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Title: The Story of Leather
Author: Sara Ware Bassett
Release Date: June 17, 2008 [eBook #25823]
Language: English
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THE STORY OF LEATHER
by
SARA WARE BASSETT
Author of
"The Story of Lumber"
"The Story of Wool"
"The Story of Glass"
"The Story of Sugar"
"The Story of Silk"
"The Story of Porcelain"
Illustrated by C. P. Gray
[Illustration: THE REVOLVING DRUMS]
[Illustration]
The Penn Publishing
Company Philadelphia
1927
Copyright
1915 by
The Penn
Publishing
Company
The Story of Leather
_To_
_Mr. A. C. Lawrence_
_whose friendship has followed me all_
_my life and but for whose kindly aid_
_this book could never have been written._
_S. W. B._
Contents
I. THE THUNDERBOLT 9
II. PETER WINS ANOTHER NAME 28
III. A NEW FRIEND 51
IV. PETER'S MAIDEN SPEECH 70
V. A CATASTROPHE 97
VI. TWO PETERS AND WHICH WON 112
VII. THE CLIMB UP THE LADDER 133
VIII. A NARROW ESCAPE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 151
IX. PETER AIDS IN A SURPRISE AND RECEIVES ONE 172
X. THE CLIMB BECOMES DIFFICULT 186
XI. TOLMAN EXPERIENCES A SHOCK 209
XII. MR. CODDINGTON TELLS A STORY 225
Illustrations
PAGE
THE REVOLVING DRUMS _Frontispiece_
A MATCH WAS UNDER WAY 47
"MAY I SPEAK, SIR?" 90
IN THE FINISHING DEPARTMENT 137
THE THREE MEN STEPPED FORWARD 164
HE SENT THE MAN SPINNING INTO THE CROWD 219
[Illustration]
THE STORY OF LEATHER
CHAPTER I
THE THUNDERBOLT
Peter Coddington sat in the afternoon sunshine on the steps of his big
colonial home looking absently out over the circular drive, and the
quaint terraced garden, to the red-tiled roof of the garage beyond. But
he was not thinking of the garage; he could not, in fact, even have told
you the color of its vivid tiling. No! He had far more important things
to think of than that--disquieting things which worried him and made him
very unhappy. For about the twentieth time he took from his pocket his
school report and ran his eye down the column of figures written upon
the white card. He did not read because the reading gave him pleasure.
Neither was the bit of pasteboard white any more. Instead it was thumbed
and worn at the corners until it had gradually assumed a dismal grayish
hue--a color quite in harmony with Peter's own mood.
Peter really did not need to look at the report at all, for already he
could close his eyes and see before him in glaring type:
Algebra 40
History 20
Latin 30
French 30
Drawing 25
What a horrible fascination there was in those marks! He found himself
repeating them aloud to impress upon his mind the fact that they
actually were true. But what was far more tragic than these testimonials
of defeat was a foot-note written in red ink in the well-known hand of
Mr. Christopher, the principal of the school. It read:
"In consequence of Peter Coddington's poor scholarship and
unsatisfactory deportment it is against the rules of the Milburn High
School that he retain any position in school athletics until such time
as both his studies and his conduct reach the standard required by the
school authorities."
It was that single sentence that made Peter's face so grave. The marks
alone were bad enough. He was heartily ashamed of them because he knew
that if he had studied even a reasonable amount of time he could easily
have passed in every subject. It was by no means difficult work for a
boy of his ability. But to be put off the ball team! Why, it was on his
pitching that the whole Milburn school was pinning its faith in the
coming game against Leighton Academy. "Peter will save the day!" the
fellows had declared. What would they say when they discovered that
their hero was to be dropped from the team--that he had not passed one
of the freshman examinations?
Half the pride and glory of the freshman class centered about Peter.
Throughout the grammar school he had made a wonderful record in
athletics; his unerring drop kick had won him fame at football long
before he was out of the sixth grade, and he could pitch a ball with a
speed and curve almost professional in its nicety. "Wait until Peter
Coddington gets into the high school!" had been the cry. "Milburn can
then wipe up the ground with every school within reach." As Peter had
never been much of a student the gate of this temple of learning had
been difficult to reach; but at last the day came when he managed to
squeak inside the coveted portals where all the honors promised him were
at once laid at his feet. He became a member of the football eleven,
pitcher on the freshman nine, president of his class. Friends swarmed
about him, for he had a pleasant way of greeting everybody, he treated
generously, and he had a winsome little chuckle that spread merriment
wherever he went.
None of these qualities, however, helped his poor scholarship, which he
jauntily excused by explaining to his father at the end of the first
quarter that he had not really got into the game yet. In consequence Mr.
Coddington listened and was patient. When the mid-year record dropped
even lower Peter's argument was that it took time to adjust one's self
to novel conditions. But as spring brought no improvement Mr.
Coddington, a man of few words, remarked severely: "I will give you one
more chance, son."
The list of figures in Peter's hand were the fruit of that chance.
Peter had a wholesome awe of his father. He was not a man to be
bamboozled. On the contrary Mr. Coddington was a keen, direct person who
came straight to a point in a few terse sentences; predominant in his
character was an unflinching sense of justice which was, however,
fortunately tempered with enough kindness to make a misdoer mortified
but never afraid in his presence. Peter admired his father tremendously
and if for one reason more than another because he was so "square."
Never during all the span of the lad's fifteen years could he recall a
single instance when Mr. Coddington had broken his word. It was this
knowledge that made Peter so uncomfortable as he glanced once more at
the bedraggled report card. What had his father meant by saying he
would grant him one more chance?
The boy wished now that he had considered the matter in a more serious
light. He had known all along that his marks were dropping behind, and
every morning he had vaguely resolved to make a spurt that day so that
when examination time came he might cross the tape neck and neck with if
not in advance of the other fellows. The promised spurt, however, had
not been made. Instead he had drifted along, studying only enough to
keep his head above water and putting all his zeal into tennis or
baseball until the present climax with its direful calamity had been
reached.
Unquestionably it was perfectly fair that he should forfeit his place on
the team. All the boys knew the rule of the school. But somehow it did
not seem _real_. When a fellow could kick a goal and pitch a ball as he
could something must surely intervene to prevent such a fate. Nothing
dreadful had ever happened to Peter before. It was not likely, he argued
optimistically, that it could happen now. Considerably cheered by this
logic he slipped his grimy report into its still more grimy envelope and
began to whistle. Buoyed up by comfortable reveries he whistled fully
five minutes, when the tune came to an abrupt end. A step on the gravel
had arrested it. Looking around Peter saw his father coming along the
drive toward him.
"Not at the game to-day, Peter?" exclaimed the elder man in surprise.
"No, sir."
"How is that?"
"I did not feel like going, Father."
"Not feel like going! Why, that's something new for you. You're not
sick?"
Peter was conscious of a swift scrutiny.
"I'm worried about something," he blurted out.
"I'm sorry to hear that, my boy. What is the trouble? Grass stains on
your new white tennis flannels?"
Peter shook his head in reply to the smiling question.
"It is a real trouble this time," he answered.
Silently he drew from his pocket the crumpled envelope which he handed
to his father. As Mr. Coddington took out the card and scanned it
rapidly the quizzical expression that had lighted his face gave way to a
frown of displeasure.
"Well?" he questioned.
"I'm mighty sorry, Father," began Peter. "You see I kept thinking I
would make up my work before the exams came; but somehow I have been
hustling more for the baseball championship than----"
A curt question cut short further apologies:
"Your studies have not been too difficult for you, then?"
"Oh, no. I can easily make them up with a tutor," was the eager
response. "I guess if you ask Mr. Christopher he will let me take the
examinations over again before school closes and the next time----"
"There is to be no next time," put in his father quietly.
Peter stared.
"Wh-a-t--do--you mean, sir?"
"You will see."
Without another word the older man turned away. Peter saw him walk to
the garage, and a few moments later the motor-car shot past, spun down
the drive, and the music of its siren horn announced that it was turning
into the street. Where had his father gone so suddenly?
He had but just come home, and it was never his custom to dash off in
such an abrupt fashion. It was easy to see that he was annoyed about the
school report. That was not strange--of course he would be. Peter was
himself. But at least Mr. Coddington had not lost his place as pitcher
of a ball team, and since he hadn't there seemed to be no reason why he
should be so cut up. Then an inspiration came to the boy. Perhaps his
father had gone to demand that Mr. Christopher take his son back on the
nine. Ah, that must be it! His father was much interested in athletics
Peter knew, and when in college had pulled the winning shell to a
spectacular victory for his Alma Mater. His father would never stand by
and see the star pitcher of the Milburn High School swept off the team
just because of a few failures in Latin, algebra, and other such
rubbish.
Peter drew a sigh of relief.
Yes, his fortunate star would rise again; he was confident of it. All
would yet be well. He would tutor up for the examinations, pass them
gloriously, and win back his place on the team. None of the fellows need
be the wiser. His father would fix it up--nay, he probably was fixing it
up at this very moment.
Until dusk Peter waited anxiously for the sound of the motor's return.
It was nearly seven when over the gravel rolled the heavy rubber-tired
wheels that announced Mr. Coddington's arrival. The boy sat in precisely
the spot where his father had left him and after alighting from the car
the elder man made his way toward the motionless figure sitting so still
in the June twilight.
"I have been to see Mr. Christopher," began Mr. Coddington when he came
within speaking distance, "and have made all the arrangements for your
future career."
Eagerly Peter looked up.
"I'm going back on the team?" he cried joyously.
"You are going to work!" was the sharp retort.
"What!"
"I have been very busy during the last two hours," continued Mr.
Coddington. "I have got for you the first, last, and only job I shall
ever get. It is up to you now."
"But I don't understand," protested Peter, aghast.
"Why not? It is not a difficult thing to comprehend. You have fooled
away your days and my money long enough. Life is a serious business--not
a game. It is time you took it in earnest. To-morrow morning at eight
o'clock you are going to work, and you must make good at the position
I've found for you, or you will lose your place. If you do I shall not
lift a finger to help you to find another."
