"That's the way with most of us," was the superintendent's kindly answer. "We accept many things in the world without actually knowing much about them, and it is not until something brings our ignorance before us that we take the pains to focus our attention and learn about them. So do not be ashamed that you do not know about sugar raising; I didn't when I was your age. Suppose, then, I give you a little idea of what happens before this raw sugar can come to us."
"I wish you would," exclaimed both boys in a breath.
"Probably in your school geographies you have seen pictures of sugar-cane and know that it is a tall perennial not unlike our Indian corn in appearance; it has broad, flat leaves that sometimes measure as many as three feet in length, and often the stalk itself is twenty feet high. This stalk is jointed like a bamboo pole, the joints being about three inches apart near the roots and increasing in distance the higher one gets from the ground."
"How do they plant it?" Bob asked.
"It can be planted from seed, but this method takes much time and patience; the usual way is to plant it from cuttings, or slips. The first growth from these cuttings is called plant cane; after these are taken off the roots send out ratoons or shoots from which the crop of one or two years, and sometimes longer, is taken. If the soil is not rich and moist replanting is more frequently necessary and in places like Louisiana, where there is annual frost, planting must be done each year. When the cane is ripe it is cut and brought from the field to a central sugar mill, where heavy iron rollers crush from it all the juice. This liquid drips through into troughs from which it is carried to evaporators where the water portion of the sap is eliminated and the juice left; you would be surprised if you were to see this liquid. It looks like nothing so much as the soapy, bluish-gray dish-water that is left in the pan after the dishes have been washed."
"A tempting picture!" Van exclaimed.
"I know it. Sugar isn't very attractive during its process of preparation," agreed Mr. Hennessey. "The sweet liquid left after the water has been extracted is then poured into vacuum pans to be boiled until the crystals form in it, after which it is put into whirling machines, called centrifugal machines, that separate the dry sugar from the syrup with which it is mixed. This syrup is later boiled into molasses. The sugar is then dried and packed in these burlap sacks such as you see here, or in hogsheads, and shipped to refineries to be cleansed and whitened."
"Isn't any of the sugar refined in the places where it grows?" queried Bob.
"Practically none. Large refining plants are too expensive to be erected everywhere; it therefore seems better that they should be built in our large cities, where the shipping facilities are good not only for receiving sugar in its raw state but for distributing it after it has been refined and is ready for sale. Here, too, machinery can more easily be bought and the business handled with less difficulty."
"You spoke of a central sugar mill," began Bob.
"Yes. Each plantation does not have a mill of its own or, indeed, need one. Frequently a planter will raise too small a crop to pay him to operate a mill; so a mill is constructed in the center of a sugar district, and to this growers may carry their wares and be paid in bulk. It saves much trouble and expense. It also encourages small growers who could not afford to build mills and might in consequence abandon sugar raising. The leaves are all stripped off before the cane is shipped so that nothing but the stalks are sent. As the largest portion of sugar is in the part of the cane nearest the ground it is cut as close to the root as possible. After the juice has been crushed from the stalks by putting them several times through the rollers the cane, orbegass, as it is called, is so dry that it can be used as fuel for running the mill machinery."
"How clever!"
"Clever and economical as well," agreed Mr. Hennessey. "Moreover, it does away with a waste product that otherwise would accumulate."
Bob nodded.
"Raw sugar has usually been shipped to the northern refineries by water, as that mode of transportation is cheaper; but during the Great War ships have been so scarce that in 1916 a large consignment of Hawaiian sugar was for the first time sent overland across the American continent by train; this of course made the freight rates higher, and if such a condition were to continue the price of sugar would of necessity have to be advanced."
"I never thought of such things affecting us," murmured Van.
"We live in a network of interdependence," Mr. Hennessey replied. "Scarcely anything can be done in any land that does not affect us. Commercial conditions react upon us all, for there is not one of us who is not indebted to the four corners of the globe for what he eats, wears, and uses. Therefore, you see, world prosperity and comfort can be at their height only when there is world peace under which all nations are friends, maintaining cordial trade relation with one another."
"What political party do you belong to, Mr. Hennessey?" asked Bob, glancing into the superintendent's earnest face.
"I do not know just what label you would put on me," the big man replied evasively. "But this I do know: first, last, and all the time I am for a universe where each country shall work for the good of the whole."
He spoke slowly and with impressiveness; then breaking off abruptly he led the way up a winding iron staircase and the boys, still pondering his words, followed him silently and thoughtfully.
The room into which they emerged was at the top of the factory, and it was here in great vats that the dry sugar was melted.
"We often melt down as many as two million pounds of raw sugar a day," said Mr. Hennessey. "The United States, you know, is the greatest sugar consuming nation in the world. No other country devours so much of it. One reason is because here even the poorer classes have money enough so they can afford sugar for household use; in many countries this is not the case. Only the well-to-do take sugar in tea or coffee and have it for common use. Our Americans also eat quantities of candy. At the present time children eat three times as many sweets as did their parents, and the amount is constantly increasing. Doctors tell us sugar is one of the fuels necessary to the human system; it generates both heat and energy. Possibly it is because our people work so hard and are driven at such high nervous tension that they demand so much of this sort of food."
"I never knew before that candy was good for us," ejaculated Bob in surprise.
"Oh, bless you, yes! But you must take it in moderation if you wish to benefit from it and escape illness. Used intelligently sugar is an excellent food, but of course you must prescribe it for yourself in the proper proportions," laughed Mr. Hennessey. "We all constantly take more or less sugar into our systems through the ordinary foods we eat. But here in America over and above this each individual annually averages about eighty pounds of sugar. You will agree that that is a good deal."
"I should think so! Why, that is a tremendous amount!" Van declared.
"It seems so when you see it in figures, doesn't it?" returned the superintendent. "Next to the United States in sugar consumption comes England, the reason for this being that the English manufacture such vast amounts of jam for the market. England is a great fruit growing country, you must remember. The damp, moderate climate results in wonderful strawberries, gooseberries, plums, and other small fruits. With these products cheap, fine, and plenty, the English have taken up fruit canning as one of their industries, and they turn out some of the best jams and marmalades that are made."
The boys listened intently.
"The Germans and the French are much more frugal than we Americans," went on Mr. Hennessey. "Sugar is not so common in their countries. Often when in Germany you will notice people in the restaurants and cafés who carry away in their pockets the loaf sugar which has been allotted them and which they have not had occasion to use. It is a common occurrence, and considered quite proper, although it looks strange to us. Doubtless, too, if you have traveled abroad you have discovered how few candy shops there are. Foreigners regard the wholesale fashion in which we devour sweets with wonder and often with disgust. They consider it a form of self-indulgence, and indeed I myself think we are at times a bit immoderate."
