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THE CLIMB UP THE LADDER
I
F Peter expected to hear more of the mysterious tie that linked his family with that of the Jacksons he was disappointed; for his father did not refer to the story again, and although the boy burned with curiosity to know more he had not the courage to ask. Had not Mr. Coddington gone steadily forward perfecting plans for the seashore outing it would have seemed as if the incident had entirely slipped from his mind. But the personal interest he displayed in arranging every detail of the trip proved beyond question that the memory of the obligation at which he had hinted was still vividly before him. The vacation wasarranged without trouble. Mrs. Jackson’s first objections to accepting this favor at the hands of the Coddington Company were quieted when told by the doctors that the plan would be highly beneficial to the health of her boy. Both Peter and Nat were in high spirits. To lads who had been confined within doors all summer the prospect of bathing, sailing, and a month in the open was like water to the thirsty.
Fortunately Dame Nature herself smiled graciously upon the project, for during the next four weeks she coaxed back to earth warm, golden days from the fast fleeing Indian summer. The magic touch of sunshine and fresh air flooded Nat’s cheek with healthy color and as if by miracle, strength returned to the delicate ankle; as for Peter he became swarthy as a young Arab. So delighted was Mrs. Jackson in watching the transformation in her two boys that she was quite unaware that a soft pinkiness was stealing into her own face. A vacation had seemed such an impossible thing that she had never dared picture how welcome such a rest would be.
When, weeks later, the trio returned to town and Mr. Coddington surprised them by meeting them at the station with the motor-car his gratification was extreme. He waved aside all thanks, however, and after dropping Nat and his mother at their home he rolled off with Peter, explaining that he would take the lad to his own door. Nat wondered not a little where that door was, and he would have been overwhelmed with amazement had he known that portals no less pretentious than those of the Coddington mansion itself opened to receive his chum. Very wide open indeed were they thrown when the car bringing Peter and his father turned into the long avenue leading to the house. How glad Peter’s mother was to see him, and how satisfied she was with the witchcraft that wind and wave had wrought!
“I guess there is no doubt that now you are fit either for school or for work, Peter,” said Mr. Coddington. “Which is it to be? Are you still firm in your decision to stick to the tannery? It isn’t too late to change your mind, you know, if you wish to do so.”
“I’m firmer for the tannery than ever, Father,” answered Peter, smiling.
“Going to fight it out, are you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good!”
It was only one word, but Peter knew that his father was pleased.
Accordingly on the following Monday morning the boy again took up his old work in the finishing department. Here Nat joined him, and since this branch of leather manufacture was an entirely new world to Jackson, Peter took his turn at explaining its various processes, and felt no little pride in having the teaching obligations reversed, and being able to give his chum instructions concerning matters of which he was ignorant. The two boys were becoming quite expert at boarding calfskins and had settled down with great contentment to this task when one day they were surprised and perhaps not a little disappointed to receive orders to leave their present occupation and report for duty at Factory 2, the sheepskin tannery.
in the finishing department
“Another beamhouse!” exclaimed Peter in dismay. “I thought we were through with that sort of thing for good and all, Nat.”
“Oh, it isn’t likely we’ll stay there,” was Nat’s hopeful rejoinder. “Evidently somebody higher up wants us to have this chance to see how sheepskins are prepared and I, for one, am not sorry for I’ve no very clear idea.”
“I’m worse off than you, Nat,” chuckled Peter. “I’ve no idea at all.”
“Nonsense, Peter! By this time you must know the general process for preparing skins.”
“Why, yes. I suppose the hair is taken off and the skins tanned just as calfskins are.”
“Yes, the main facts are the same. There are many points, however, where the processes differ because the skins of sheep, kids, goats, and such creatures must undergo entirely different treatment. The kid used for gloves and even for shoes, you see, is far more delicate than is the calfskin that we have been finishing.”
“Yes, of course,” agreed Peter thoughtfully. “Well, I suppose we shall now find out all aboutit and that it will be interesting; but I do wish, Nat, that we could learn it somewhere except in another beamhouse.”
Peter’s wish, alas, was of no avail and accordingly once more the two boys donned rubber boots and overalls and started again at the foot of the ladder—this time in Factory 2, where the skins of sheep, kids, and goats were tanned. Sheepskins, they soon learned, were received by the tanners in one of two conditions: either the wool was already off and they arrived in casks drenched or pickled, many bales of one dozen each being packed in a cask; or the skins came to the tannery salted, with the wool on and precisely in the condition that they were when taken from the backs of the sheep at the ranches and abattoirs. So long as the hair was on the skins were called “pelts”; but the moment the hair was removed the skins became “slats.” The pickled skins it was simple enough to tan, for they had been carefully prepared for the tanners before being shipped; there were firms, the foreman told Peter, that did just this very thing. If desired the pickled sheepskins could even beworked into a cheap white leather without further tanning. Most of them, however, were tanned.