A great lump rose in Peter's throat but he managed to choke it back.
"Where am I going?" he gasped when he was able to speak.
"To the tannery," was the laconic reply.
If the clouds had fallen or the earth opened Peter could not have been
more astounded.
The tannery!
Of course he knew his father owned the vast tanneries to the west of the
town, for that was the reason the Coddingtons lived at Milburn instead
of migrating to the near-by city, as had so many of their prosperous
neighbors; but beyond the fact that it was the tanneries which
indirectly provided him with tennis racquets, skates, bicycles,
motor-cars, and spending money Peter knew nothing about them. They were
red brick buildings covering a wide area, and from their doors at noon
and night hundreds of workmen with lunch-boxes and newspaper bundles
poured out into the streets. Peter never spoke of the tanneries. Even
when, on the highway, he encountered the heavy carts laden with hides
and marked "H. M. Coddington, Leather," he always looked the other way
and hurried past as fast as he could. Occasionally in hot weather when
the wind was in a certain quarter and brought a faint odor from the
beamhouses into the fashionable part of the town where Peter lived
their neighbors complained, and the boy always felt with a vague sense
of mortification that everybody blamed him and his family for the
annoyance. Sometimes this breath of damp, steamy leather even forced
itself in at the windows of the Coddington library and mingled
shamelessly with the rich hangings and paintings that furnished it.
Peter always resented the intrusion. How dare it follow them there!
Mr. Coddington, on the other hand, although not reveling in the
unpleasant tannery smells, had a sincere respect for the industry which
furnished him his living, not only because it enabled him to provide his
family with a luxurious home, but also because he regarded it as a
life-work that was well worth the doing. Was he not giving to the world
a necessity which it could not do without? It was a self-respecting
trade. Therefore why should he not feel there was dignity in the long
buildings with their whirring wheels, their hundreds of busy workmen,
and their ponderous green trucks which, loaded with skins, ever rumbled
back and forth through the main street? His pride was the more
justifiable since alone, and aided only by his brain and his
perseverance, he himself had built up this mighty industry which had
become the chief support of the flourishing little New England town.
Milburn, in fact, had grown up around the business that he had founded.
From the lowest rung of the ladder he had worked his way up to the
highest. The climb had been no easy one. On the contrary it had been
hard work. How could he help but feel a pride--nay, an affection, even,
for the great throbbing world of labor which he had created, and which
furnished thousands of people with homes, food and clothing!
Since this was his point of view it naturally was impossible for him to
appreciate the horror that his words brought to the boy who sat on the
steps beside him. Peter knew his father too well to offer protest at the
judgment that his own misdeeds had brought. It was a perfectly fair
retribution. Moreover, he had been warned--Peter clearly recalled the
fact now. But he had rushed blindly on, not heeding the warning.
"The tannery?" he at last repeated aloud.
"Yes. That is where I began, Peter, and it won't hurt you to do the
same."
"Shan't I go back to school at all?"
"Not for the present."
"And the school team----"
"It must get on without you as best it may."
Peter fought to keep back the tears.
"Will everybody know?" he faltered after a pause.
"No. I simply told Mr. Christopher that I had decided to take you out of
school. He knows nothing more, nor does any one else. Now, Peter, I do
not wish you to take this as a punishment." Stooping, Mr. Coddington
put his hand kindly on the lad's shoulder. "In so far as it is the
consequence of misspent, wasted time it is, to be sure, a punishment;
none of us can escape the direct results of our own actions. In another
sense, however, it is merely a fresh opportunity--a chance to substitute
success for failure, to make good at a different kind of work. It is in
this light that you must try and regard it, son. I want to make a man of
you if I can. I must make a man of you. You are the only child I have,
and if I stand by and allow you to make a fizzle of your life I shall be
quite as much to blame as you. Remember that unhappy as you are this
affair is costing me something, too."
There was a break in Mr. Coddington's voice.
As the boy raised his head and looked into the face bending over him he
read in it an expression quite new--a softness and sympathy that he had
never before caught in the gray eyes which, but a moment previous, had
regarded him so sternly.
As a result when Peter answered much of the bitterness had crept out of
his tone.
"I suppose all the men at the factory will have to know who I am," he
reflected.
"I'm afraid so. I see no way that that can be avoided," assented his
father.
"I hate to have them. They will all be grinning over the knowledge that
I was put into the factories because I flunked at school. Isn't there
any way to prevent their knowing? Couldn't I take another name when I go
into the tannery and let them think I am somebody else?"
Mr. Coddington mused a few seconds before answering.
"Why, yes," he replied meditatively, "I suppose it could be done. Nobody
knows you at the works, so there would be no danger of your being
recognized. My plan to send you there I have kept to myself. You could
easily enter under some other name if you chose. You must consider,
however, that if you decide to go in simply as an ordinary boy I shall
not be able to help you much; nor can you expect to be favored in any
way by the men. You would have to stand on your own feet and take your
own chances." Again Mr. Coddington ruminated. "That might not be a bad
idea, either," he observed, half aloud.
"Oh, I would so much rather take another name, Father," pleaded Peter.
But Mr. Coddington did not heed the interruption; he was still thinking.
"I do not mean to stand behind you after you are in the tannery,
anyway," he went on. "In every department there is a foreman to whom you
will be accountable--not to me. Nor must you come running home and here
report every real or fancied injustice. So far as business goes I am the
president of the company and you are simply a boy in my employ. Out of
working hours we will be father and son and will enjoy our drives,
walks, and reading together just as we have in the past. One rule,
however, must be strictly adhered to--we will not talk shop."
"I understand, sir," nodded Peter.
"Now just a last word," concluded Mr. Coddington. "To-morrow morning you
must be prompt at the works. Eight o'clock is the hour you are to
present yourself and that does not mean before eight or after eight; it
means on the stroke of eight. You will carry a luncheon which your
mother will see is put up for you. You are to hand to Mr. Tyler, the
superintendent of Factory 1, a card bearing my signature and you are to
say to him that you are the boy I telephoned him about. He does not know
who you are, but he understands that I am interested in you and he will
start you in wherever he thinks best. On the card I shall write your
name--and by the by"--a smile flitted over Mr. Coddington's face--"what
is your name to be?"
Peter hesitated; then his lips curved into a faint reflection of his
father's merriment.
"I think I will enter the tannery as Peter Strong," he answered.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II
PETER WINS ANOTHER NAME
The next morning when, at half-past six, the small alarm clock at his
bedside shot off with metallic clangor Peter raised himself drowsily on
his elbow and glanced about. What had happened? What was all this
jangling about? In a second more, however, he recollected. This was the
day when school, fun, and friends were to be left behind, and when he
was to set forth into a new world. He was going to work! Slowly,
unwillingly, with a vague sinking at heart, he dragged himself to his
feet and listened. It was very still. All the world appeared to have
stopped and the only being alive in the great universe seemed to be
himself. He prepared to dress. Half automatically he turned on the
shower-bath. The chill of the cold water sent a tingle over him and
quickened his awakening faculties. Pulling on his clothes he crept down
over the stairs. It was bad enough to have to get up at this unearthly
hour himself; he at least need not disturb the rest of the household. Of
course his father would get up and start him off.
But to Peter's surprise nothing of this sort happened. Instead he sat
down alone in the big dining-room to a forlorn breakfast, at the
conclusion of which the waitress laid on the table beside him a
carefully packed lunch-box. Now Peter detested taking a lunch. Whenever
he went with his parents on motor trips or train journeys the family
always stopped at hotels for their meals or patronized the dining-cars.
It seemed such a vulgar thing to open a box and in the gaze of lookers
on devour one's food out of it. Accordingly he eyed the lunch-box with
disdain, mentally arguing that although he must, out of gratitude to his
mother's thoughtfulness, carry it, he certainly should not open it. He
would far rather go hungry than eat a lunch from a box!
On the porch still another unpleasant feature of this going to work
greeted him. No motor-car, panting like a hound on the leash, stood
waiting to carry him to the factory. Evidently his father had made no
provision for him to get to the tannery. He must walk! So entirely
unforeseen was this development that the boy stood a moment irresolute.
It was a good mile to the tan yards; he had had no notion of walking,
and there was now but scant time in which to cover the distance. Perhaps
his father had forgotten to order the car. Peter had half a mind not to
go. After all what difference would it make whether he went to-day or
to-morrow? In fact, why wasn't it better to delay until to-morrow when
he could be sure of not being late? He vacillated uneasily. Then the
thought of what his father would say when he came down to breakfast and
found that his son had not gone decided Peter.
Down two steps at a time he dashed and set out over the gravel drive
with the even jog of a track sprinter. On he went. Running in the June
sunshine was hot work; nevertheless, hat in hand, he kept up the pace.
He must be there promptly at eight, his father had told him. He could
feel tiny streams of perspiration trickling down his back, and he sensed
that his collar was wilting into a limp band of flimsy linen. Still he
ran on. Eight was just on the stroke when he presented himself at the
office of Factory 1.
A stout man bending over a ledger at a desk near the door eyed the
panting lad with disapproval.
"What do you want?" he demanded sharply. "Boys are not admitted in this
office."
"I want to see Mr. Tyler," gasped Peter.
"Well, you can't," the bookkeeper responded acidly. "He's busy. If you
are wanting a job I can tell you right now that there are none to be
had. We have more boys already than we know what to do with. You better
not wait. It won't do any good."
"But I must see Mr. Tyler," persisted Peter. "My fa---- I was told to
give him this card."
"Why didn't you say you had a card in the first place?" was the gruff
question. "Give it here. You can sit down on that bench and wait."
As the accountant held out his hand Peter delivered up the card.
"Peter Strong--hump!" read the bookkeeper. "Sent by--oh, you're sent by
Mr. Coddington, are you? Some relative of his, perhaps."
"Mr. Coddington said I was to present the card to Mr. Tyler," Peter
answered, ignoring the implied query.
"He shall have it right away, Strong. You'll excuse my brusqueness. I
did not understand that you were sent here. We have so many young boys
applying for work that we have to pack them off in short order,"
explained the man glibly.