"My father says we are an immoderate people," Van put in.
"I am afraid he is right," nodded Mr. Hennessey. "We seem to proceed on the principle that if a thing is good we must have a great deal of it. However, the vice—if vice it be—is good for the sugar business."
He paused a moment and stood looking down into the great foaming vats before him.
"You can't see the steam coils that are melting this raw sugar," he remarked. "They go round the inside of the tanks. But after the liquid is drawn off you can see them. When first melted the sugar is far from pure; you would be astonished at the amount of dirt mixed with it. Many of these impurities boil up to the surface and over and over again we skim them off. But even after that we have to wash the sugar by various processes. After it has been separated, clarified, and filtered it comes out a clear white liquid, and is ready for the vacuum pans, where the water is evaporated and the sugar crystallized."
"How do you get the liquid clear?" asked Bob.
"After it has been skimmed as carefully as possible we first settle it through the agency of chemicals," answered Mr. Hennessey. "We use milk of lime as a foundation, but we put other things with it. Our exact formula is a secret, but since you are in the family I guess there would be no objection to my telling you that we use—-"
"Don't tell us! Don't tell us!" cried Van suddenly. "I don't want to know. I'd rather not. I mustn't listen."
Covering his ears the boy turned away.
His companions regarded him with amazement.
"Don't tell me, Mr. Hennessey," he pleaded. "Don't tell me anything that is secret. I can't listen. It wouldn't be right."
It was evident both to the superintendent and to Bob that his distress was real, and although neither of them understood it Mr. Hennessey cut short his explanation.
Try as they would the strange interruption left a jarring note behind it, and to ease the tenseness the older man stepped forward and, taking from a rack near by one of several glass tubes filled with yellow liquid, held it up to the light.
"You see much must still be done to this stuff before it comes out white," he said. "We squeeze the liquid through a series of filter bags and also send it through other filters filled with black bone coal."
"What is black bone coal?" Bob demanded.
"Bone coal is a product made by burning and pulverizing the large bones left at the abbatoirs until a coarse-grained black powder not unlike emery sand is made; if this is not allowed to become too fine with using it is an excellent sugar filter. In fact, strangely enough, nothing has ever been found to take its place, and it has become a necessary but expensive agency employed in every sugar refinery. Quantities of it are used; in our refinery alone we have about a hundred bone coal filters and each one holds thirty tons of black bone coal. That will give you some idea how much of it is needed. We get nothing back on it, either, for in the process of using it becomes finer, and after that it is good for nothing unless, perhaps, to be made into cheap shoe-dressing. Unlike many of the other industries sugar refining has no by-products; by that I mean nothing on which the manufacturer may recover money. On the contrary in the leather business, for example, almost every scrap of material can either be utilized or sold for cash; odds and ends of the hides go into glue stock, small bits of leather are made into heel-taps or hardware fittings. But in refining cane-sugar there is nothing to be turned back into money to reimburse the manufacturer for his outlay. What isn't sugar is dead loss."
The three now moved on and saw how the heated juice traveled by means of pipes from one vat to another, and how it constantly became thicker and clearer.
"One of the greatest dangers to successful sugar making is fermentation," observed Mr. Hennessey. "Sugar must continually be stirred by revolving paddles to keep it from fermenting; we also are obliged to take the greatest care that our vats and all other receptacles are clean, and that the plant is immaculate. Frequently we wash down all the walls with a solution of lime in order that the entire interior of the refinery may be quite fresh."
"I didn't dream it was so much work to make white sugar," ventured Bob, a little awed. "Our maple-sugar making was much simpler."
"I'll venture to say it was," agreed Mr. Hennessey. "In the first place, you did not make such a quantity of it; then you did not try to get it white. Furthermore, you were content to take it in cakes. Making cane-sugar is, however, easy enough if one is careful and knows the exact way to do it. There is plenty of opportunity to spoil it—I'll admit that; but it is seldom that a batch of our sugar goes back on us. We have fine chemists who watch every step of the process and who constantly test samples of the liquid at every stage into which it passes until it comes out water-white."
"And then?"
"Then follows crystallization, and this too requires skilled workmen and extreme care. The water is evaporated and the sugar crystallized in the vacuum pans, the size crystal depending upon the temperature at which the liquid is boiled. It takes a lower temperature to form a small crystal and a higher one to form a large crystal. An expert who takes the temperature of the boiling sugar regulates what we call fine-grain or coarse-grain sugar by regulating the size of the crystals. By drawing off some of the liquid and examining it on a glass slide by electric light he can tell the precise moment at which the crystals are the right size. Each size has a name by which it is known in the trade: Diamond A; Fine Granulated; Coarse Granulated; Crystal Domino; Confectioners' A and so on."
They were walking as Mr. Hennessey talked. "After the sugar has been crystallized in the pans it passes into a mixer, where it is stirred and kept from caking until it is put into the centrifugal machines, which actually spin off the crystals. These machines are lined with gauze, and as they whirl at tremendous velocity they force out through this gauze the liquid part of the sugar and leave the sugar crystals inside the machine. When these are quite dry the bottom of the receptacle opens, and the granular sugar is dropped through into a large bin."
"But I should think it would stick together," objected Van.
"That's an intelligent objection, my boy," declared Mr. Hennessey, much pleased at Van's grasp of the subject. "It would stick if it were not dried off by a degree of heat just right to keep the particles separate and not allow them to cake. After this any dust or dirt adhering to the sugar is blown off by an air blast. The product is then ready to be pressed into moulds or cut; boxed in small packages of varying weights; or put into bags or barrels."
Mr. Hennessey led the way to another floor of the refinery.
[Illustration: "I SHOULD THINK IT WOULD STICK TOGETHER."]
Here were automatic machines upon which empty boxes traveled along until they reached a device that filled each one with the exact number of pounds to be contained in it, the package afterward passed to women who sealed it tightly and gave it the final touch before it was shipped. Other women were packing loaf or domino sugar, while down-stairs in a cooper shop men moved about constructing with great rapidity the barrels that were to carry larger quantities of sugar to the wholesale and retail stores.
"I guess by this time you've had all the sugar-making you want for one day," declared the superintendent. "I'm afraid I've given you quite a stiff lesson. You see I am so interested in it myself that I forget to have mercy on my listeners."
He smiled down at the boys.