But the unhairing of the sheep pelts was a different problem. After they had been soaked about twenty-four hours in borax and water to get out the dirt and salt they must first be put through a machine that cleansed the wool and shaved off any fat adhering to the flesh side. Then they were ready to have the wool removed. A very delicate process this was, Peter and Nat soon discovered. Each pelt was spread smoothly on a table wool side down, and a preparation of lime and sulphide of sodium was spread evenly over it with a brush, great care being taken to let none of the liquid used get upon the wool side of the skin. The pelt was then folded and left from eight to ten hours until the solution which had been brushed over it had penetrated it and loosened the hair. The wool could then very easily be pulled off, sorted as the skins were unhaired, and sold to dealers as “pulled wool.”
One fact interested Peter very much, and that was that usually the slats were thinnest where the wool was longest.
“I suppose the strength of the sheep all went to its hair,” speculated he to Nat. “Isn’t it funny that it should!”
Another thing the boys learned about sheepskins which was very different from the treatment of calfskins was that before the slats could be tanned they had to be put through a powerful press and have the grease squeezed out of them.
“The skin of a sheep has a vast amount of oil in it,” explained one of the workmen, “and it is impossible to do anything until this grease has been extracted; so we put a bunch of skins under a heavy press and then collect the grease that runs out, refine, and sell it.”
Peter and Nat watched this pressing with great interest.
When the skins came out of the press they were so hard and stiff that it was necessary to put them into the revolving drums that separated and softened them. This was called “wheeling up the slats.” The odor in the press room was far worse than anything that Peter had yet encountered—much more disagreeable than was an ordinarybeamhouse. Both he and Nat were only too glad when noon time came and they could get out into the air.
“Whew!” cried Peter, throwing himself down in the sunshine, “I hope they don’t put us in that press room to work, Nat.”
“It’s fierce, isn’t it?” Nat answered. “The men must hate it.”
“I suppose they get accustomed to it just as I got used to the beamhouse,” Peter said. “Why, when I began work in the beamhouse of Factory 1 I thought I never could endure it. Do you remember how you tried to cheer me up that first day?”
Nat laughed at the memory.
“Indeed I do. You looked perfectly hopeless, Peter.”
“That’s about the way I felt,” smiled Peter, “and I believe I’d feel so again if I thought I had weeks of that press room smell before me.”
But Peter need not have feared any such calamity, for after lunch he and Nat were given a lesson in tanning sheepskins and were toldthey were to work at that task until further notice.
The process, they discovered, differed very radically from the calfskin treatment with which they were so familiar. Many of the slats were tanned by being laid in trays of fine, moist powder that looked like brown sugar.
“What is this stuff?” inquired Peter of a man who stood near by.
“That is sumac, young man.”
“Sumac! Just common sumac?”
“Well, no. It is the same sort of thing, though. We import this from Sicily, because the foreign leaves grow larger and contain more tannin. Sicilian sumac makes better leather than does the American variety, which comes chiefly from Virginia.”
Peter nodded.
“And how long, pray, do the skins lie covered up in this snuffy brown powder?” questioned Nat.
“About a week,” answered the man. “We do not tan all sheepskins this way, however. Some, as you will see, are tanned by being suspendedfrom a bar into a vat of quebracho. Others are put into wheels of chrome tan just as calfskins are. White leathers are tanned, or more properly speaking tawed, in a mixture of alum and egg-yolk.”
“Egg-yolk!” gasped Peter. “Eggs—such as we eat?”
“I am not so sure that they are such as you would care to eat,” grinned the man, “but the yolks come from eggs, nevertheless.”
“I should think it would take lots of men to break the eggs fast enough and get them ready,” murmured Peter, half aloud.
“Bless your heart! We don’t break the eggs here!” roared the workman, shaking with laughter. “No, indeed. We get egg-yolk by the barrel; when we pour it out it looks like thin yellow paint. We tan kid for gloves in egg-yolk,” he went on, observing that both Nat and Peter were much interested. “After sheepskins are tanned the leather must all be fat-liquored, dried by steam or air fans, dampened, split or shaved off to uniform thickness, dyed in revolving paddle-wheels filled with color, and tacked on boards todry just as calfskins are. The chemists who have laboratories up-stairs test the dyes and mix or match the colors for us. Then the skins go to the various rooms for the different finishes. And speaking of finishes, I suppose you went into the buffing-room in the other factory.”
“No,” said Peter, “we didn’t—at least I didn’t.”
“Nor I,” put in Nat. “The door was always closed and no one was admitted.”
“They don’t like to have people go in if they can help it because every time the door is opened it stirs things up; but I can take you into our buffing-room if you want to go.”
“I wish you would,” cried Peter.
Accordingly all went up-stairs and their guide cautiously pushed open a door on whichNo Admittancewas scrawled in large letters. The moment Peter squeezed through it he drew in his breath and then regretted that he had done so, for he at once began to cough.
The boys glanced about the room before them.
Every window was closed, making the air hot and stuffy; yet, Peter asked himself, how wassuch a condition to be avoided in a place where it was evident that even the tiniest draught must create instant havoc? This room which Peter and Nat surveyed was thick with flying white particles that were being whirled into space from rapidly turning emery wheels. The workmen who were busy buffing the flesh side of split skins in order to get the rough surface required for a suede finish seemed enveloped in a miniature blizzard. As the swiftly turning discs sent clouds of white dust into the air it settled on the hair, faces, eyelashes, and clothing until the laborers looked like snow men moving amid the blinding flakes of an old-fashioned storm. Peter and Nat, who looked on, began to be changed into snow men, too.