It was evident that he was not a little discomfited at the chill
reception he had accorded Peter, for he anxiously continued to reiterate
excuses and apologies. Fortunately in the midst of his explanations an
electric bell beside his desk rang and cut him short.
"That is Mr. Tyler now," he murmured. "I'll take in your card right
away."
Peter watched him as he hurried down the center of the long room and
disappeared into a little glass cage in the corner.
It was an oblong room in which reigned the din of typewriters. Over
against the farther wall a dozen or more men were bending so intently
over heavy, leather-bound ledgers that it seemed as if they must have
sat in that exact spot from the beginning of the world, adding, adding,
adding! Vacantly the lad's eye wandered along to the space just opposite
him where, framed in neat oak, hung a printed notice headed: "Labor Laws
of the State of Massachusetts." For the want of a better amusement Peter
sauntered over and began to read. The length of the working day, he
gathered, was ten hours except for boys under sixteen, whom the law
forbade working longer than eight hours. A smile passed over the lad's
face. Eight hours was surely long enough--from eight until twelve, and
from one until five. What if he had been sixteen instead of fifteen, and
been forced to get to the tannery at seven o'clock in the morning and
work until six at night! There must be boys who did. For the first time
in his life Peter was thankful that he was no older.
Just at this moment he saw the bookkeeper returning.
"If you please, Strong," said the older man with a deference that
contrasted markedly with his former greeting, "will you step this way?
Mr. Tyler is expecting you."
Peter followed through the central aisle of the long room and entered
the small, glass-enclosed space where a man surrounded by a chaos of
papers and letters was sitting at a roll-top desk.
"This, Mr. Tyler, is young Strong," announced the bookkeeper to the
superintendent.
"I am glad to see you, Strong."
So sharply did his eye sweep over Peter that the boy trembled lest this
oracle suddenly announce:
"I know all about you. Your name is not Strong at all. You are Peter
Coddington, and you have been sent to the mill because you flunked your
examinations."
Nothing of the sort happened, however. The superintendent merely
remarked with a nod: "That will do, Carter. You may go."
Peter heard the latch click as Mr. Carter went out.
"Well, young man, so you want a job in the tannery?" were Mr. Tyler's
next words.
"Yes, sir."
"Mr. Coddington telephoned me about you. He told me that you are
entirely inexperienced and with no knowledge of the business. I should
say the only thing for you to do is to begin at the very bottom of the
ladder, if you want to make anything of yourself."
"I suppose so, sir."
The superintendent tilted back in his chair and carefully studied the
lad before him.
"You look able-bodied."
"Oh, yes, sir."
"Not afraid of work?"
Peter hesitated.
"I don't mind working if I like what I'm doing, sir," he replied with
naive truthfulness.
It was obvious that the honest reply pleased Mr. Tyler.
"I guess that is the way with many of us, Strong," he laughed. "But if
you are to have a position here you will have to stick at your work
whether you like it or not."
"I mean to try to."
"That's the proper spirit. You are not afraid of getting your hands
dirty?"
Peter laughed contemptuously. Later he remembered that laugh and smiled
grimly at his own ignorance.
Mr. Tyler seemed satisfied.
"Well, I can set you to work right away unloading skins," he said. "We
are short-handed and can use a boy to advantage. Are you over sixteen?"
"No, sir, I am fifteen."
"That's bad. I don't like to take these eight-hour boys. The time we
want workmen most is in the early morning and at closing time. Those are
the very hours you under-age fellows are not here. However, since you
have come at Mr. Coddington's recommendation we'll have to get on
without you the best way we can. Strong, your name is! Do you know Mr.
Coddington personally?"
"I've known him all my life," was the reply.
"Then you know an honest, upright gentleman," declared Mr. Tyler warmly.
"His friendship is well worth having and a possession to be proud of.
Take care you do not disappoint him."
"I do not mean to disappoint him," was Peter's quick reply. "He told me,
though, that after he got me the place he should not do anything more
for me. I've got to make good myself. He's the president of the company
and I am just a boy in the works."
Unconsciously the lad repeated his father's very words.
"That's right. That's the way to go at it," the superintendent assented
cordially. "It is very kind of Mr. Coddington to bother his head about
you at all, for he is such a busy man that he has more things to
remember in a day than most of the rest of us have ever thought of in
all our lives. After you once get in here he, of course, can't take the
time to follow you up. Having done you the favor of giving you a start
he will drop you from his mind. You cannot expect anything else and I am
glad you have common sense enough to see it."
At the thought of his father "dropping him from his mind" Peter smiled
inwardly. Of course Mr. Tyler could not see the smile, and even if he
had he would not have understood it. As it was he now cut short the
interview by touching a bell at his elbow in response to which a
messenger appeared.
"Take this boy down to the yard, Johnson," he said. "Introduce him to
Carmachel and tell him he is to help unload skins. His name is Strong.
Good luck to you, young man. Remember the world is a large place and
there are plenty of fine positions waiting for the men who prove
themselves big enough to fill them."
Peter took the superintendent's hand but he forgot to answer. Somehow
Mr. Tyler's words awakened a train of thoughts which were so entirely
new that he could not immediately drive them from his mind. So the great
universe of work demanded that you should fill your position, not rattle
round in it! The mere fact that one had a rich father did not help much
then after all. It might aid you in keeping your job, to be sure, but it
could not aid you in doing it. Evidently at the Coddington tanneries
there were plenty of men ready to take your chance if you were not smart
enough to hold on to it yourself. Peter decided that it behooved him to
"hustle." It was a novel sensation to feel this spur to action.
As he thus philosophized he was following his guide, who now turned down
a flight of steep steps into a yard slippery with black mud and deeply
rutted by the wheels of heavy wagons. A double track with a row of
freight cars flanked the building opposite, and from these cars a group
of men were unloading bundles of skins and tossing them on the platform.
The men were dressed in faded jumpers and overalls and some of them wore
rubber aprons.
They glanced up an instant as Peter drew near.
"Carmachel," called the man who was showing the way, "this young fellow
is to help at unloading and later, the boss says, he is to watch you
fellows sort skins. He is a green lad and," added the messenger with a
grin of enjoyment at some joke that Peter did not at all comprehend,
"his name is Strong."
Carmachel, a grizzled Irishman, looked up--a twinkle in his eye.
"It's Strong he'll have to be if he is to work here," he answered with a
chuckle in which the others joined. "I say, young one," he continued
kindly, "you're not figuring on unloading skins in those clothes, are
you?"
"I was," replied Peter, nodding.
"Well, before you begin, you better have another think. It will be the
end of your glad rags. It's truth I'm tellin' you. Step inside the
doorway and wriggle yourself into those brown jeans you'll see hangin'
there."
Peter went in.
He took down the jeans from a peg behind the door. The clothes were
dirty, sticky with salt, and in them lingered a loathsome aroma of wet
hides. Instinctively he shrank from touching them. Then, gritting his
teeth, he put them on. This he did more out of appreciation for the
rough kindliness of the old Irishman than because he feared to injure
his clothes; his father would give him plenty more suits if that one was
spoiled.
When he went out on the platform Carmachel eyed him.
"That's more like it," he said. "Now get busy. We want to pull these
cars out of the yard by noon. Step lively."
Peter crossed the wet, slippery platform to the car where the other men
were working. The skins were folded neatly and tied with stout cord. He
lifted the bundle nearest at hand, then dropped it. It was solid,
sticky, and damp.
"They're wet!" he exclaimed.
"For certain they're wet!" roared the Irishman with a noisy guffaw.
"You're as green as the skins themselves--greener, for you are not even
salted."
The gang on the platform shouted at the joke.
Peter's anger rose, but he struggled to take their chaffing in good
part.
"You see, I don't know a thing about all this business," confessed he,
frankly. "You fellows who do will have to tell me."
The answer struck the right note with the men.
"How could you be expected to know, sonny?" called a red-faced Swede
kindly. "Every boy who comes into the tannery has to learn."
"Pitch a few skins out of the car, lad, while I tell you some things,"
broke in Carmachel. "You are unloading calfskins; that's the only kind
we tan at Factory 1. Over at Factory 2 they tan sheepskins, and at
Factory 3 cowhides. In each of these factories the skins are treated and
prepared for the trade quite differently, as you will learn by and by if
you have the chance to go through the other buildings. These calfskins
that we are unloading came from the Chicago slaughter-houses, where as
soon as they were taken off the animals they were salted; folded with
the head, tail, and small parts inside; tied in bales such as you see;
and shipped. They are what we call green-salted. We also get
green-salted skins from the abattoirs of the city of Paris, and from
lots of other places, too. Sometimes, though, skins are salted green and
are then dried like those you saw piled up in the shed; those we call
dry-salted. They came from Norway, Sweden, and South America. Then we
have dry hides which are dried without being salted at all. Remember
now--green-salted, dry-salted, and dry."
Peter repeated the terms.
At the same time he did his share in tossing the heavy bales of moist
skins to the platform. It was strenuous work. Before an hour was up his
back and arms ached with the unaccustomed exercise. Tennis and football
were as nothing to this! Still he went on uncomplainingly. His
unflagging energy appealed to the men.
"Knock off, lad, and rest a bit," called Carmachel at last. "You're not
toughened to this job as we are. It's a precious lame back you'll have
to-morrow if you keep at it like this the first time."
Gratefully Peter straightened up and took a long breath. Then he glanced
at his hands.
"You'll be losing your gentlemanly white hands, if that's what's
worrying you," grinned Carmachel, reading his thoughts with
disconcerting keenness.
"Oh, I'm not afraid of my hands," replied Peter, mortified at being
detected in such a foolish reflection. "I was just thinking that they
are beginning to look the part."
"If you are aiming to work up through the tannery they'll likely look
the part more by the time you've got a few coats of lime and blacking on
them," was Carmachel's dry response. "Now we'll let the others finish
this work. You come inside and you shall have a new job. You've done
enough unloading for your first day."