"I'm sure we have had a fine morning with you, Mr. Hennessey, and we certainly have learned a lot," Bob said, putting out his hand. "I can't swear, though, that we could make white sugar even now."
"Faith, I'd be sorry if I thought I could teach any one the whole process in three hours. It would make my twenty years of study and hard work brand me as pretty stupid," chuckled the big superintendent.
It was not until the boys were in the motor-car and returning home that Bob ventured to mention to Van his strange behavior of the morning.
"What on earth was the matter with you, Van?" he asked.
Van stirred uneasily.
"Bobbie," he said, "I'm going to tell you something. I've been wondering whether I'd better or not, and at last I've decided to. I didn't want to go to your father's refinery to-day or, in fact, at all. You've all been very kind to me, although it was not until I got a letter from my father this morning that I realized how kind."
He paused.
"Has your dad told you anything about my people?" he asked abruptly. "Of course he knows, but he may have thought best to keep it to himself; at any rate it has not prevented him from giving me as cordial a welcome to your home as he would if—"
"If what?"
"Well, if I weren't the person I am."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, he's trusted me and treated me as if he really liked me; and yet under the circumstances you can't expect him actually to mean it."
"Mean what? What are you talking about?"
"Hasn't he spoken to you about my father?"
"Of course not; why should he?"
"Then you haven't heard anything?"
"Not a word. I don't understand what you are driving at at all," Bob declared, somewhat irritated. "Out with it. What's the matter?"
Van hesitated as if uncertain how to begin.
"That's mighty white of your father," he murmured, breaking the pause. "You see, it is this way. When I wrote home that I was going to New Hampshire to visit my roommate the family wrote me to go ahead. I recall now that I didn't mention your last name; in fact I guess I haven't in any of my letters. When I did happen to write (which wasn't often) I've always spoken of you asBob. So when I got to Allenville I dropped a line to Father to say I'd arrived safely and in the note I put something about Mr. Carlton. Father lit on it right away; he wished to know who these Carltons were. I replied they were Mr. and Mrs. Carlton, of course—the parents of my roommate. Upon that I got another letter from home in which Father inquired if your father was in the sugar business, and said that years ago he used to have a partner named James Carlton, who started in the sugar trade with him and with whom he later quarreled. He supposed this could not be the same person, but he just wondered if by any chance it was."
Van stopped.
"Was that all he said?"
"No, but I don't like to tell you the rest, Bobbie."
"Fire away—unless it is something about Dad," Bob replied. "If it is I shan't listen, or at least I shan't believe it."
"It isn't exactly against your father. I do not understand it very well myself. My father just said that if your father was Mr. James Carlton and he was in the sugar business he felt that because of family misunderstandings it would be better if I did not visit here again. He was very sorry I had done it this time, but of course that could not be helped now."
"You don't mean to say he wants you to break off your friendship with me?" Bob gasped tremulously.
"No, he didn't seem to be opposed to you; he just was hot at your dad. He added that he didn't believe your family could have known who I was when they asked me here, and I am afraid that's true, Bobbie."
"Why, of course they knew! Haven't I spoken of you over and over again?" Bob protested indignantly.
Van shook his head.
"They knew I was your chum all right, Bob; but so far as details were concerned your family did not know much more about me than mine knew about you. Don't you recall how, when I arrived at Allenville, your father asked if I was one of theSugar Blakes—Asa Blake's son?"
"Yes, I do remember that now, but—"
"That, you will recollect, was after I was landed at Allenville and your guest. Your father didn't know until that moment who I was, and when he found out he was too decent to say anything, or make it evident he didn't want me in the house. What could he do?"
"But—but—"
Bob broke off from sheer inability to continue. He was much too bewildered.
"Your father sensed the awkwardness of the situation at once. Here you had gone to school and as ill luck would have it you had picked from out the entire bunch of boys the son of his worst enemy for a chum. Neither your father nor mine realized the truth until you innocently carted me home with you for a holiday visit. When your father found out the fact he was too polite to turn me out-of-doors; he just acted the gentleman and made the best of a bad dilemma," explained Van with appalling convincingness. "He even had the goodness to save my life the day we got lost on one of your New Hampshire mountains. He didn't tell you any of this because he didn't want to spoil your pleasure; but I am certain that if he had known who I was before I came he would not have allowed you to ask me into your home."
"Nonsense! You are way off. Why, he's been as interested in having you with us as I have; at least he has acted so."
"Actedis just the word," Van cut in. "He has acted, all right. I guess you'll find he's been acting all the time. Honor bright, hasn't he said anything to you about me?"
"No, not one word." Then suddenly Bob flushed; the memory of his father's strange conversation about the boy's visit to the refinery rushed over him. "Dad did say one thing which I did not understand at the time," he confessed reluctantly. "Perhaps, though, he did not mean anything by it."
"What was it?"
Bob struggled to evade the issue.
"Oh, it was nothing much."
"Come, Bobbie, you and I are friends," interrupted Van, "and we want to keep on being friends no matter how our fathers feel toward one another. If they have quarreled it is a great pity, but at least we needn't. The only way to straighten out this tangle is to be honest with each other and get at the truth; then, and not until then shall we know where we stand."
"You're a brick, Van!"
"Come ahead then—let's have it. What was it your father said?"
"He merely asked whether it was your plan or mine to visit the refinery, and when I told him I suggested it he inquired all over again if I was sure you did not mention it first," Bob returned in very low tone. The words seemed wrung from him, and he colored as he repeated them.
"Was that all?"
"Not quite. After I had convinced him that the trip was my own idea he said: 'Well, well—it can do no harm; the process is an open secret, anyway.'"
"You see I was right in my guess as to his feelings, Bobbie."
"Maybe."
"Of course I was; this proves it."
"I'm afraid so," whispered Bob miserably.
"Now all this may explain to you why I was so queer when we were at the refinery this morning," Van continued, once more reverting to the subject. "Do you understand it any better?"
"I can see you didn't want Mr. Hennessey to tell you much about his processes."
"You bet I didn't. I was in an awful hole. I got that letter from my father just before we left the house, and I was all upset over it. I didn't know what to do. It was bad enough to be visiting you without being shown all through your father's business plant as if I were an honored guest. It didn't seem as if I ought to go at all. If your father knew who I was he certainly couldn't want me to; and if he didn't it was worse yet. At first I thought the only honorable thing was to go straight to him and have it out; but I found I hadn't the nerve. Then I thought I'd ride with you to the factory and not go in. What I dreaded was that we might run into something that I should have no right to see, and that was precisely what happened."
"So that was the reason you stopped Mr. Hennessey when he started to tell us the chemical formula?"