“I guess you don’t want to stay in here long,” announced their guide, raising his voice to be heard above the noise of the revolving wheels. “As you see, they are making ‘suede,’ or ooze finished leather. Some calfskins are finished this way too, as of course you know. A certain amount of this leather will be left white for gloves or shoes; more of it, however, will bestretched on boards and brushed over with some colored dye. Suede is made in all sorts of fancy shades for women’s party slippers.”
Peter nodded and then, quite without warning, he sneezed.
Immediately a cloud of whiteness shot into the air.
“Hurry! Let’s get out!” cried Nat. “I’m going to sneeze, too.”
The man who was conducting them opened the door a crack and they all three slipped through. Safe in the outer room they stopped and laughingly surveyed one another. All were as white as if sprinkled with powder.
“Goodness!” Peter exclaimed, rubbing his eyelashes. “How can those men breathe? I should think that in a day they would swallow enough dust to fill their lungs up solid.”
“They don’t mind it.”
“Well, I only hope we shan’t be put in there to work.”
“So do I!” was Nat’s fervent rejoinder.
Fortunately for the boys they escaped doing dutyin the buffing-room. Instead they worked throughout the year in the beamhouse and the different finishing departments of Factory 2. Although this factory was known as the sheepskin tannery they soon found that the skins of lambs, kids, and goats were also tanned and finished there. The skins of the young kids or goats were much too delicate for shoes and were made into thin flexible leather for kid gloves; the leather commonly known as kid and used for shoes was not really kid at all, the boys were told, but the skin of mature goats. Inquiry also brought forth the surprising information that there were between sixty and seventy different kinds of goatskin, the thickness and grain of the material depending on the climate and the conditions under which the animals had been raised. Some of these skins were imported from Brazil, some from Buenos Ayres, Mexico, France, Russia, India, China, Tripoli, or Arabia.
Goat breeders, the foreman said, killed their flocks at the season of the year when the men who collected skins made their rounds. Thesecollectors went from one station to another and the goat herders, carrying bundles of skins on their backs, went down to the station nearest the hill country in which they were grazing their flocks and sold their stock to the collector, who promptly paid them in cash. When the collector had bought all the skins he wished he had them baled and sent them across country to the nearest seaport from which they were shipped to America. Many of the skins coming from India and Russia were sent first to London and then reshipped to the United States.
All goatskins, of no matter what variety, were tanned by the chrome process, and because they were smaller and of lighter weight than hides, tanned much more quickly. They were finished in many different ways: glazed kid, which was made in colors as well as black, had a shiny surface made by “striking” or burnishing the leather on the grain side; mat kid, soft and dull, was treated with oil and wax; suede kid was made in fancy colors for party shoes. These were some of the most important varieties. Then there wasbuckskin, the skin of the reindeer, most frequently buffed and finished in colors for gloves, or in white for shoes. Kangaroo was also classed under the head of kid.
“Is patent kid finished in this factory?” inquired Peter one day.
“No. All the patent leathers—both patent kid and patent calf—have a factory all to themselves.”
“I’d like to see it.”
“Oh, you will some day, no doubt. I hear they need a new boss over there. The men hate Tolman. Who knows but you may get his job!”
Peter laughed, and so did the other men who chanced to be standing about.
“I guess there is no danger that Tolman will lose his place on my account,” replied the boy with no little amusement.
Many months later when Peter met Tolman he recalled this incident and understood more fully why the men disliked him and felt that the patent leather factory needed a new head.
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A NARROW ESCAPE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
A
LL this time, strangely enough, no hint of Peter Strong’s identity had become known. It was little short of a miracle that it should not have been discovered. Many circumstances, however, fostered the secret. In the first place none of the men from the tanneries ever came to the fashionable west side of the town; there was nothing to call them there. Had they come the chances were that they would probably at some time have encountered Peter in company with his father and mother driving, motoring, or going to church. Several school friends had, it is true, unearthed the interesting information thatPeter was “working,” but the discovery was greeted with but scant curiosity. One’s place in life closes up very quickly after one drops from sight. When the idol of the Milburn ball team had vanished it had caused great agitation and for a brief interval he had been sincerely mourned; then some one else had been raised up to fill the gap, life was readjusted, and soon Peter and his glorious record were forgotten.
Under other conditions this lack of loyalty on the part of his friends would have wounded Peter sorely; now, however, the feeling was one of mortified pride rather than pained regret. His own attitude toward his former comrades had also in the meantime undergone a change. The boys he had looked up to, even the wisest of the seniors, seemed to him very young indeed, and their football worries pitiably unimportant. They were but preparing for the real work of the world while Peter, and others like him, were actually doing it. In consequence not a lad among all his former classmates was half so companionable or congenial as was his new friend, Nat Jackson.
And so, as the months sped past and Peter’s second year in the tannery neared its end, he found himself not only content with the present life but more and more absorbed in each fresh experience of leather making. The bond with the Jackson home strengthened, and the desire to make good at his “job” drove him to throw all the interest and power of his strong young life into his task.