Obediently Peter followed into the shed, where other men were busy
cutting the cords from round the skins, looking them over, and tossing
some into one pile and some into another.
"These fellows that you see are sorting the calfskins according to their
weight," explained Carmachel. "We get them flat--by that I mean that
when the bales are made up all sizes and qualities of skins are tied in
together. These men put the fine, heavy ones in one pile, the medium
weight in another, the light weight in another, the imperfect ones in
another, and so on."
"I do not see how they can tell so quickly," said Peter.
"They couldn't if they hadn't done it a good many times before. They are
skilled men. Watch them. It does not take them many minutes to determine
the value of a skin."
"And what are those other men doing?" Peter questioned, pointing to a
group of workmen who were engaged in swiftly cutting off parts of the
skins with long knives.
"Oh, they are taking off the heads and other good-for-nothing parts
which are sold for glue stock. Nothing is wasted in a tannery, let me
tell you! After the skins leave this room they will be sent to the
beamhouse, where they will be soaked in water until all the dirt and
salt is out of them. Usually this takes from twenty-four to forty-eight
hours."
"What's the beamhouse?" was Peter's query.
"The beamhouse? I'll not be telling you. 'Twould be a sin to spoil your
first sight of it." Carmachel shook his head. "No, young one, I'll tell
you nothing of the beamhouse. You'll find out in time. There's many a
pleasant spot awaiting you in this tannery."
A general snicker went around.
Again Peter did not understand.
"Now," declared Carmachel briskly, "you have idled long enough. Take
that knife and go to cutting the twine from those bales of skins."
At this task the boy worked faithfully until the noon whistle blew. At
its first blast all the men dropped what they were doing and Peter, who
did the same, followed them into a washroom, where he scoured his hands
with sand soap. Somehow he did not feel as scornful toward his box of
lunch as he had when he had tucked it under his arm in the early
morning. Instead he made his way out into the vacant field opposite
where he saw the men congregating, and sitting down in the shade of one
of the factories, lifted the tin cover with keenest anticipation. How
good it seemed to rest, and how faint he was! He devoured the food
hurriedly with the quick greed of hunger. He then glanced about him.
Some boys and men were sauntering with bat and ball out into the open
field. Apparently a noontide game was a part of the daily program, for
two nines were quickly organized and a match was under way in the
twinkling of an eye. The other workmen drew near to watch the play and
so did Peter. He wondered how any one could summon energy enough to toss
a ball. They couldn't be as tired as he was! The game began. Before it
had proceeded beyond the first inning it was obvious that the teams were
unevenly matched.
[Illustration: A MATCH WAS UNDER WAY]
"It's the sheepskins against the calfskins--Factory 1 against Factory
2," explained a man at his elbow. "Factory 1 could do 'em if we had a
decent pitcher. O'Brien, who is pitching, isn't much even when he's in
the best of trim; to-day he happens to have a sprained finger, so he's
worse than usual."
Instantly Peter was alert. Wasn't he Factory 1? He forgot his
fatigue--forgot everything except how it felt to pitch when one had a
sprained finger.
"I can pitch a ball," he ventured modestly.
"Can you then? O'Brien!" bawled the man. "Here's a lad who says he can
pitch. Give him a try, won't you?"
Despite aching muscles and tired back Peter suddenly found himself on
the diamond with the ball in his hands. It was the first familiar
experience that had come to him that day. His blood warmed. He sent a
twirler over the plate and was greeted by a roar from the Factory 1 men.
The ball dropped with a smack into the hands of the catcher.
Peter tried another.
He pitched a third.
Vainly the man at the bat tried to hit them.
"Three strikes and out!" called the umpire.
The crowd cheered.
On went the game.
"Who's pitching?" asked one man of another.
Nobody knew.
"Carmachel says his name is Strong," some one at last informed the
workmen.
"Hurrah for little Strong!" yelled a big Swede.
"Three cheers for the Little Giant!" piped a shrill voice.
On every hand the cry was taken up.
"Three cheers for the Little Giant!"
Then suddenly the one o'clock whistle sounded. Peter came back to the
realities of life. He dropped his gloves. Already, as if the earth had
opened, players and audience had vanished. In through the waiting doors
of the tanneries filed the men. But Peter Coddington had won a place for
himself, and with it a new name. Henceforth throughout the works he was
known as "The Little Giant."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III
A NEW FRIEND
For a week Peter worked patiently cutting ropes from freshly received
shipments of skins, trimming the skins, and learning to sort them. Every
night he went home exhausted after his day's work. Sometimes it was hard
to realize that he was the same boy who, but a short time before, had
jauntily sauntered out to play tennis every evening with his classmates.
He couldn't have played tennis now had he tried, and he was not sorry
when the rumor reached him that it was commonly reported at the high
school that he had been sent away to a distant military academy. So that
was the reason why the fellows had not hunted him up! Perhaps it was
just as well. It saved many embarrassing questions, and he was much too
worn out when night came to do anything but fall into his bed. Still he
did not complain of his fatigue. He was too proud to do that. Moreover
had he not brought the entire situation upon himself? He would swallow
his medicine in silence.
But he knew from his mother's troubled questions; from her unusual care
that his luncheon be tempting and nourishing; from the solicitous gaze
she fixed on him that the present ordeal worried her not a little. Once
he overheard her say to his father: "The boy isn't strong enough to
stand it! He will be ill."
"Don't have any anxiety about Peter," was the retort. "The young
scoundrel finds energy enough, I hear, to play ball with the men every
noon time. He is the star pitcher of Factory 1." A chuckle came from the
older man. "It is something of a joke, too," he continued, "for I
thought I had put him beyond all possible range of a bat and ball. Don't
fret any more about him. Let him alone. He is showing more pluck than I
dreamed he possessed."
"But suppose he should overdo."
"He won't overdo."
And the prediction was true. Tired as he was every night Peter awoke in
the morning entirely refreshed. The lameness of back and muscles soon
wore away. At the end of the week, when he received his first pay
envelope, no boy in the wide world ever felt as rich as he. Six dollars!
Six dollars of his very own! To be sure his father had often given him
twice that amount; but receiving it as a present was a vastly different
matter from earning it.
"I mean to save up for a motorcycle," Peter declared. "Then I could ride
to the tannery every day."
"So you could," agreed Mr. Coddington. "It is not a bad idea. Don't
forget, though, that you will be needing clothes now and then. You spoke
last night of wanting some flannel shirts to wear to work."
"Yes, but you----"
Mr. Coddington shook his head.
"I have bought your clothes up to this time," he answered, "but now that
you have a salary of your own it is time you relieved me of that
expense."
"Oh--of--of--course," Peter stammered. "I guess, though, I can get the
motorcycle and pay for my clothes, too, without any trouble. How much do
clothes cost?"
"Let me see!" Mr. Coddington took out a small expense book and turned
its pages rapidly. "Clothing for Peter. Here it is. Last year I spent
for you $638."
"For me! For my clothes?" gasped the boy. "Did I spend $638? Why, I had
no idea of it! I could have gone without some of those overcoats and
things as well as not if I had known they cost so much. That's an awful
lot for a boy to spend, isn't it?"
"It's a plenty."
"Why, it's more than I will earn in a whole year."
"Yes, I am afraid it is--at least, for the present."
Peter was thoughtful.
"I can see that it's good-bye to the motorcycle," he said at last,
disappointment in every feature.
With an impulsive gesture Mr. Coddington thrust his hand into the breast
pocket where his check-book lay; then resolutely took out the hand and
put it behind him.
"There seems to be no way but for you to do without a motorcycle for a
while, son," he replied. "Do not be discouraged, though. You are now
pretty well stocked with the necessary clothing and in consequence will
not require many new things for some time. If you are not too proud to
wear your old suits to work you can easily put aside some money each
week."
"I do not care how old and shabby my clothes are," smiled Peter. "It
does not make much difference what I wear to the tannery if I can just
have some flannel shirts, overalls, and rubber boots. I've packed away
my white tennis suits in moth-balls, you know, since I went into the
mill."
They both laughed.
As flannel shirts and overalls were inexpensive and easily obtained,
and as Peter already had rubber boots it was possible to begin the
saving for the motorcycle without further delay.
In the meantime orders came that Strong was to leave his task of
trimming skins and present himself at the beamhouse. Reluctantly he bade
farewell to Carmachel and the other men--his first friends at the
tannery--and on the following Monday morning he made his way into the
long, low room where he had been told the skins were tanned. The room
was a revelation, and a none too pleasant one at that! If he had thought
the unloading and sorting department unsavory what should he say of
this? The floor of the beamhouse was slippery with water, lime, and
tanning solutions; unpleasant fumes of wet skins made heavy the air;
revolving paddle-wheels suspended from the ceiling dripped upon the
passer-by; and men, dragging saturated skins from vats in the floor,
piled them in heaps where the water oozing from them trickled out into
the general sloppiness and transformed the floor into a great shallow
pool of moisture. Back and forth through this wetness moved workmen
who, as they wheeled barrows of freshly tanned skins, left a wake of
slime behind them. Peter looked about in consternation. The steaming
odor of the room was nauseating and filled him with disgust. Could he
stand it? And they called this a promotion! What wonder that Carmachel
had chuckled when asked what the beamhouse was!
As Peter stood hesitating, a prey to these confused impressions, a lad
about his own age touched him on the shoulder.
"Bryant, the foreman, wants to speak to you," he said.
Peter roused himself and followed the boy.
In a corner of the room the foreman greeted him.
"How are you, Strong?" he began. "You see you are no stranger to me, for
I have watched you play ball at noon time. I am glad we are to have you
in our department."
"Thank you, sir. Yes, Mr. Tyler said I was to report here for the
present."
"That's good. We can put you to work, all right. Before you begin,
however, I should like to have you look about and get an idea what
we do in here. A man always enjoys his work better and does it more
intelligently, I contend, if he has some notion of the process in which
he is to have a share. Jackson is about your age and has been in this
room a long time." (He indicated the boy at Peter's elbow.) "Suppose he
takes you around and shows you what happens to the skins after they are
sent in here to us."