"Yes. He said it was a secret, and it seemed to me it would be wrong for me to listen. If I didn't know what that formula was I certainly couldn't tell it, and ignorance might help me out of an awkward position if any one should try to persuade me to."
"You are a trump, old man."
"It was only the square thing toward your father; he has been straight with me and I want to show him that I can be a gentleman, too."
The boys were silent for an interval; then Bob said:
"Now about this snarl, Van—what are we going to do? Certainly we fellows are not going to let this feud of our fathers affect us."
"Not by a jugful!" retorted Van with spirit. "The thing for us to do is to go right on being friends as if nothing had happened. It will make it all the easier that your father knows just who I am, and my father knows exactly who you are; it is franker and more in the open to have it so. If worse comes to worse we can talk the whole thing out with our families, and tell them how we feel. I am sure both your father and mine are too big to spoil a friendship like ours because of some fuss they had years and years ago. No, sir! I'm going to hold on to you, Bobbie, and," he added shyly, "I'm going to hold on to your father, too, if he'll let me, for I like him."
"I'm glad you like Dad," Bob said, flushing with pleasure. "I do myself."
"My dad isn't so bad, either," Van ventured with a dry little smile. "Some time you shall see for yourself."
"I hope so."
"Then it is agreed that we'll stick together, no matter what happens," said Van solemnly.
"Sure thing!"
"Promise."
"You may bank on me," was Bob's earnest answer.
As the boys sat at dinner that evening Mr. Carlton inquired about their trip to the refinery, and with a humorous twinkle in his eye added:
"I do not suppose you would care to put in another day on factory visiting, would you?"
"What do you mean, Dad?" asked Bob.
"I was wondering whether you would like to see where some of our sugar goes," was his father's answer. "Would you be interested to take a tour through the Eureka Candy Factory to-morrow and learn how candy is made?"
"I should," responded Bob promptly.
"And you, Van?" demanded Mr. Carlton with a kindly smile.
"I'd like it of all things," said Van, returning the smile frankly.
"Very well. You shall spend to-morrow at the Eureka Company's factory. They are big customers of ours and when I telephoned them today they told me they would be glad to have you come, and promised to show you all about."
"Are you sure they would want me to come, Mr. Carlton?" asked Van, looking squarely into the eyes of the older man.
"Why not? You're a chum of Bob's, aren't you?"
"Yes. But, you see, that isn't all."
With one searching glance Mr. Carlton scanned the lad's face.
"No, Van," he replied with quiet emphasis, "that is not all. You are more than Bob's chum—you are a friend of mine, too."
The boy flushed.
"I'd like to think so, Mr. Carlton."
"I want you to know so, Van. I happened to see Mr. Hennessey," he went on in a lower tone, "and he related to me that incident at the factory. Of course he did not understand it, but I did—instantly. I appreciated your sense of honor, my boy."
"I wanted to be square."
"You were a gentleman in the very best sense of the word."
A great gladness glowed in Van's eyes, for terse as was the phrase it bore to him the very recognition he had coveted from Bob's father. Mr. Carlton, however, did not enlarge upon the subject, but casting it swiftly into the background asked:
"Are you sure you both would rather spend your last morning in New York going through a candy factory than doing anything else? Factories are tiresome places, you must remember."
"But a candy factory could never be tiresome!" asserted Bob.
His father laughed.
"There are just as many miles in a candy factory as any other," he replied. "Any of the men who work there would tell you that, I fancy."
"But they are such nice miles!" argued Bob. "Don't you say we go, Van?"
"I sure do. I want to see how they dip chocolates," Van answered.
"It's all aboard to-morrow morning, then," Mr. Carlton said as he lit his after-dinner cigar.
"There's one thing, Dad, that it's only fair to warn you about," called Bob, turning on the lowest step of the stairway to address his father. "Our expedition may cost you something. You see they probably won't let us eat any candy at the factory; we'll just have to walk round with our eyes open and our hands crammed into our pockets to keep from swiping it. All the time we'll be getting up a tremendous candy appetite, and the minute we get outside we'll just have to make a bee-line for the first candy shop in sight and get filled up. So you must be prepared to cash in for refreshments."
The corners of Mr. Carlton's mouth twisted into an enigmatic smile.
"I'll agree to pay for as much candy as you care to eat," he said, accepting the challenge without objection.
Bob stared at him.
"Do you mean it?"
"Certainly. Why do you question it?"
"But"—faltered Bob in amazement, "you never promised anything like that before."
"I may never promise it again, so make the most of it," was the dry retort.
Although Bob did not reply he by no means forgot the unprecedented offer, and that the memory of it might be equally fresh in his father's mind he spoke of it once again when the three parted the next morning.
"Well, Dad, we're off for the Bonbon World," he called as he passed the library door where his father sat looking over the morning's mail. "Remember you are going to O.K. any candy bills we run up."
"I'm backing you for all you can eat," nodded Mr. Carlton.
"Dad sure is game!" Bob declared as he and Van stepped into the waiting motor-car and began their ride to the factory. "He'll play it out, too. He never goes back on his word."
"I'm afraid he'll be in for something then," grinned Van.
Both boys were more than ever convinced of the truth of this remark when they entered the factory and were greeted by the mingled aroma of chocolate, wintergreen and molasses.
"I could eat ten pounds of chocolates this minute!" exclaimed Van.
"Go easy. Remember, we've got to wait until we have made the entire tour of this factory before we can have so much as a single caramel. You mustn't go getting up your appetite so soon."
"But smell it, Bobbie! Why, the whole place is one mellifluous smudge. What do you say we chuck Colversham and get a job here? Think of having pounds of candy—tons of it—around all the time! Wouldn't it be a snap!"
Van was cut short in his rhapsody by the approach of a pleasant faced lad of about his own age who was dressed from head to foot in white and wore a little white cap, across the front of which was printed in gold letters the wordEureka.
"Are you Mr. Carlton?" he inquired of Van.
"I'm not, but my chum is."
"We were expecting you," the boy answered, turning to Bob. "I am to show you and your friend through the works. Will you kindly step this way?"
Tagging at the heels of their white-robed guide Bob and Van made their way through a large storeroom stacked to the ceiling with fancy boxes of various sizes, shapes, and colors.
"Give up Colversham, Bob, and maybe you could come here and wear a white suit every day and personally conduct visitors through the works; perhaps they'd even pay you in bonbons," whispered Van.
"He must be about our age," returned Bob. "I wonder what they pay him."
"I'd lots rather have had a man take us round," said Van softly. "Do you suppose this fellow knows anything?"