Winter had added many facts to his growing knowledge about leather. Up to February he and Nat had been together in the beamhouse and seen the great care which was taken that the freshly tanned skins should not freeze. Fortunately for the Coddington Company most of their buildings were new and were equipped with steam-heated lofts where drying could be accomplished with little trouble; but one or two of the old buildings had shutters and in consequence were dependent upon drying the wet skins in the outer air. If the leather was allowed to freeze its fibre was greatly weakened and its value decreased. Accordingly during cold weather the shutters in the old factories had to be closed and the newlytanned hides piled on the floor and covered with heavy canvas. Of course the leather rolled badly, but since it was possible to dampen and stretch it into shape this difficulty could be overcome.
In the finishing department where the two lads were next sent many more new features swelled their increasing fund of information. Wherever they went they left a train of friends behind them. Peter seemed to be the general property of the tanneries. The men quarreled good-naturedly over which factory could really claim the Little Giant. To all this chaff Peter returned modest replies and the odd little chuckle that had so endeared him to his schoolmates. Nobody could imitate that chuckle—nobody—although many of them tried. It was a part of Peter himself, a part of the good will he felt toward the world and everybody in it.
“You can’t hear it without your heart warming toward the lad,” remarked Carmachel one day.
Armed with this simple weapon Peter went on his way. He met the men about him with a frank expectation that they would like him, andthey did. Nat also made friends, but as he was a much quieter boy most of those who sought him out did so because he shone with a glory reflected from Peter. Was he not Strong’s chum? He must somehow be worth knowing if he had that honor.
This rough kindliness of the workmen robbed labor of much of its hardship. The two lads pushed eagerly ahead and were delighted when, toward spring, they were again promoted—this time to the department which turned out the tooled and embossed leathers.
This was one of the most fascinating phases of leather making and for a long time it had interested both Peter and Nat. It seemed too good to be true that they should now win positions in that factory.
“It’s like the stories of the Arabian Nights, the way we’ve gone on and all the time kept together, Peter,” Nat said one day. “Think of it! We have been given more money and better jobs all the time. I do not just see why, either. Lots of the men who started long ago in the beamhouseof Factory 1 are still there and haven’t had a cent added to their pay envelope; and look at us! It’s just luck—that’s what it is.”
“Not entirely luck, Nat,” objected Peter, shaking his head. “Some of it, to be sure, is sheer good fortune; but some of it is hard work. If we had not made good every step of the way I doubt if we should have been sent on up the ladder.”
“I wonder!” was Nat’s thoughtful answer. “Do you know, Pete, I’ve sometimes thought that perhaps Mr. Coddington was keeping an eye on us and giving orders that we be shoved along. He could do it, I suppose, if he wanted to.”
“I suppose he could,” agreed Peter, uneasily, “but he is pretty busy, and is it likely——”
“No, of course it isn’t. He did a lot for me when I was sick and it isn’t reasonable to think he would do anything more. He wouldn’t be called upon to. It is just that we are under a lucky star.”
“I wish the star was a lucky enough one to send you a motorcycle then, Nat,” laughed Peter. “You know this going off riding by myself is nosort of a stunt. I don’t have any fun at all. Why, I would rather tramp the country on my two feet with you than to ride all over it without you. Somehow you’ve got to get a motorcycle, Nat—you’ve simply got to.”
“And just how do you expect me to carry out such a crazy scheme?” was the derisive retort. “Maybe you’ve a plan to suggest whereby, entirely without a cent, I am to purchase a toy like that. It can’t be done without Aladdin’s lamp—at least I can’t do it any other way. A motorcycle indeed! Why, I have not a cent to spend for such a thing. I couldn’t even buy one of the pedals, let alone anything more. Forget it, Peter, and let’s talk sense.”
“I shan’t forget it,” Peter answered earnestly. “You are going to have a motorcycle if I have to—to—pawn my rubber boots to get you one.”
They both laughed.
Peter was in great spirits.
This was their first day in the new factory and as the boys took up the novel task of learning how to make embossed leathers he made the inwardresolve that every penny he earned there should be put into the bank toward a motorcycle for Nat.
The embossing department was indeed a wonderful place. Such magic as was wrought here! Pieces of dyed leather of every imaginable hue were put into great machines where heavy squares of copper, set in powerful presses, stamped upon them various patterns or impressions. The designs engraved on the dies were imitations of the texture of every known sort of fancy leather. There was alligator, lizard skin, pigskin, snakeskin and sealskin; even grained leather was copied. So perfect was the likeness that it seemed impossible to tell the embossed and artificially made material from the real.
“How is any one to know whether his card-case is real seal or not?” queried Peter, aghast at the perfection of the dies.
The foreman shrugged his shoulders.
“I guess you’d have some trouble,” said he. “Comfort yourself, though, that you are not the only one. Just this fall Mr. Coddington himself came in here to compare our leather with somepieces of seal he had had sent him. He put his samples down on the table and later on when he went to get them he could not tell for the life of him which they were. We had a great laugh about it, I can tell you. Yes, we do pretty good work here, and we have about all the orders for pocketbook and bag leather that we can fill. At present we are so busy that we are running all the dies, and that is why we need extra men.”