"Thank you, sir."
Jackson seemed pleased at the task assigned him.
"I'm glad you are coming into the beamhouse to work, Strong," he
ventured timidly. "There are not many boys here my age. You won't like
it at first, I'm afraid, but you will soon get used to it."
"I don't believe I shall like it at all," was Peter's rueful reply.
"It's an awful place, isn't it?"
"Oh, it's not so bad as it seems. You won't mind it--really you won't.
Of course the smell is disagreeable and it is wet and sloppy, too; but
Bryant, the foreman, is a mighty white fellow and the men, although
mostly foreigners, are pleasant enough. I myself was so thankful to get
any work that I did not much care what it was."
"Have you been here long?" questioned Peter.
"Ever since I was old enough to go to work--a year this August."
"And you've been in this room all that time!"
"Yes. It takes quite a while to get a promotion here at the tannery. My
pay has been raised to nine dollars, though. Maybe I wasn't glad to get
the money! You see, I support my mother." Jackson threw back his head
proudly.
"You? You support yourself and your mother?" repeated Peter
incredulously.
"Sure I do! Why not?"
"But you--why, you are not much older than I am!"
"I'm sixteen. Mother and I get on very well on what I earn, even though
it isn't much. Don't you have anybody to take care of?"
"No."
Jackson regarded Peter with astonishment.
"I should think you would be rich as a lord if you have all your money
to yourself!" he exclaimed. "What on earth do you find to do with it?"
Once--and the time was not far passed, either--Peter would have laughed
at the naive question; now he answered gravely:
"Oh, I am saving some of it."
"That's right. I can't save a cent at present, but some time I hope to
get a better salary and then I shall be able to. Now let's go over to
the other end of the room and see where they are putting the skins to
soak in those big vats of water to get out the salt and dirt. That's the
first thing they do after the skins are sent into the beamhouse. You
remember how stiff and hard the dry skins were when you unloaded them.
Well, they are put into the great revolving wooden drums that you see
overhead and are worked about in borax and water until they become soft.
They are washed, too. Then after all the skins have been washed and
softened they are thrown into lime and are left there until the fibre
swells and the hair is loosened. The men you see with rubber gloves on
are the limers. If they did not wear gloves they would get their hands
burned and raw, for the lime and the chemicals used in the tan often
make the hands and arms very sore."
"But I don't see that the skins that are tossed into the lime pits come
out with the hair off," objected Peter.
"Bless your heart--the lime does not take the hair off. The men who
unhair them have to do that. They lay the wet skins out on boards and
with sharp knives pull and scrape off all the white hair."
"Why don't they take off the brown or black hair as well?"
"Because only the white hair is removed by hand. That is kept separate
and after being dried is sold to dealers for a good price. The colored
hair is taken off by machinery and is sold too, but it is not so
valuable."
"I suppose plasterers can use hair like that," speculated Peter.
"Yes, and upholsterers," added Jackson.
Peter smiled.
"Carmachel told me nothing in a tannery was wasted," he said. "I was
surprised to find that even the lumps of fat and bits of flesh adhering
to the skins, together with the parings that came off when the calfskins
were trimmed down to an even thickness, were disposed of for glue stock
or fertilizer."
"Every scrap of stuff is used, I can tell you!" assented Jackson.
"Calfskin, you know, is never split; it is not heavy enough for that.
Besides it is more nearly uniform in weight than a skin like a bull's
hide, for instance, which is very much heavier about the head. No,
calfskin is fairly even and therefore, while wet, is just put between
rollers where a thin, sharp blade shaves from the flesh side any part of
it that is thicker than any other. It comes out of equal thickness all
over. Do you understand?"
Peter nodded.
"And now have you this beamhouse process straight in your head so we can
go on?"
Jackson held up his hand and began to check off the successive steps on
his fingers:
"The skins are washed until the dirt and salt are out; they are worked
in paddle-wheels, if necessary, until soft; they are limed; unhaired;
and bated, or puered. By puering I mean that they are put through a
liquid that takes out all the lime; if the lime is not carefully soaked
out the skins will be burned and hard and cannot be tanned properly.
After the puering the short-hairers remove any remaining hairs; the
skins are thoroughly washed again, and at last are ready for tanning."
"How are they tanned?"
"Why, by putting them into paddle-wheels filled with the tanning
solution where they revolve as many as seven or eight hours. This
solution is then changed for a weaker one, and they revolve again for a
couple of hours more. Some skins are tanned in a mixture of chemicals
which we buy all prepared; we call those chrome tanned. Others are
soaked in a vegetable tan of hemlock, oak, chestnut, palmetto roots,
gambier, or quebracho."
"Or what?"
"Quebracho!" Jackson rolled out the long word with a gusto. "Quebracho
is a tree something like the lignum-vitæ and grows in South America. The
hardened gum comes in barrels and looks like rosin; sometimes, instead
of being hard, it is shipped in a liquid state in big tank cars. There
is about fifteen per cent. of tannin in quebracho and at the tanneries
it can be diluted, of course, to any strength desired. We use it
altogether here instead of using other vegetable tans."
"But it says in my geography that every one uses oak or hemlock bark,"
objected Peter, sceptically.
"Well, the Coddington Company doesn't. Bryant says we tan so much
leather here that there would be no way of disposing of the quantities
of bark left after the tannin had been extracted from it. Besides bark
is scarce and expensive; then, too, it takes a car-load of bark to get
even a decent amount of tannin and the freighting adds to the cost.
Quebracho can be shipped by water and is therefore more economical, and
for the varieties of leather we tan here it answers the purpose as well.
It is lots of work to get the tannin out of oak or hemlock bark. The
bark has to be ground up and put in a leaching-kettle full of water;
after it has boiled the liquid is drained off and the tannin extracted.
Using quebracho is a much simpler method. Of course we use oak and
hemlock bark, though, in the sole leather tanneries over at Elmwood."
Peter regarded Jackson intently.
"How did you come to know so much about all this business?" he asked at
last.
"Oh, I don't know much," was the modest answer. "I just wanted to learn
what I could while I had the chance. You can't help being curious when
you work so long in one room. Bryant saw I was interested and he's
explained all the things I wanted to find out."
"Then maybe you'll pass on some more of your information," laughed
Peter, "and tell me why some of the skins are tanned in quebracho and
some in chrome."
"As I told you," repeated Jackson good-naturedly, "quebracho is a
vegetable tan and chrome a chemical tan. The effect of each of these
processes on the skins is different; so the process used depends on what
sort of leather is wanted. At many tanneries chrome is used almost
entirely for tanning calfskins because the process is so much quicker;
chrome takes but about nine hours while quebracho tanning takes two
weeks or thereabouts."
"I see. And after the tanning?"
"The skins are inspected while wet and sorted for stock; they are then
stamped with a letter or number so they can be identified; they are
fat-liquored, and are dyed."
"What is fat-liquored?"
"Fat-liquored means working the skins about in a mixture of soap and oil
until they absorb these softening ingredients and become pliable. All
leather, whether chrome or vegetable tanned, has to go through this
process. The liquid is put into paddle-wheels just as the tanning
mixture is. The dyeing is done in paddle-wheels too, and some kinds of
leather have in addition a coat of dye rubbed into them by hand. It
gives them a better surface."
"What is your work, Jackson?" asked Peter.
"Oh, I've done about everything there is to do in a beamhouse. Just now
I am inspecting and sorting the skins after they are tanned."
"What is Mr. Bryant going to set me at?"
"I don't know. You will have to ask him. But no matter what he gives you
to do you must not be discouraged, Strong. You were lucky to get any job
at all in the tannery. They have turned away lots of boys your age--they
do it every day."
Peter bit his lip to keep from smiling.
"I suppose I ought to consider myself lucky," replied he.
"Well, aren't you? To be young, and well, and to know that if you do
your best you have a chance to work up to something better? I think
it's great! I intend to work up. Some day I may be a partner in
Coddingtons'--who knows! Then I'll dress my mother in silk every day in
the week and I'll buy an automobile. I'd like to ride in one of those
things just once. Did you ever?"
"Yes," admitted Peter cautiously.
"Honest? Wasn't it bully? Where did you go?"
But Peter was spared the difficult task of replying. Instead, Bryant
summoned him, and he was given a wheel-barrow filled with wet skins
which were to be carried from the soaking vats to the lime pits. All the
rest of the morning back and forth he trudged wheeling load after load.
It was stupid, dirty work, and he was glad when the noon whistle blew.
"Let's eat our luncheon together, Strong," said Jackson, "that
is--unless you have somebody else you want to lunch with."
Peter assented only too gladly. It was far pleasanter to have a boy his
own age to speak to than to eat by himself. Besides he liked Jackson.
But even in the fresh breeze that swept the open field, even while
playing ball, even at home after a hot bath and clean clothing, Peter
could still scent the odor of the beamhouse. It was days before he
became accustomed to it and could feel, with Nat Jackson, that he was a
lucky boy to have a "job."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV
PETER'S MAIDEN SPEECH
Peter had been three weeks in the beamhouse and had in that time proved
himself so useful that his pay had been raised from six to six dollars
and a half a week. Very proud he was of his financial good fortune. With
few demands in the way of clothing he was now able to lay aside quite a
little sum toward the motorcycle he so much desired. The days at the
tannery passed more quickly. Nat Jackson became his chum and the two
lads were almost inseparable; they lunched together, played on the ball
team, and often spent their Saturday afternoons in taking long walks or
going to Nat's house. Peter, however, took great good care that Nat
should not visit him.
The omission of this hospitality was not entirely unnoticed by young
Jackson, and the conclusion he drew was that Peter lived humbly--perhaps
poorly--in lodgings to which he did not consider it suitable to invite a
guest. Nat thought this foolish pride on Peter's part and he meant to
tell him so some time when they became better acquainted. It was a
mistake, argued Nat, to be over-sensitive about one's poverty. If Peter
was saving his money surely that was excuse enough. He had a right to
live as he pleased. Furthermore what possible difference could it make
in their friendship? Nat himself lived simply but very nicely on the
meager salary that he earned. He and his mother rented two tiny
bedrooms, a sunny little living-room, and a microscopic kitchen in a
part of the town which, to be sure, was cheap and ugly; but Mrs.