All the way up in the elevator the two visitors watched the white-suited boy curiously and when they alighted in the large, sun-flooded room at the top of the factory they were still speculating as to his age and how much he earned, and marveling that so young a representative should have been selected to explain to them the candy industry.
The room they entered was high and airy and at the further end of it, moving amid steam that rose from a score of copper kettles, a great many men in spotless white were hurrying about.
"It is here that we start our candy making," said the boy who was showing Bob about. "Into those copper kettles we put our mixture of confectioners' sugar—confectioners' A, we call it—and corn syrup; this combination forms the basis of almost every variety of candy made. The kettles, as you will see, are heated by gas, which gives a steady flame, and at the side of each one we have a thermometer by which we can tell the exact temperature of the mixture. There is also a glass disc set in the side of every kettle to enable us to watch the boiling. The sugar and corn syrup are melted together and cooked at the temperature which after repeated experiments has proved the most successful for our purpose—one that will neither burn nor stick, or make the cooled fondant too thin to keep its shape."
The boy spoke in the slow, measured tones of one who had told the tale many times before and was quite accustomed to his task.
Bob glanced at Van.
Their respect for the lad was rising.
"How much does one of these kettles hold?" Bob asked.
"About six hundred pounds."
"And you fill all of them every day?" demanded Van in astonishment.
"Several times over," was the answer. "It takes a lot of this ground material for the different kinds; some of it has other ingredients mixed with it later, and some is beaten, flavored, and colored for the fillings of chocolates."
"But who on earth eats so much candy?" ejaculated Bob.
"I don't know," responded the boy wearily. "I'm sure I don't."
"What?"
"I don't believe I'd touch a piece of candy for a hundred dollars," he continued. "I am sick of the sight of it. Candy from morning to night—candy, candy, candy! Candy everywhere! Nothing but candy."
Bob and Van eyed him unbelievingly.
Could a boy be human and feel that way?
"Everybody here gets into the same state of mind," the lad went on. "When the green hands come they are crazy about the stuff for about a couple of days; then it is all over. You couldn't hire them to eat. Every few weeks the different employees are allowed to buy two pounds for themselves at the wholesale price, but you would be surprised to see how few of them do it. If they get it you can be pretty certain that it is to give away, for they'd never eat it themselves."
His two listeners stared incredulously.
Their guide led them across the room.
"So," said he, reverting once more to the kettles and the thermometer, "our candy is not made by guesswork, you see. Sugar costs too much to risk having such a large batch as a kettleful spoiled. We boil it by the thermometer, and when it is at just the right point we take it off and put it into these coolers, where it thickens and is reduced to a workable temperature. That which is to be used as filling is then shifted into these big cylindrical cans that have inside them a series of revolving fingers and here the candy is beaten until quite smooth; whatever flavoring or coloring matter is needed is beaten into it."
As the machinery whirled the boys stood watching the beaters.
"Some of this beaten sugar will be colored pink, flavored with rose or wintergreen, and used for the centers of chocolate; some will have maple flavoring, some vanilla, some lemon. Nuts will be stirred into some of the rest of it. There is an almost endless number of ways in which it may be varied. Come over here and see them preparing the centers and getting them ready to cover with chocolate."
It was an interesting process.
Shallow wooden trays filled with dry corn-starch passed beneath a machine which left in them rows of empty holes the size of the heart of a chocolate cream. The trays then moved on until they stopped just under a nozzle, which ran exactly the right amount of liquid filling into each hole. The dryness of the corn-starch prevented the mixture from flowing together. As soon as every hole in the tray was filled with fondant it was set away to cool and an empty tray substituted. When the little centers were hard enough they were taken out of the corn-starch moulds, and after being put upon traveling strips of fine wire netting, melted chocolate was poured over them. The wire frames sped along like miniature moving sidewalks, their contents drying and cooling on the way. In the meantime the superfluous chocolate dripped through the netting into a trough beneath and was collected to be melted over again. On went the finished chocolates until they reached the packing-room, where girls removed them from the frames, sorted them, and put them into boxes.
"These are not what is known as hand-dipped or fork-dipped chocolates," explained the boy. "Those are higher priced, because they require individual attention, and the material put into them is more expensive. To make those the girls take the centers and submerge each one in melted chocolate with a dipping-fork, finishing the pieces with a certain little twist or decoration on top; it requires no small amount of skill to make this top-knot, which not only serves to render the candy more attractive but to distinguish one variety of filling from another. Each kind has its own particular decoration. After some practice any of us might, I suppose, learn to make the twist on a chocolate once; but to make that precise thing each time and never vary it would be quite a different matter. It is important the pattern should be uniform, since both the dippers and the packers must know what is inside; in addition those who sell the candy must know. It is no easy task. After the chocolates are finishedEurekais stamped on the bottom of every piece and they are ready to be sold."
"I don't see what prevents your candy from sticking to everything," observed Van thoughtfully.
[Illustration: "IT IS NO EASY TASK"]
"Blasts of cool air that come through those overhead pipes. We can turn on the current whenever we wish. Whenever the girls who are packing candy find that it is becoming soft they turn on a current of cold air to chill and harden it; we often use these cool blasts, too, when handling candies in the process of making. Such kinds as butter-scotch, hoarhound, and the pretty twisted varieties stick together very easily. If they are allowed to become lumpy or marred they are useless for the trade and have to be melted over."
"What are those men over there doing?" inquired Bob, pointing to a group of workmen who were stirring a seething mixture of nuts and molasses.
"Some of them are making peanut brittle, some caramels; and in the last kettle I believe they are boiling hoarhound candy. See! The last man is ready to empty his upon the table. Suppose we go over and watch him."
They reached the spot just in time to see the kettle lifted and the hot candy poured out upon the metal top of the table, where it spread itself like a small, irregular pond. At once the workman in charge took up a steel bar not unlike a metal yardstick and began pressing down the mass to a uniform thickness. This done he ran the bar deftly beneath and turned the vast piece over just as one would flop over some gigantic griddle-cake. He continued to change it from side to side, pressing it down in any spot where it was too thick, but never once touching it with his hands. He then cut off a long narrow strip and fed it into a machine at his elbow, the boys regarding him expectantly. Suddenly, to their great surprise, the formless ribbon of candy that had gone into the machine began to come forth at the other end in prettily marked discs, each with the firm name stamped upon it.
"Hoarhound tablets, you see," observed the boy. "The Italian who is making peanut brittle has flattened his on the table in the same fashion and marked it into bars which later will be cut and wrapped in paraffine paper."