Peter and Nat found that the department was indeed busy. All day they were upon their feet feeding pieces of leather into the presses, and it was their fatigue—a fact unimportant in itself—which led to a remarkable chain of events in the Coddington tanneries.
It happened that one morning Peter was sent up to the shipping room on the sixth floor of the factory with a bale of finished leather, and when he was ready to return he found that the elevator which he had used in coming up was out of order, and that he must now walk down the many flights of stairs. Accordingly he started, whistling as he went. When he reached the fifth floorhe was much surprised to discover that it was vacant. A great expanse it was, flooded with sunshine. Peter paused to look about. Some unused packing-cases littered one corner of the room and instantly the thought flashed into his mind—what a warm, quiet, secluded spot for him and Nat to eat their lunch! Why, they could even bring a book and curl up in the shelter of the boxes and read. As it was still too chilly to go out there was no way, during the winter months, but to huddle somewhere under the machinery of the factory and eat one’s lunch. Peter detested the arrangement, unavoidable as it was, and always rejoiced when the noon hour was over.
But here was an escape from such disagreeable conditions. Here was an unused room! Why should it not become a refuge from the noise, the dirt, and the turmoil of the factory? The plan seemed innocent enough, and when Peter confided it to Nat neither of them could see the slightest objection to it. In consequence, at noon time they crept up-stairs, and arranged a cozy little corner for themselves behind the packing-cases. It wasalmost as good as playing Robinson Crusoe, this building a fortress and hiding inside it. Then, too, the constant chance of being discovered provided just the necessary tremor of excitement to make it interesting. What fun it was! They called their stronghold Sterling Castle, and many a joke and jibe they made concerning it—jokes at which they laughed heartily when they were by themselves.
The vast empty space, they learned by cautious questioning, had originally been intended as a supply room; it was found, however, that it was not needed for this purpose and therefore it had been left in its present unoccupied condition.
There seemed not an iota of possibility that the place would ever be used and Peter and Nat exulted in the fact that they might lunch there undisturbed for the rest of their days if they so desired. For weeks they spent every noon hour in the sunshine behind their barricade talking softly together, eating their luncheon, and sometimes reading aloud.
Then came calamity.
It was on a sharp April day when the shelter of their sunny corner was especially welcome. Peter had just been rolling out one of the most stirring chapters of “Ivanhoe” when suddenly he paused, listening intently.
“It’s the elevator!” he whispered. “It is stopping at this floor. Somebody is getting out, Nat.”
“Who can it be?”
“Hush!”
The two boys kept very still.
Steps and voices came nearer.
“Yes, every floor is protected by fire-escapes, as you see,” declared a voice.
“It is some insurance man,” breathed Peter. “Don’t move, Nat.”
“Have you hand extinguishers here also?”
“Yes, at each corner of the room and on the walls.”
“This floor is not in use, I take it.”
“No,” broke in another voice—the voice of Mr. Coddington himself. “We never have had occasion to use this floor, although we probably shall do so when we require more room for supplies.What are those packing-cases doing here, Tyler? They look as though they were empty.”
“I hardly think empty cases would be left on this floor, sir. They shouldn’t be.”
Mr. Tyler was evidently annoyed.
“Empty or full, they’ve no business in this room,” said Mr. Coddington, sharply. “They might cause fire.”
Simultaneously the three men stepped forward to investigate.
Mr. Tyler kicked the back of the nearest case with his foot, but Mr. Coddington, who never stopped until he had got at the bottom of things, grasped the edge of one of the great boxes and tried to turn it over.
Now it happened that the boys, struggling to remain unseen, had huddled into this very box.
“The case is heavy, Tyler. I can’t stir it. Just see what is in it.”
Mr. Tyler, alert to obey, dragged forth the case with the assistance of the insurance agent and when it was tipped up and Peter and Nat tumbled out on the floor three more astonished men never were seen.
the three men stepped forward
“How did you two boys get here?” questioned Mr. Tyler severely. “What are you doing?”
Nat, thoroughly terrified, looked helplessly at Peter. He couldn’t have answered had he tried. Peter himself was a good deal taken aback. He glanced at his father for some hint as to how to proceed, but Mr. Coddington’s face was a study in conflicting emotions and furnished no clue. Therefore, after waiting a moment and receiving no aid in his dilemma, Peter replied simply:
“We are eating our luncheon.”
“Eating your lunch! And who told you you might come here for such a purpose?”
“Nobody. It just was a big, empty place with lots of sunshine and it seemed nicer than eating down-stairs,” gasped Peter.
“Are you sure they were eating their lunch and not starting a fire?” suggested the insurance inspector in an undertone.
“Of course we weren’t setting a fire!” Peter cried indignantly, hearing the whispered words of the inspector. “We just came up here to get where it was clean and quiet. When it is too coldto go out there isn’t any place to eat except right in the factory.”
“Well, that is no excuse for your coming here. It is against the rule for any of the employees to come above the fourth floor without permission. I thought you both understood that. If you didn’t it is your own fault. You may finish out your week here and on Saturday night you may consider yourselves discharged from the tannery.” Mr. Tyler put his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Strong,” he added.