Jackson, Peter soon found, was one of the rare women who could make a
home--a real home--almost anywhere. She often laughingly remarked that
if she were to dwell in a snow hovel at the North Pole she believed she
should cut a window in the side of it and set a pot of flowers there,
and Peter could well imagine her doing it.
She was a short, bright-eyed, motherly little person, with a quick
appreciation of a joke, and a wonderful knack at cooking. Incidentally
she had a quiet voice and chose soft colors in preference to crude ones.
Peter gathered from her manner of speech and from the delicate modeling
of her hands that at some time in her life she had occupied a very
different position from the one she was now filling. But whatever that
past might have been he gained no inkling of it either from her or from
her son. Bravely, patiently, happily, she made a home for her boy--such
a home that Peter Coddington visited it with the keenest pleasure and
came away with a vague wonder what it was that those three wee rooms
possessed which was lacking in his own richly furnished mansion.
Perhaps if it had not been for the encouragement of Nat and his mother
Peter might not have had the grit to master his work at the beamhouse.
A wholesome spur these two friends were to his flagging spirits. There
was some subtle quality in Nat's mother that made a fellow want to do
his very best--to be as much of a man as he could. And yet she said
little to urge either of the lads to their task. It was just that she
was so proud and so pleased when they did win any good fortune through
their own endeavors. And so Peter forged bravely on, prodded by an
unformulated desire to do well not only for the sake of his own parents,
but that he might not disappoint the faith that Nat and Nat's mother had
in him.
Even Mr. Coddington remarked one evening at dinner (and there was a
twinkle in his eye when he said it) that he was highly gratified by the
reports he heard of "young Strong."
But as the summer advanced and the days grew hotter Mrs. Coddington
watched her boy with anxious care and dropped more than one suggestion
that it was time they all were off to the shore. None of her suggestions
bore fruit, however, and by and by when she saw that Mr. Coddington had
no intention of leaving Milburn she ceased to remonstrate further and
Peter settled down to work and to keep as comfortable as he could during
the hot weather. What a haven his home, with its green lawns and wide
verandas, became, after those long, breathless hours in the tannery!
Never before had he half appreciated his surroundings. Most of the
houses where the men at the factory lived were huddled closely in that
dingy part of the town where Nat Jackson's rooms were, and Peter soon
discovered that after supper many of the workmen and their families came
and sat in the ball field opposite Factory 1 where there was more air,
and where some of the men actually slept when the nights were very hot.
It was a blessing--that great open space! Peter wondered what they would
have done without it.
He had been raising the query mentally one July morning on his way to
work after a close, restless night in his big room on the hill. The day
was a sultry one; no air stirred, and it was with a sigh that Peter
entered the beamhouse. No sooner was he inside, however, than he at once
saw that something was wrong. Knots of men were speaking together in
undertones and seemed to be far more eager to talk than to take up their
daily tasks. Only Bryant, who moved from one group to another, urging,
coaxing, commanding, succeeded in compelling them to attend to what they
had to do.
"You fellows can do all the talking you want to at noon," he said.
"There will be no builders around to-day, I guess."
"They'll do well to keep away!" muttered an angry Swede, threateningly.
"You go to unhairing skins, Olsen," Bryant commanded, putting his hand
firmly but kindly on the broad shoulder of the man. "You can scold your
wrath all out this noon. Go on."
Sullenly the man obeyed.
"What is the matter?" Peter managed to whisper to Nat Jackson.
"The men are furious; they are threatening to strike," returned Nat in
an undertone.
"To strike!" exclaimed Peter. His thoughts flew to his father. "What has
happened?" he questioned insistently.
"Didn't you see last night's paper? Haven't you heard? Mr. Coddington is
going to put up another tannery. He's going to build it on the ball
field!"
"On the ball field! Our field!"
"So the paper says. Of course the land is his. But it does seem pretty
tough!"
Peter moved on, dazed.
To take away the field--the one out-of-door spot for luncheon and
exercise! To deprive hundreds of stifled creatures of fresh air and
sunlight! It was monstrous! Why hadn't his father mentioned the plan? Of
course he did not realize what it would mean to the men or he never
would have considered it. What would become of all those tired people
who nightly left their bare little dwellings and sought a cool evening
breeze in the field? Peter knew Nat and his mother always sat there
until bedtime and many of the other workmen brought their wives and
children. Once the boy had sat there himself. It was an orderly crowd
that he had seen--children tumbling over each other on the grass; women
seated on the benches and exchanging a bit of gossip; tired men
stretched full-length on the turf resting in the quiet of the place.
Why, it was a crime to take the field away!
All the morning while he worked Peter's mind seethed with arguments
against the building of the new factory. He longed to see his father
and talk it out. Surely Mr. Coddington would listen if he realized the
conditions. He was a kind man--not an inhuman brute. It seemed as if the
noon whistle would never blow.
With Nat Jackson and a score of agitated workmen Peter went out into the
shade opposite. Luncheon was forgotten, and ball, too. Instead a crowd
gathered and on every hand there were mutterings and angry protests.
"Of course Coddington can take the land. It's his. There is no law to
prevent him from doing anything he wants to with it. What does he care
for us?" remarked an old, gray-haired tanner.
"The working man is nothing to the rich man," grumbled another. "All the
millionaire wants is more money. Another factory means just that--more
money! It's money, money, money--always money with the rich. The more
they have the more they want."
Sick at heart, Peter listened.
"Why don't you fellows do something about it?" blustered a red-faced
Italian. "I'll bet you if we called a strike it would bring Coddington
to terms. He'd a good sight rather give up building that factory than
have us all walk out--'specially now when there's more work ahead than
the firm can handle. I've been in five strikes in other places and we
never failed yet to get what we started for."
"Do you think you could drive a man like Mr. Coddington that way?" It
was Carmachel who spoke. "You can walk out, all of you, if you choose.
It would make no difference to him. If he has decided it is best to put
up that tannery he'll put it up. A strike would do you no good and as a
result your families would be without food and a roof over their heads
all winter. You're a fine man, Ristori! Coddington pays you well. You
take his money and are glad to get a job from him; then the first
minute anything does not go to suit you you turn against him and cry:
Strike! You don't know what loyalty means. Hasn't Coddington always been
square with you? Hasn't he paid you good wages? Hasn't he added an extra
bit to your envelope at Christmas? I'll not strike!"
"What would you have us do?" was Ristori's hot retort. "Would you have
us sit by like dumb things and let him do anything to us he pleases?"
"Coddington is a reasonable man," Carmachel replied. "Why don't some of
you talk decently with him about all this?"
"Aye! And lose our jobs for our pains!" sneered a swarthy Armenian.
A shout went up.
"A strike! A strike!" yelled a hundred voices.
"Would you strike and see your families starve?" cried Nat Jackson. "I
have a mother to support. I care more for her than for the field and
everything on it. I shall not strike."
"You white-livered young idiot!" roared some one in the crowd.
"I tell you, men," went on Carmachel, "there is nothing to be gained by
striking. Get together some of your best speakers from each factory and
let them ask an interview of Mr. Coddington--now--this afternoon--before
anything more is done about the new factory."
"He'll not grant it!"
"Hasn't he always been fair with you?"
"Yes!"
"Aye!"
"So he has!"
"He has that!"
Grudgingly the workmen admitted it, even the most rabid of them.
Drawn by an irresistible impulse Peter elbowed his way into the midst of
the workmen.
"I am sure Mr. Coddington will listen to you," he ejaculated earnestly.
"Choose your men and let them go to him. Give him a chance to see your
side of it. He will be reasonable--I know he will."
"It's the Little Giant," said one man to another.
"Put it to vote," urged Peter. "Come! How many are for going to Mr.
Coddington? You fellows do not want a strike. Think what it would mean!"
"The lad's right. Up with the hands!"
It was a crisis.
Peter trembled from head to foot.
A few hands were raised, then slowly a few more; more came. All over the
field they shot into the air.
"And now choose your representatives," called Peter quickly, dreading
lest the tide of sentiment should turn.
"Carmachel! He doesn't seem to fear losing his job," piped a voice. "Put
on Carmachel!"
"And Jackson; he said he would not strike anyway," called somebody else.
"Bryant is a good fellow! Put Bryant on."
"Put on some men from the other factories, too," demanded a Pole
aggressively.
A committee of twelve were chosen.
"Add the Little Giant as the thirteenth--just for luck!" laughed a
knee-staker.
There was a cry of approval.
"The Little Giant! The Little Giant!" rose in a chorus.
"No! No, indeed! I couldn't!" Peter protested violently.
"Of course you could!" contradicted Carmachel. "Come, come! You mustn't
be so modest, Strong. You are with us for keeping the field, aren't
you?"
"Yes. But there are reasons that you don't understand why I
couldn't----"
"Pooh! What reasons?"
"I can't tell you. But I couldn't possibly go to Mr. Coddington with the
men--I couldn't, really, Carmachel," reiterated Peter miserably.
"Nonsense! The only question is this--is your sympathy with us or isn't
it?"
"Of course it is!" There was no doubting the fervor of the avowal.
"Then that settles it. Although you have come here but recently, Strong,
we all consider you a friend and count you as one of ourselves. You'll
stand by the bunch, won't you?" Carmachel scrutinized Peter sharply.
"Yes, I will. But you don't understand the circumstances or you would
never urge me to----"
Carmachel interrupted him.
"I guess I understand the circumstances better than you think," returned
he, dryly. "Mr. Coddington got you your place, I've heard. Naturally you
feel under obligations to him for his kindness. That's all very well.
But has he ever been near you since he put you into the tannery? No! He
sits in his office and opens his mail and you are just a boy in the
works. Isn't that so? What's to hinder you from going respectfully to
him with the rest of us and calling to his attention something which
seems to us an injustice? You said yourself it was the best plan. You
pleaded with us to do it."
"I know."