"I never realized so much candy was manufactured in one day," exclaimed Bob as they went down in the elevator.
"Oh, this isn't much," returned the boy. "We are running light just now. You should come a few weeks before Christmas if you want to see things hum here."
"I guess that would be a good time for visitors to keep out," returned Bob as they smilingly bade good-bye to their guide and started home in the motor-car.
As the automobile glided into Fifth Avenue Van said:
"Look, Bobbie, there's a candy shop! I suppose all that stuff in the window was made in exactly the same way as those things we saw to-day, don't you?"
But Bob did not turn his head.
Instead he replied:
"Don't say candy to me. I do not want to lay eyes on another piece of it for a week!"
"Nor I!" Van echoed. "Do you wonder that boy at the factory feels as he does? I guess your father can keep his money so far as we are concerned. He'll have no candy bills from us."
* * * * *
In the meantime Mr. Carlton waited for the tremendous bonbon bill that had threatened to reduce his bank account, and when it was not forthcoming he nodded his head and chuckled quietly to himself.
Another day passed and Bob and Van were once more back at Colversham greeting the boys and vainly endeavoring to settle down to the work of the last term.
"It seems as if the stretch from April to June is about the hardest pull of the whole year," yawned Van, looking up for the twentieth time from his Latin lesson and gazing out into the sunny campus. "Studying is bad enough at best, but when the trout brooks begin to run and the canoeing is good it is a deadly proposition to be cooped up in this room hammering away for the finals."
"It always seems worse after a vacation," agreed Bob, tilting back in his chair. "You'll get back into the harness, though, in a day or two; you know you always yap just about so much when you first get back to school."
"I don't yap, as you call it, any worse than most fellows do. I hate being tied up like a pup on a leash. It seems as if I'd just have to get out and play ball—and if you were a human being you'd want to, too," growled Van.
"Hang it all, don't you suppose I want to?" Bob retorted. "What do you think I'm made of, anyway?"
"I don't know, Bobbie. Sometimes you're so resigned I begin to fear you are a mummy," was Van's laughing retort. "Now, I'm not like that. It is one big grind for me to study. The minute spring comes it seems as if I never could translate another line of Cicero as long as I lived, and I don't care a hurray what X equals. What will it matter a hundred years hence whether we plug away here at this stuff, or get out and play ball?"
"I guess you'd find it would matter to you right now without waiting for the end of a century," was the laconic answer. "But speaking of ball, what wouldn't you give to see the first League game of the season in town, Saturday? That will be some playing!"
"I clean forgot the season opened this week," exclaimed Van. "Since I got back here I've been all mixed up on dates. I thought it was next week. Are you sure it's Saturday?"
Bob nodded.
"Positive."
"It'll be a cracker-jack game," mused Van. "I'd give something to be there. You don't suppose we could get off at noon and go, do you?"
"Not on your life! Right now, after vacation? What do you take this school faculty for—an entertainment committee? You seem to forget we'd have to cut algebra, and English, and gym."
"I shouldn't care."
"I should. I'm working this trip, and can't afford to miss recitations," was Bob's sharp reply. "As for you, you can afford to miss them even less than I can—you know that. Put it out of your head. When you can't do a thing there is no use thinking about it and wishing you could."
"I see no earthly harm in talking about it."
"I do. It just keeps you stirred up."
"Then what did you mention it for in the beginning?"
"I don't know. I wish to goodness I hadn't," Bob declared.
"Well, in spite of your opinions I repeat I'd give a fiver to see that game Saturday."
"You can't, so cut it out and let me finish this theme. Every time I've started to write you've broken in and driven every blooming idea out of my head. Now quit it. You better pitch into your own work for to-morrow. Dig out all the Cicero you can, and later I'll help you with the rest."
With finality Bob wheeled his chair around and proceeded to submerge himself in his task.
But not so Van. He took up his book, to be sure, but over the top of it his eyes roved to the world outside, and fixed themselves dreamily on the line of hills that peeped above the tips of the red maples budding in the school campus. He was far away from Colversham and its round of duties. In imagination he moved with a gay, eager crowd through the gateway leading into the great city ball ground. He could hear the game called; watch the first swirl of the ball as it curved from the pitcher's hand; catch the sharp click of the bat against it; and join in the roar of applause as the swift-footed runner sped to second base.
Everybody would be at that opening game!
Not to go when it was within trolley distance was absurd.
What was algebra, English, or a little wall-scaling compared to such an opportunity?
And, anyway, who would be the wiser?
There must be ways of getting off so nobody, not even Bob, would know.
If only Bob could be persuaded to cut school!
But it was never any use to urge Bob when he spoke in that horribly positive tone. You might just as well try to move a lighthouse.
Van glanced furtively at his chum who, unconscious of his scrutiny, was writing steadily down a long page of foolscap. The sight had a steadying effect. Van again took up his book and scowled once more at that same old line at the top of the page. But all the time between his eyes and his Latin lesson swayed that alluring throng of pleasure seekers. Impatiently he tried to banish them, but stern as was his attempt their laughter still sounded in his ears. Against his will he was back at the ball game, and this time he was on his feet shouting wildly with the other fans as Carruth, the star batter, made a soaring hit and stole two bases on it. In that instant of unreined enthusiasm Van Blake decided that come what might he would go to the game on Saturday—go even though his whole term's work went for naught.
The resolve made he tried to stifle his conscience by falling upon his Latin with unwonted zeal, and so ardently did he wrestle with it that when, an hour later, Bob pushed aside his papers and offered to help him with the lesson he was able to greet his chum with a translation so far beyond his customary efforts that Bob patted him on the head with paternal pride, exclaiming:
"Bully for you, old man! That's about the best work I ever knew of your doing. The middle of it is a little queer, but we'll fix that up all right. Who says you're not a Cicero?"
"Bobbie, if I thought for one moment that there was any danger of my becoming a Cicero or any other Latin worthy I'd go drown myself!" Van cried, startled at the mere thought. "I'm not so worse, though, am I? I'd no idea I could reel it off like that."
"Of course you can do it. Why, Van, you could do all kinds of things if you'd only go at them. The trouble with you is that you always study with one eye out the window. If you'd only get down to your job with all your might you'd not only get your lessons better but you'd learn them in half the time."
"I 'spect that's so," drawled Van lazily. "I ought to duff right in on all fours. I acknowledge it. But it is not so easy to make your mind go where you send it."
He broke off, shifting the subject to athletics, and was in the highest spirits the rest of the day; but underneath all his fun and banter the question constantly arose in his inner consciousness: How could he elude his roommate's watchfulness and on the coming Saturday escape to the great game?