“Just one moment, Tyler.”
It was Mr. Coddington who spoke.
“Tell me more fully about this matter, Peter Strong. You say you have no suitable place to eat your lunch.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What do the other men do?”
“They sit around under the machinery anywhere they can. Often the place is dirty and sometimes it is hot. If the windows are opened to air the rooms the men get cold,” answered Peter.
“Strong is a little fussy, I am afraid, Mr. Coddington,” interrupted Mr. Tyler. “The conditions are the same as they always have been—the same as they are in most mills. The men can go home at noon if they like.”
“But they can’t get home, and eat anything, and get back here, all within an hour,” objected Peter. “Besides, they are often too tired. It is much easier to stay right in the tannery. Of course in warm weather we have the park and can go outside, so then we are all right; but during the winter——”
“That will do, Strong,” cut in Mr. Tyler. “Remember your time is up this week. What’s your name?” The superintendent turned severely on Nat.
“Jackson.”
“Oh, yes—Jackson. You are the boy who was hurt.”
Nat nodded.
“I am sorry to see that you are making such a poor return to the company for its kindness to you. It is unfortunate all around. But we cannot havethe rules of the tannery broken. Mr. Coddington will, I am sure, agree with me there.”
“Undoubtedly, Tyler. Any person who is at fault should be punished. In this particular case, however, just whoisat fault? If, as the lads say, they have nowhere to go at noon, is the fault wholly theirs if they seek a remedy from their discomfort? Suppose we suspend their sentence until we investigate the conditions and simply caution them not to repeat the offense. Had these empty cases not been left here by some negligent persons seclusion would have been impossible. Somebody beside the boys was to blame. Order the boxes removed and drop the matter.”
Without another word Mr. Coddington stalked toward the elevator and the men who accompanied him had no choice but to follow.
Peter and Nat breathed a sigh of relief.
There had been but a hair’s breadth between them and a discharge from the tannery! To Peter the danger was not a very real one, but Nat, who was in ignorance of the true facts, was pale with fright.
“Whew, Peter! That was a close call,” he stammered. “A narrow squeak! But for Mr. Coddington we should both have been fired. I don’t know what I should have done if I had lost my place. It was mighty good of him to give us another chance, wasn’t it?”
“Mr. Coddington is all right, you can bet your life on that!” agreed Peter heartily. “It was lucky, though, that he was here.”
Still aglow with excitement, the boys flew down over the stairs and took up their work, making no further allusion to the incident.
But that night when Peter got home his father called him into the library and motioning to a chair before the open fire, observed dryly:
“Your friend Strong had a narrow escape to-day, Peter.”
“Yes, sir. But for you he would have lost his job.”
“I’m afraid so,” the president nodded. “Since noon I have been thinking the matter over. What Strong said brought things before me in an entirely new light. I don’t think I ever realized before some of the conditions at the tanneries.”
Peter waited.
“If it were possible—mind, I do not say it could be done—but if a scheme could be worked out to make a big sort of rest room where the men could go at noon do you think that would obviate the difficulties of my employees? Would it prevent them from converting packing-cases into lunch rooms?”
“You mean a big room with tables and chairs where the men could go and eat their lunch, Father?”
“Something of the sort. Perhaps there could be magazines and books there, too.”
“Hurrah! It’s a splendid plan. When will you do it, Father?” cried Peter.
“I didn’t say I was going to do it at all. I merely asked you to find out your friend Strong’s opinion. Do you know, some of Strong’s ideas are not so bad. Ask him if a room such as I describe would be as satisfactory to him as the packing-box lunch room from which he and his friend Jackson were to-day ejected.”
“Of course Strong will like it!”
“I think I will give the orders, then. That vacant floor may as well be used for this purpose as any other. We shall not want it at present, and if we ever need more room we must devise some other way. I’ve a fancy, somehow, to call the new venture the Strong Reading-Room.”
Peter started to speak.
“Purely as a joke, you know,” went on Mr. Coddington, waving his hand. “Just as a reminder to Strong how very near he came to losing his position.”
Mr. Coddington glanced up humorously; then he chuckled and so did Peter.
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PETER AIDS IN A SURPRISE AND RECEIVES ONE
A
LL the next few months corps of men worked secretly transforming into a reading-room the great vacant place, which, on that memorable day, Peter and Nat had appropriated as a lunch room. Carpenters laid the new floor and stained it; painters tinted the walls a soft green; masons constructed a hospitable fireplace. One end of the room was furnished with tiers of book-shelves, tables, chairs, and reading lights; the other was dotted with a myriad of small tables for the use of those who wished to lunch at the factories.
Then one Sunday afternoon when everythingwas completed Peter and his father made a clandestine trip to the tannery and admitting themselves, crept up-stairs where Mr. Coddington unlocked the door of the “forbidden chamber.” The whole room glowed with sunshine which flooded the polished floors and reflected its brightness in the shiny brass andirons adorning the fireplace.
Peter, who had not seen the place since it was finished, exclaimed with delight.
“You are satisfied then, Peter?” inquired his father, enjoying his pleasure. “Do you think there is anything else that your friend Strong would suggest?”