"Then why won't you go yourself? You're not a coward, Strong, nor,
unless I greatly mistake, are you the sort of chap who would point out
to others a path he wouldn't dare follow himself."
"I'll go!" cried Peter suddenly. "I'll go, but I will not do any
speaking."
"Nobody wants you to speak," growled an Italian who had been standing
near and who had overheard the conversation. "Bryant, Carmachel, and the
older men will do the speaking. It's their place."
So it was agreed.
Events shaped themselves rapidly. Within an hour Mr. Coddington, seated
in his perfectly appointed office, received word that a deputation of
his men respectfully requested an interview with him that afternoon.
He was thunderstruck.
What did the demand foreshadow? Was a strike brewing? The men had
appeared perfectly satisfied with the working conditions at the
tanneries. Wages were fairly high and the factories conformed to every
requirement of the Health and Labor Laws.
He touched a bell.
"Ask Tyler to step here," said he, frowning.
Mr. Tyler entered hastily.
"What's all this, Tyler?" demanded his chief. "I hear the men want to
see me."
"I know nothing about it, sir. They've kept their own council. If they
have a grievance they have not told me."
"No labor agitators have been in town recently?"
"Not to my knowledge, Mr. Coddington."
"That will do."
Tyler went out.
Again Mr. Coddington rang.
"I will see the men at three o'clock," he said to a messenger.
Left alone the president paced the floor. Business was good. The books
showed a quantity of unfilled orders. It would be an awkward time for a
strike.
"Undoubtedly I could get strike-breakers from Chicago," he murmured
aloud, "but it would take time. Besides, I do not want my men to walk
out. Think of the years many of them have worked here! The town will be
full of idle persons and suffering families. I have never had a strike
in all the history of my business. I've always tried to do what was fair
toward those who were in my employ. That is what cuts--to be square
with your men and then have them meet you with ingratitude. Why, I would
have staked my oath that they would have stood by me. I'm
disappointed--disappointed!"
With such unpleasant reflections as companions three o'clock came none
too speedily for Mr. Coddington. The men were ushered promptly into the
office and the door closed. Then an awkward silence ensued. Nobody knew
exactly whose place it was to speak first.
But if the tanners had expected the president of the company to break
the ice and open the interview they had missed their calculations, for
he did no such thing. He met their gaze firmly, courteously, but
silently.
Peter, who stood at the back of the room behind the older workmen, saw
in his father's face an unaccustomed sternness and felt instinctively
that their mission was destined to failure.
It was Bryant who at last summoned courage to begin the conference.
"Mr. Coddington," he said, "we men have come to you because we wish to
hear the truth concerning a rumor that has reached us. We come
respectfully. You are our chief--the one who, in the past, has always
been fair and square with us. It is because of your justice that we
address you now. Is it true that you propose to take the vacant field
opposite Factory 1 for the site of a new building?"
As Mr. Coddington drew a sigh of relief he inclined his head.
"You have been correctly informed," he assented. "We need more room. The
land is lying idle with a tax to be paid yearly upon it. It seems to me
an economic plan to utilize the space for a new factory in which the
patent leather department may be housed."
"Did you realize, in deciding, that the field you intend to take is the
recreation ground of the men in your mills?" asked Bryant.
"I know that some of the men play ball there," replied Mr. Coddington,
smiling.
"And yet you have decided to take it in spite of that fact?"
The president stiffened.
"The land," said he, "is mine, and the taxes I annually pay on it render
it rather a costly spot for a ball field. For years the lot has been
nothing but an expense to me. If the case were yours and you could
derive an income from property where previously all had been outgo
wouldn't you do it?"
"But do you need that income, Mr. Coddington?" cut in one of the men.
"Isn't the Coddington Company rich? Must rich men go on getting more and
more, and never think of those who coin their money for them?"
It was an unwise speech, and its effect was electrical.
"I will try and believe that you men came here with the intention of
being courteous," observed Mr. Coddington with frigid politeness. "My
affairs, however, are mine and not yours. I must deal with them in the
way that I consider wisest. You hardly realize, I think, that you are
over-stepping the bounds of propriety when you attempt to dictate to me
what I shall do with my land, or how I shall manage my tanneries."
The sternness of the answer blocked any possible reply.
Amid the silence of the room one could almost hear the heart-beats of
the waiting throng.
Then some one in the crowd made his way to the front of the room and
faced the president.
It was Peter Strong.
As Mr. Coddington's gaze fell on his son he started.
The boy stood erect and looked his father squarely in the eye.
"May I speak, sir?"
Mr. Coddington bowed.
Peter began gently, respectfully, and his words were without defiance.
[Illustration: "MAY I SPEAK, SIR?"]
"I hardly think you know what the field you are going to take from the
men--from us all--means, sir. Not only do we play ball and go there to
eat our luncheon but each noon time we have a chance to get a breath of
fresh air and go back to work better in consequence. The field,
moreover, is the only open lot in this part of the town. At night
hundreds of men who have worked hard all day congregate there to get
sight of the green grass and enjoy a little interval of quiet. They
bring their families from the huddled districts where there is neither
sky, tree, nor breathing space. Suppose you lived as they do? Suppose
when you went home at night it was to a tenement in a crowded part of
the city? You return to a big house on the top of a hill where the trees
catch every breeze that passes; where there are shrubs, gardens,
flowers. Who needs this space more--you or your employees?"
When he began to speak, Peter had had no clear idea of what he should
say; but as he went on words came to him. Was not he himself one of
these working men who knew what the heat, the odor, the noise of the
tanneries meant? As he went on his voice vibrated with earnestness.
There was no doubting his sincerity. It was in truth Peter Strong and
not Peter Coddington who made the appeal.
As Mr. Coddington listened without comment to the speech his
wordlessness was an enigma to the men. It seemed as if it was a silence
of suppressed anger and in consternation Carmachel plucked Peter's
sleeve.
"Say no more, lad," he whispered. "You've gone too far. You forget that
it is the president himself you're talking to. You shouldn't have said
what you did, even though it's true."
But Peter scarcely heard.
He was watching his father--watching his face for the gleam that did not
come.
"I will consider what you have said, Strong," replied Mr. Coddington
after a pause. "I will acknowledge that I was ignorant of the fact that
the spot meant anything to the people of the community. If the
conditions are as you say we may be able to find a solution for the
problem. May we consider this interview at an end?"
Although the remark was in the form of a question the committee felt
itself dismissed and uncomfortably the men filed into the corridor.
"We've gained nothing!" was Bryant's first word when they found
themselves alone. "We've only succeeded in antagonizing Mr. Coddington
and solidified his intention of taking the field. We might have got
somewhere if Strong had not put his foot in it. What possessed you to
pitch into the president like that, young fellow?"
"What made you speak at all?" put in Carmachel. "Don't you know your
place better than to think a rich man like Mr. Coddington is going to
stand for having a kid like you lay down the law to him? How ever did
you dare? Your job is gone--that's certain. I'm sorry, too, for we all
like you here at the works."
"Oh, Peter! Peter! Why did you say it?" wailed Nat Jackson. "I know you
had the best of intentions, but don't you see that you've upset the
whole thing?"
There was something very like a sob in Nat's tone.
Poor Peter! From every hand came reproaches. If only he had not spoken!
His impulse, good at heart, had been one of mistaken zeal. It was not
that he himself had lost his cause--he had lost it for hundreds of men
in whom he had become interested, and whom he had struggled to serve.
Very wretched the boy was for the remainder of the day; when night came
he dreaded to go home. What would his father say to him?
Peter might have saved himself this worry, for when he entered the
dining-room and sat down to dinner he found the good-humor of his father
quite undisturbed and no allusion was made to the day's occurrence.
Surely this was carrying out to the letter the agreement they had made.
Peter Coddington was his son and he treated him as such; but to Peter
Strong, the boy of the tannery, he had nothing to say. Miserably Peter
waited for the opportunity to offer explanation or apology. It did not
come and all chance for securing it vanished when, directly after the
coffee was served, Mr. Coddington rose, announced that he had an
engagement, and was whirled off in the motor-car. He did not return
until long after his son was asleep.
Had Peter known what this mysterious engagement was his slumbers would
have been happier, for the president of the company had gone on no idle
errand. Screened from view in the far corner of the big touring-car he
had ridden past the tanneries and with his own eyes had seen the benches
in the ball field thronged with sweltering humanity. Twice, three times
he passed. He saw the boys at their games; the tired mothers resting in
the twilight; the babies that toddled at their feet; and the men--his
men--lying full-length on the grass drinking in the cool air. This was
what he had come out to see.
The result of it was that the next morning, in the doorway of every
factory of the Coddington Company, the following notice was posted:
After careful investigation Mr. Coddington has decided that it is
for the interest of his men that the plan to erect a building on
the ball field be abandoned. Instead the land will be laid out as a
recreation ground to be known as Strong Park, and to be reserved
for the Coddington employees, their families, and their friends.
Negotiations have been opened for a site on Central Street, where
the new patent leather factory will shortly be erected.
Signed: H. M. CODDINGTON, President.
What an ovation the men gave Peter that day! And how grateful Peter was
to his father! So grateful that before going to bed he felt compelled to
break their compact of silence and exclaim:
"Father, it's splendid of you to keep the field for the men! I can't
thank you half enough, sir. But you ought not to name it after me."
"I'm not naming it after you," was his father's laconic reply. "I'm
naming it after Peter Strong."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER V
A CATASTROPHE
In an incredibly short space of time Strong Park began to be a reality.
Men commenced grading its uneven turf; laying out walks and flower-beds;
erecting benches and a band stand, and setting out trees and shrubs. An
ample area at one end of the grounds was reserved for a ball field; and
adjoining it parallel bars, traveling rings, and the apparatus necessary
to an out-of-door gymnasium was put in place.
All these arrangements Peter witnessed with delight. He longed to tell
his father so, but unfortunately was granted no opportunity. Once, and
once only, did Mr. Coddington refer to the project and that was to
inquire whimsically of Peter if his friend Strong was satisfied with the
preparations, and whether he had any suggestions to make. Young Strong
had no suggestions, Peter declared. He thought the park perfect. And
indeed it was! Neither thought nor money had been spared to make it so.