Strangely enough Fortune seemed to smile upon his plot, for Friday morning Bob was taken to the infirmary with a sore throat, which, although slight, isolated him from the rest of the boys. No longer was he at Van's elbow to watch, warn, or censure.
The coast was entirely clear.
Van formulated his plans.
Directly after luncheon on Saturday he would start for the city, hugging the edge of the campus and afterward cutting across the adjoining estate to meet the car line where it forked into the main road. Many another boy had done the same and not been caught; why not he? It was, to be sure, against the rules to leave the school grounds without permission, but one must take a chance now and then. Did not half the spice of life lay in risks?
Accordingly after the noonday meal was finished and the boys had scattered to recitations or the dormitories Van sauntered idly out past the tennis-courts; across the field skirting the golf course and then with one sudden plunge was behind the gymnasium and running like a deer for the thicket that separated Colversham from the Sawyer estate. He knew the lay of the land perfectly, for this short cut was a favorite thoroughfare of the boys, in spite of the posted protest ofNo Trespassing.
Creeping cautiously through the shelter of the orchard he contrived to escape observation and reach the highway in safety; at this quiet noon hour the road was entirely deserted save for the presence of one small boy who was jogging on ahead, a dinner pail upon his arm. He was a slender little fellow of six or seven years who whistled shrilly as he went and kicked up clouds of dust with his bare feet. As Van watched the sway of his shoulders and the unhampered tread of his unshod feet he could not but recall the days when he, too, had gloried in going barefoot. He smiled at the memory which now seemed so absurd.
A slight sound behind him broke in upon his reverie.
Bounding the turn just at his back swept a big scarlet touring-car driven by a solitary man. It was coming at tremendous speed and no horn had given warning of its noiseless approach. Van had but an instant to step out of its path when on it shot, bearing down on the unconscious boy ahead. The little chap was walking in the middle of the road and whistling so loudly that no hint of the oncoming danger reached him. The man in the motor saw the child and sounding his horn, swerved to the left; but it was too late. The speeding car caught the lad, struck him, and tossed him to the roadside rushing on in its mad flight faster, if anything, than before.
In vain did Van call after it.
His protest was useless.
The great red vehicle whirled forward, a speck in the sunshine, and was lost to view.
Terror-stricken Van darted to the child's side and bent over him.
His eyes were closed and an ugly gash in his forehead was bleeding profusely.
[Illustration: NO HORN HAD GIVEN WARNING]
Binding a handkerchief round the little fellow's head the older boy lifted him in his arms and retracing his steps ran with him down the road, across the Sawyer lawn, and up the steps of the Colversham infirmary.
A young orderly who was lounging at the door came forward and on seeing the child's face spoke quickly to a physician who was passing through the hall. Together they took the little boy from Van's arms and carried him to a cot in an adjoining room, anxiously plying Van with questions as they went.
Briefly Van related the story.
"Such men should be hung! Prison is too good for them!" snapped the doctor angrily.
He passed his hand with infinite tenderness over the tiny, still form on the bed.
"Is he much hurt, sir?" questioned Van eagerly.
"I can't tell yet. He is hurt enough so that he doesn't come to his senses, poor little chap! Here, Jackson, ring for a couple of nurses. We'll get the child up-stairs."
Van tagged behind them more because he was anxious to hear of the lad's condition than because he could be of any real use.
As the sad procession left the elevator, emerging into the corridor on the second floor, a tall man who was coming down the stairway confronted them.
It was Dr. Maitland, the principal of the school!
"What's this?" he asked, advancing with swift stride.
The doctor hurriedly explained the circumstances.
"A motor accident on the Claybrook Road, you say? Well, well! Poor little chap! Who brought him in?"
"This lad—one of the schoolboys. You showed good judgment, Blake, and it was a mighty fortunate thing that you were there," observed the surgeon, passing on.
"The Claybrook Road?" repeated the puzzled principal. "You were on the Claybrook Road, Blake? And what were you doing there at this time of day?"
With throbbing heart Van suddenly came to himself.
Up to that instant no thought of his own peculiar plight had crossed his mind. Now the reality of his dilemma rushed upon him with pitiless force.
"May I ask," repeated the principal in measured tone, "what were you doing on the Claybrook Road at this hour, Blake?"
Dr Maitland, who was a man of unswerving justice, was influenced in his judgments neither by pity nor explanations, and thus it came about that when Van had answered his questions, putting before him the facts about his runaway, the principal sent the boy to his own room to there await sentence Van was in the lowest of spirits. What would the penalty of his insurrection be? He knew Dr. Maitland far too well to expect mercy, nor did he wish it. He was too proud for that. He had disobeyed the rules of the school, and he must now bear the punishment, be it what it would. The thought of holding back the facts had never entered his mind. Indolent he sometimes was even to laziness but never within his memory had he been dishonest. So he had fearlessly told the truth, and despite the calamity it threatened he found himself the happier for telling it. Whether it would mean expulsion from Colversham he did not know; probably it would.
To think of leaving Colversham, the place he loved so much! And in disgrace, too. What would the other boys say? And his father?
Van shrank at the thought of telling his father.
Mr. Blake was a severe man who, like Dr. Maitland, would not gloss over the affair either by tolerance or sympathy. He would be angry, and he would have the right to be. Van admitted that. As he looked back on his school days he realized for the first time how indulgent his father had been; he had denied his son no reasonable wish, simply asking in return that the boy express his gratitude by studiousness and obedience. Van flushed as with vividness it came to his consciousness that he had repaid his father's goodness with neither of these things. He had studied just as little as was possible, and in place of appreciation he had rendered nothing but disgrace.
His self-esteem was at a very low ebb when Bob, dismissed from the infirmary, returned to his old quarters. Van was seldom depressed—so seldom, in fact, that the sight aroused in his chum nothing but an anxiety lest he be ill. Surely nothing but sickness could cause Van Blake to lie on a couch, his face buried in pillows!
"What's the matter, old fellow?" called Bob the instant he was inside the door. "Are you used up?"
No answer.
"I say, what's the trouble?" Bob repeated, hurrying to his side.
It took much questioning before the story could be drawn from the boy's reluctant lips.
"When Bob had at last heard it he was silent.
"Can't you say something?" queried Van peevishly.
"I hardly know what to say," Bob answered with slow gentleness. "I'm so sorry—so sorry and upset. I can't for the life of me understand how you came to do such a thing. Did you expect to get away with it? You must have known you would be missed at recitations and tracked down."
"That's right—rub it in!"