The lad looked critically about.
“Only one thing, and perhaps that is not necessary after all. But doesn’t it seem to you that the space over the fireplace needs a picture or something? It looks so bare!”
“A picture! I had not thought of that. Yes, I see what you mean.”
“Just one picture,” went on Peter. “Something that will show well from this end of the room when people come in.”
“Yes, it would certainly be a distinct improvement. We’ll have a picture there.”
Peter raised his eyes shyly to his father’s face.
“I think it would be nice,” he said, “to have a picture of you.”
“A picture of me! Pooh, pooh! Nonsense! The men see me often enough—too often, I fancy. Remember they do not care for me as you do. No, indeed! I could not think of sticking my own portrait up in my tanneries. I shouldn’t want to see it myself.”
“I don’t suppose you would,” admitted Peter, reluctantly.
“But we’ll have a picture there all the same, Peter. Will you trust me to select it?”
“Of course I will. Just get something to do with sheep or horses—something that the men will enjoy and understand.”
Mr. Coddington smiled down into the eager face.
“I guess I can find a picture the men will like; it may take a little while, though, to get just the right thing. Had we better throw open the roomnow without it, or wait until everything is complete?”
“Oh, wait! Wait!” was Peter’s plea. “Do not open it until everything is done! We do not need to use the place at this season of the year anyway, because the weather is now so warm that every one goes to the park at noon. The secret can be kept until fall, can’t it?”
“Yes, indeed. Nobody, with the exception of Mr. Tyler and the workmen, knows about the room; and they are pledged not to tell.”
Accordingly the shades of the new reading-room were lowered, it was securely locked, and the key put into Mr. Coddington’s pocket.
As the hammering that had for so long echoed through the factory ceased queries concerning the noise and the mission of the carpenters died away. Even Peter himself forgot about the great mystery, for the ball season was now on and in addition to its engrossing interests he and Nat were transferred to Factory 3 where they became much absorbed in the tanning of cowhides. Here again the preparation of the leather took them back to thebeamhouse with its familiar processes of liming, unhairing, puering and tanning. Was there never to be an end to beamhouses, Peter wondered.
“No sooner do we get out of one and find ourselves happy at some clean, decent work than off we go to another! I am about tired of beamhouses!” wailed Peter.
Nevertheless the two boys stuck resolutely to the beamhouse and to tanning cowhides.
At Factory 3 there also were tanned other light weight hides that underwent a chrome process of tannage rather than the oak or hemlock processes used at the sole leather plant at Elmwood.
It seemed to Peter that he had never dreamed there were so many creatures in the whole world until he began to handle the shipments of hides that came to the factory to be tanned.
“Do all these skins come from the ranches of our own country?” he inquired one day when, from the window, he saw a train of heavily laden freight cars come rolling into the yard. “Why, I shouldn’t think there would be a single live animal left in America.”
“There wouldn’t,” replied the boss good-naturedly. “No, indeed. Only a small part of the hides tanned here and at the Elmwood tanneries come from our ranches. The United States cannot begin to produce hides enough to fill the demand. Therefore we import a great many from abroad as well as from South America. When a shipment arrives the skins are sorted: the cowhides and those to be tanned in chrome coming here, and the heavy skins and those to be tanned in oak or hemlock being sent on to Elmwood, where all the sole leather is made. The hides vary in weight, ranging from twenty-five to sixty pounds. There are skins of steers, horses, buffaloes, walrus, bulls, and oxen. The strongest and most perfect ones are made into belting to run the machinery of factories. Leather for this purpose, as you can easily see, must be of equal strength in every part to withstand the great strain put upon it. Some factories turn out belting and nothing else. Other heavy hides are tanned into sole leather for harnesses, bags, trunks, and the soles of shoes. Then there are lots of hides which arenot perfect. These are the skins of branded cattle and steers. You know, of course, that on many of the ranches the stock is branded so that it can be easily identified in case it is lost. These branded hides have flaws or thin places in them and are not so valuable in consequence.”
“I can see that,” assented Peter. “What is done with such leather?”
“Well, it is usually tanned in oak, or in a blend of oak and hemlock known as union tan, and is sold for purposes where less strength will be demanded of it than if it were made into belting.”
Peter nodded.
“Oh, there are lots of interesting things to learn about hides. Why, you wouldn’t believe, now would you, that the way the animals live would make a difference in the weight of their skins? Yet it is so. Cattle raised in stalls and supplied regularly with good food have far better hides than those that range the fields and are forced to forage for the scant rations found there. Wild cattle, on the other hand, have much tougher hides than do domesticated animals.”
“It’s curious, isn’t it?” replied Peter.
“Yes, it is,” the foreman answered. “Two factors always go hand in hand in the making of a fine leather. One is the quality of the hide itself; and the other is the way in which it is tanned. For the tanning liquid, you know, reacts on the fibres of the skin in such a way that the material becomes tougher, closer grained, and more pliable. Here again you are back to the importance of the beamhouse processes.”
All these items of information Peter and Nat added to their accumulating fund. Through the long summer they worked hard, classifying all they learned and collecting more as one gathers up snow by rolling a snowball.
