onions, the warm brown of the potatoes! As for the celery—its delicate green and faint canary tips were as good as a bouquet of flowers. Just to view its crispness was to make the mouth water. And the nuts, raisins, candy, oranges! Once in their vicinity Captain Dillingham cast aside all caution and wildly purchased one dainty after another. He seemed to have gone quite mad and it was not until his sister very positively informed him that not another bundle could be carried that he consented to be dragged away from the counters of sweet-meats.
Then staggering beneath their load of whity-brown parcels, the family hastened out to the baby carriage where Mary stood guarding James Frederick.
"Put the turkey down near his feet," cried she excitedly, as she lifted the baby in order to make more room. "The other things can be packed in round him."
"But he'll be stifled!" objected Mrs. McGregor.
"Oh, no, he won't, Ma!" contradicted Tim. "He'll probably be uncomfortable. Christmas comes but once a year, though, so he ought to be able to survive being cramped."
"Oh, James Frederick is perfectly used to having his coupé turned into an express wagon, Mother," Carl explained. "Don't worry about him. Often he rides home from down-town buried a foot deep in bundles. All that fusses me is whether the carriage will stand the strain. If it should part in the middle and the front wheels go off on an independent route it would be——"
"Both inconvenient and embarrassing," concluded Captain Dillingham with a laugh.
Fortunately, however, James Frederick's chariot was staunchly constructed and reached Mulberry Court without mishap, its precious contents—including the patient owner of the vehicle—being borne triumphantly aloft to the McGregor flat. Once upstairs the basket, scarlet paper, and holly were produced, and Mary with deft fingers went to work to fashion a receptacle worthy of the bounties with which the O'Dowds were to be surprised. At last into this garish hamper were packed the viands and afterward a card bearing holiday greetings was tied to the handle with a flaring red bow.
"Now the worst task is to come," declared Mrs. McGregor, "and that is to land the present at Julie's door without being caught. They are proud people, the O'Dowds, and I wouldn't for worlds have them know from whom the dinner comes. Timmie is not strong enough to take it and Carl is too clumsy. Should he start to run away, like as not he would stumble and bring all Mulberry Court to see what the racket was."
"Why can't I carry it?" inquired Captain Dillingham.
"You! One sight of your gold buttons would be enough, Frederick. Besides, you're none too agile in making a getaway."
"I fancy some boy could be found to leave it if I paid him," suggested the captain.
"The very thing! There's a score of 'em on the street. Fetch in the fastest runner you see, Timmie. No matter whether you know him or not. In fact, get one you don't know. 'Twill be all the better."
Away sped Tim only to return an instant later with a grimy, Italian youngster at his heels.
Captain Dillingham explained the errand.
At the sight of the gleaming quarter of a dollar the Italian grinned. He would leave a bomb or a live ox at anybody's door for a quarter, affirmed he with an ingratiating smile.
Therefore the precious basket was entrusted to him and to judge by the scampering that followed its thud before the O'Dowds' door he was quite as fleet of foot as Tim had asserted.
"Wouldn't you like to see their faces when they find it?" whispered Carl who, with Mary, was hanging over the banister, straining his ears for every sound.
There was not, however, much to hear.
After the furious knock somebody ventured into the hall. Then Julie's voice, high-pitched with excitement and consternation, exclaimed, "Mercy on us!" With that she dragged the basket into her abode and banged the door.
It was a brief drama but one entirely satisfying to the McGregors. Over and over again did Carl and Mary enact the scene to the intense delight of the family.
"Now mind, should Mrs. O'Dowd come up here with questions, you are to be careful what you say," cautioned their mother. "There's to be no hinting, winking, or smirking. Should Julie say anything, leave it to your uncle or me to answer. All the fun would be spoiled if you gave the secret away."
"Oh, yes," agreed Carl. "The sport is to keep folks guessing."
But no sooner were the words out of his mouth is than there was a rapping at the hall door.
"Oh, Ma! I'll bet that is Mrs. O'Dowd now!" gasped Mary.
"It can't be! She'd not track us down so quick as this," replied Mrs. McGregor, flustered and half rising.
"Most likely it's the Christmas tree, Mother," Tim suggested. "They promised to send it early this afternoon."
Again came the knock.
"I'm half afraid to open the door lest it be Julie," faltered Mrs. McGregor. "Be still a minute, all of you, till I think what I'll say to her."
But when, amid a tense hush, the door was finally opened, neither Julie O'Dowd nor the watched-for Christmas tree was on the threshold. Instead they saw a holly-decked basket so exactly a replica of the one they had given away that a cry of disappointment greeted it.
"She's sent it back!" cried Mary.