"I'm not rubbing it in; I'm only trying to understand it."
"There's nothing to understand. I just was crazy to go to that ball game and I started. I should have gone, too, if it hadn't been for the kid getting hurt."
"It was bully of you to bring him back, anyway," Bob said. "Of course you knew it was all up with you when you did it."
"I didn't think about it at all. I wasn't thinking of anything but that poor little chap who was mowed down by the brute in that car. If I hadn't happened to hear the motor it might have been me instead. I wish it had been," he declared gloomily.
"No you don't. Great Scott, cheer up, Van! The country hasn't gone to the dogs yet. I must admit you are in a mess; but it doesn't begin to be the mess it would have been if you had gone to the game, had a bang-up time, and come home a sneak who had stolen his fun. At least you have done the square thing and 'fessed up, and now you'll be man enough to take what's coming to you. What do you suppose Maitland will do?"
"I can guess pretty well—pack me off home. He is stiff as a ramrod on obedience to the school rules," sighed Van, "and he's right, too. It is perfectly fair. I knew it when I went."
"I can't see, just for one afternoon of sport, how you—" Bob broke off. "If I'd only been here you never would have gone."
"Maybe not," admitted Van. Then he added in the same breath: "No, I shouldn't have gone if you had been here, Bobbie. Somehow you're my good angel. I wrote Father so the other day."
"Stuff!"
"It's true. You are such a brick! I thought you'd blow my head off when you'd heard what I'd done."
"Well, I am mad enough to do it," was the tart reply. "For you to go and do a thing like that just for a ball game! It wasn't worth it. Think of your being pitched out of Colversham for a measly game of baseball. And you didn't get there, either!"
Van kicked the pillows impatiently.
"Don't light into me, Bobbie," he moaned. "Don't I feel bad enough as it is?"
"I don't know whether you do or not; you ought to."
"I do, Bob. I'm dead sorry."
"If you'd stay sorry it might do some good," returned Bob. A sudden thought seemed to strike him. He did not speak for a few moments; then he said half aloud: "Who knows—it might help."
"What might help?"
"Nothing."
Bob got up and sauntered to the door.
"Will you stay right here like a decent chap and not get into any more mischief until I get back?"
"Where are you going?"
"Nowhere much—just across the campus for a little while. I'll be back soon. Will you wait here exactly where you are?"
"Yes, but—"
"Honor bright?"
"Sure!"
"All right. Don't quit this room until I come. So long!"
Bob was gone.
Van lay very still after the door had closed, and to keep him company in his solitude back swarmed all those dreary thoughts that Bob's cheery presence had for the time being banished; with a rush they came to jeer, taunt, and terrify.
Thelittle whilelengthened into an hour and on into a second one.
The room became intolerable.
Then upon the stone floor of the corridor outside sounded Bob's foot.
"Still here, Van?" he cried, coming in with elastic step and banging the door after him.
His face was wreathed in smiles.
"What's happened to you that you look like that?" questioned Van, sitting up among the pillows.
"Like what?"
"Why, as if somebody had sent you a Christmas-tree or made you president of a railroad?"
Bob laughed.
"I've been to see the Head," he said.
"Humph! I never knew of his causing any one such overwhelming delight," observed Van a little spitefully.
"Hush up, old man; don't run down the Doctor," Bob said. "You may have more cause to be grateful to him than you know."
"You don't mean—" Van's voice trembled. "Did you go to see him about me?"
Bob nodded.
"Bob! How did you dare?"
"I dare do anything that becomes a man; who dares do more is none," quoted Bob merrily. "I don't believe, though, I'd have dared go for myself," he answered. "It is different when you are doing it for some one else. Now sit up and listen and I'll tell you all about it. The Doctor was mighty white about you; but in spite of all he stuck to the fact that you'd disobeyed the rules; he kept going back to that every time I tried to switch him off. We squabbled over you a solid hour, and the upshot of it was this: you are to stay at Colversham—"
"Hurrah!"
Van hurled a pillow into the air.
"Shut up and hear the rest of it. You are to stay here because I promised upon my word of honor that you would keep straight and study."
"I'll do it."
"That isn't all."
Bob hesitated.
It was a wrench for him to deliver the remainder of the message.
"Yes, you are to stay," he repeated as if to gain time. "But of course you can't expect to slip through with no punishment at all."
"No, indeed!"
Still Van spoke with jaunty hopefulness.
"The Doctor thinks it is only fair that you should be pretty severely reminded of what you've done."
"That's all right. I'm not afraid. Fire ahead! What's he going to do with me?"
"He thinks—he says—he feels it is best—"
"Oh, come on, come on—out with it!"
"He has forbidden you to take any part in the school athletics this spring," was the reluctant whisper.
Van did not speak.
"I'm mighty sorry, old fellow," declared Bob, "but it was the best I could do."
Still Van made no reply.
With troubled gaze Bob regarded his chum.
"I'd far rather Maitland had knocked me out," he ventured at last.
Stooping, he put his hand on Van's shoulder.
Van roused himself and looked up into his friend's face with one of his quick smiles.
"It's all right, Bob," he said. "Don't you fuss about me any more. You were a trump to get me off as well as you did. I'll take my medicine without whimpering. I ought to bless my stars that my banishment from athletics is only temporary. Suppose I had been smashed up so I could never play another game like that little kid, Tim McGrew," he shuddered. "It was just sheer luck that saved me. Why, do you suppose, he should have been the one to be crippled and I go scot free?" he observed meditatively.
"I don't know. Maybe because there is something in the world that only you can do. My father believes that."
"Do you?"
"I don't know."
"It would be strange, wouldn't it, to feel you were let off just to do something?" mused Van. "You'd be wondering all the time what it was. Of course it would be something big."
"You could never tell what it was," Bob replied, falling in with his friend's mood. "I suppose the only way to make sure would be to do whatever came to you the best way you could do it. You never could be sure that what you were doing was not the great thing."
"Not studying and stuff like that."
"It might be; or at least studying might lead to it."
"I don't believe it."
"It wouldn't hurt you to try it."
"No, I suppose not." Then with characteristic caprice Van shifted the subject. "But seriously, Bobbie, there is something I am going to do. You'll howl, I guess, and maybe you'll be disappointed, too. It's about that sick kid, Tim McGrew. The surgeon says the little beggar will never walk again. I feel pretty sore about it; I suppose because I was there," explained Van uneasily. "I've about decided to chip in the money Father was going to send me for a canoe and get a wheel chair for him. His folks are poor, and can't get one, and the doctor says—"
"You're a—"