Then came the fall, with its frosts of ever increasing heaviness. The park flowers drooped; baseball failed to drive the cold from chilled fingers; and lunching in the open had to be abandoned. It was then that notices were posted in all the tanneries saying that at noon on a certain day the president of the Coddington Company desired to meet his men in the vacant room of Factory 2.
Peter’s heart beat high!
At last the secret of the reading-room was to be made public!
Would the men like their new quarters, he wondered. What an absurd speculation! Of course they would.
Yet it was not without some anxiety that, in company with Nat, Peter made his way to Factory 2 the moment the noon whistle blew on that great day. A tide of workmen moved hither with him. On every hand they poured in through the doors and streamed up the stairways. The two boys followed. Everybody was speculating as to what the president could want. Then, as the vanguard of the crowd reached the fifth floor, Peter heard a rush of sound—cheers and cries of surprise. The mystery, so long guarded, stood revealed!
A lump rose in the lad’s throat. The men were pleased, and his father, who had spent so much time and money on the carrying out of this project, would consider himself more than repaid for all he had done. Poor Peter! He almost felt personallyresponsible that the men should appreciate his father’s kindness. So anxious had he been that had those hundreds of voices not risen with just the spontaneity they did it would have broken his heart. But the cheers swelled from the scores of throats with a heartiness not to be questioned.
Silently he and Nat pushed their way into the crowded room. Far away in the glow of a blazing fire Peter could see his father, wreathed in smiles, talking with Mr. Tyler. And it was just at that moment that the boy remembered about the picture which was to have been purchased and raised his eyes curiously to the space over the fireplace. To his chagrin the spot was covered with a piece of green cambric. The picture his father had promised to buy had not come! For a fraction of a second Peter sobered with disappointment; then in the excitement of the cheering he forgot all about it.
In answer to shouts and cheers Mr. Coddington stepped forward and raised his hand.
There was instant stillness.
“It gives me great pleasure to see that you likethe room,” said he, simply, “and I am grateful to you for so heartily expressing your approval. But before we go further I feel it is only honest to confess to you that it is neither the Coddington Company nor myself that you should thank for this new library. Shall I tell you how you chanced to have it?”
“Yes! Yes!” came from all over the room.
Then in humorous fashion Mr. Coddington sketched the tale of two boys and an interrupted luncheon, drawing a vivid picture of how the lads had been unceremoniously tumbled to the floor out of their stronghold in the packing-boxes. Mr. Coddington had a gift for telling a story and he told this one with consummate skill.
At its conclusion there was a general laugh.
“Those boys are with us to-day,” continued the president. “They are not strangers to you. One of them is Nat Jackson, whom you all know well, and the other—the lad who furnished me with the inspiration for this venture is——”
Instantly the curtain over the fireplace was withdrawn.
“Peter Strong!” cried the men.
It was indeed Peter who smiled down on the throng from out the broad gilt frame! Not Peter Coddington of the fashionable “west side,”—the son and heir of the president of the company, but Peter Strong—Peter in faded jumper and with the collar of his shirt turned away so that one could see where the firm young head rose out of it; Peter with hair tumbled, cheeks flushed from hard work, and his eyes shining as they always shone when he was happy; Peter Strong—the Peter the men knew and loved!
The boy himself looked on, bewildered. Well he knew the source of the portrait. It had evidently been copied from a snap-shot Nat had taken of him one day when the two were coming out of the beamhouse. His father’s delay in finding a suitable picture was also now explained. He had had to wait for the portrait to be painted.
Nat, who was watching Peter’s face with no small degree of amusement, now whispered:
“I kept one secret from you anyhow, Peter. Mr. Coddington came to see us one evening lastspring and asked if I had any kodak picture of you, explaining what he wanted it for. So I let him look over what I had and he chose this one. It’s fine, isn’t it?”
“Why, I don’t know,” stammered Peter. “I—I’m so flabbergasted I——”
Nat laughed.
All this time the men were cheering and now cries of “Peter Strong!” “Peter Strong!” rent the air.
The unlucky Peter, who was vainly trying to flatten himself against the wall and hide in Nat’s shadow, was dragged forth by Carmachel and made to stand upon a table, from which elevation he waved his hand to the men and then, ducking suddenly, buried himself once more in the crowd.
After waiting a little while for the tumult to subside Mr. Coddington again began to speak—this time in a low, uncertain voice:
“I see you all recognize the portrait. It is Peter Strong as you have met and known him. Yet we can never tell what the future will unfold. If it chanced that time should bring to this lad acareer fraught with greater responsibilities than he now holds I want you to remember that he came into the works a boy, like many of you; that he was one with you in play as well as in work; that he toiled at the hardest tasks, never shunning what was difficult or disagreeable; that he was, is, and I hope will always be, your comrade—the product of the Coddington tanneries.”
With a bow and a smile to the silent crowd before him the president withdrew. Then as the workmen turned to disperse a few clear words from some one in the throng behind caught Peter’s ear:
“It’s more than likely the president means to push Strong along to the top of the ladder. He is mightily interested in the boy; anybody can see that. Mayhap the lad will make up to him for his own son who, I’ve heard say, is a lazy little snob and a great disappointment to his father.”