Peter was very proud of his father those days when, on every hand, he
heard the men extolling the president's generosity. More than once the
great secret of his relation to the Coddingtons trembled on his lips and
almost slipped from him, but he succeeded in holding it resolutely in
check. Despite his intimacy with Nat and his frequent visits to the
Jackson home not a hint of his real identity escaped him. His assumed
rôle was made easier, perhaps, by the fact that he had entered so
heartily into it. He was really living the career of Peter Strong, and
the Peter Coddington who had idled away so many months in purposeless,
irresponsible dallying was rapidly becoming but a hazy memory. There was
no denying that Peter Strong's life was the far more interesting
one--every day it became more absorbing.
"You see we're really doing something!" exclaimed Peter enthusiastically
to Nat Jackson one Saturday afternoon when they were taking one of their
long tramps together. "Washing and carting skins isn't much in itself,
and it would not be any fun at all if it wasn't part of the chain. But
when you think how necessary a step in the process it is, and consider
that there could be no leather unless somebody did just what I am doing,
it seems well worth while. I never did anything before that was actually
necessary. It is rather good sport."
And, in truth, Peter was doing something. Had he doubted it the ever
increasing fund toward his motorcycle would have been a tangible proof.
Already it was quite a little nest-egg and the boy, who had never before
earned a penny, felt justifiably proud of the crisp bills that he was
able to tuck at intervals into the bank. Once more, as a recognition of
his faithful work, his pay had been raised--this time to seven dollars.
It was toward the middle of August that Mr. Tyler, the superintendent,
who evidently was keeping closer watch of Peter's progress than he had
suspected, notified him that on the fifteenth he was to leave the
beamhouse and report in the finishing department. Peter was not only
astonished but a good deal distressed. He had worked not a whit harder
or more faithfully than had Nat Jackson, and deserved the promotion no
more--in fact not as much as his chum. It seemed grossly unfair. Peter
turned the matter over and over in his mind. He would have rejoiced in
the good fortune had he considered it came to him justly; but to take
what belonged to somebody else--that robbed it of all its charm. He
thought and thought what he should do and at last he gained courage to
go to Mr. Tyler with his dilemma. An appeal for his friend could do no
harm and it might do good.
When he had made his errand known the superintendent tilted back in his
chair and regarded him in silence.
"Jackson is far better informed as to the processes than I am, Mr.
Tyler," Peter pleaded. "Besides, he has a mother to support and needs to
get on. If there is only one vacancy in the finishing department can't
you give him the chance? He has been a year in the beamhouse already,
and if there is a promotion it belongs by right to him."
Mr. Tyler fingered his watch-chain. He had never had precisely this
experience before--to try to push a man and have him beg that you give
his good luck to somebody else. Surely this Peter Strong was an
extraordinary person! Mr. Tyler could now understand how even the
president of the company, under the spell of his simple eloquence, had
not only surrendered a valuable building lot for a park but had actually
named it after the youthful enthusiast. The superintendent couldn't but
admire the lad's earnestness. At the same time, however, he did not at
all fancy having his plans questioned or interfered with; therefore when
he spoke it was to dash Peter's demands to earth with a rebuff.
"Most men would hail with gratitude an opening that took them out of
the beamhouse, Strong," replied he stiffly. "It is generous of you, no
doubt, to make this plea for your friend, but you see you are the person
recommended for the promotion. In this world we must take our chances as
they come. Unfortunately the opportunities of life are not transferable,
my boy. I will, however, bear Jackson in mind and see if anything can be
done for him. Good-morning."
The nod of Mr. Tyler's head was final.
Peter turned away, heart-sick at his failure. He had done all he could
unless, indeed, he broke his bond and appealed to his father, and any
such breach of their contract he considered out of the question. Yet how
he dreaded to tell the Jacksons of his success. Nat would be so hurt!
Still, they must, of course, know it in time and how much better to hear
the news from Peter himself than in cowardly fashion to leave the spread
of the tidings to rumor. Accordingly he told his tale as bravely as he
could.
"It isn't as if I deserved it one bit more than you, Nat," he concluded.
"It has just happened to come to me--I've no idea why."
"Of course you deserve it, Peter," cried Nat. "Haven't you worked like a
tiger in the beamhouse ever since you came here? You know you have.
Everybody says so. There isn't a man in the works but likes you and will
be glad at your good luck--I most of all. Some day I'll be making a
start up the ladder myself; wait and see if I don't!"
Although he spoke with a generous heartiness and made every attempt to
conceal his chagrin, Peter knew that in reality Nat honestly felt that
he had failed to receive the prize that he had rightfully won. Had not
the friendship of the boys been of tough fibre it would have been
shattered then and there. As it was their affection for each other
bridged the chasm and it would have been hard to tell which of them
suffered the more--the lad who through no fault of his own had taken the
award that belonged to his chum, or the lad who had won the prize only
to see it handed to some one else. Peter, who was the victim of success,
seemed of the two the more overwhelmed with regrets and therefore it was
Nat who, despite his bitter disappointment, turned comforter.
"You mustn't be so cut up over it, Peter, old boy! Of course I know you
didn't have anything to do with it. The men in a factory are like so
many checkers--they are moved about just any way that those higher up
choose to play the game. It is all right and I want you to know I think
so. Don't start in at your new job feeling that I'm sorry you have it.
I'm glad; really I am, Peter!"
"It's mighty decent of you, Nat. I wish I had the chance to show you how
much I appreciate it."
"I don't want you to show me; I just want you to believe that I mean
what I say. And you mustn't mind our working in different departments.
We'll be together at noon time just the same. It won't make any
difference."
But still Peter was not happy. Day after day he waited hopefully to see
if Mr. Tyler would make good his promise and do something for young
Jackson; but nothing came of it, and no course remained but to accept
unwillingly the promotion and set his foot on this upward rung of the
ladder.
The finishing department occupied several floors of the building devoted
to calfskins, and the first task given Peter was to help stretch and
tack the skins which were still wet from dyeing on boards, after which
they were dried by steam in a large, hot room. In some factories, he
learned, the skins were put in great rooms with open shutters on all
sides, where they dried in the air. But the Coddington Company, he was
told, preferred drying by steam. Peter was very slow at tacking the wet
skins on the boards. The speed with which the boys worked who had been
long at the job astounded him. With lightning swiftness they took up the
big, flat-headed tacks, placed, and struck them. One could scarcely
follow the motions of their hands. Fortunately for Peter he was released
from this work after a few days and set to helping the men who measured
the finished skins in an automatic measuring machine; this machine
recorded the dimensions of the skins on a dial and was a wonderfully
intricate contrivance. Try as he would Peter was unable to fathom how it
could so quickly and exactly compute a problem that it would have taken
him a long time to solve.
Incidentally he learned many other things of the workmen. Some of the
very stiff calfskins, he discovered, were "dusted" or laid in bins of
damp sawdust and softened before they were taken to the finishers. There
were a multitude of processes, he found, for converting the leather into
the special kinds desired. What a numberless variety of finishes there
was! There was willow calf--a fine, soft, chrome-tanned leather which,
the foreman told him, was put into the best quality of men's and women's
shoes; box calf--a high grade, storm-proof leather, chrome tanned and
dull finished; chrome calf--finished in tan color, and with a fine,
smooth grain; boarded calf--tanned either in chrome or quebracho; wax
calf--finished by polishing the flesh side until it took a hard, waxy
surface; mat calf that was dull in finish; storm calf, oiled for winter
wear; and French calf, which, like wax calf, was finished on the flesh
side.
"How in the world could any one think of so many different things to do
to the skin of a calf?" ejaculated Peter.
His head fairly ached with the information poured into it by the
zealous foreman who, by the way, was an Englishman named Stuart.
"In time you'll sort out all I have told you," Stuart answered
encouragingly, observing Peter's despair. "It is simple enough when you
once understand the different finishing processes. First the leather is
rolled by machinery until it is pliable enough for the finishers to work
on. Then it goes through a 'putting out' process; by that I mean that it
is laid out on benches where it is stretched and flattened by being
smoothed with a piece of hard rubber; next the edges are trimmed off and
the odd bits sold; some of these go to hardware dealers who use them for
washers or for the thousand and one purposes that leather is needed for
in making tools."
"More economy!" put in Peter.
"Yes, I guess you have learned already that we do not waste much here,"
grinned Stuart.
Peter nodded.
"Afterward," Stuart continued, "follow the many methods for getting
certain varieties of finish on the leather. Here, for instance, you will
see men graining tan stock by working it by hand into tiny wrinkles;
they use heavy pieces of cork with which they knead the material until
the leather is checked in minute squares. It looks like an easy thing
to do, but it isn't. It requires skilled workmen in order to get
satisfactory results. Over here," and he beckoned to Peter, "men are
making 'boarded calf' by beating and pounding it as you see, that they
may get fine, soft stock. Here still others are glassing the leather and
giving it a smooth surface by rubbing it with a heavy piece of glass."
"And what are those fellows over by the wall doing?" inquired Peter,
pointing to a group of workmen who, with right leg naked, were standing
in a row and rapidly drawing tan leather first over a wooden upright set
in the floor, and then over their knee.
"Those," Stuart answered, "are knee-stakers. Strangely enough no machine
has yet been invented which will give to certain kinds of leather the
elasticity and softness which can be put into it by a man's stretching
it over his bare knee. It is a curious way to earn one's living, isn't
it? See how quickly they work and how strong they are. Just look how the
muscles of their legs stand out!"
"I should say so," Peter answered. "Why, it almost seems as if they must
have been track sprinters all their lives. They must be well paid."
"What they earn depends on how fast they work," Stuart said. "All this
finishing is piece work. The more a man can do in an hour the higher he
is paid. Almost all these fellows are skilled workmen who have been at
just this task for a long time. They do it rapidly and well, and receive
good wages."
Stuart walked on and Peter followed.
"Here is a machine that makes gun-metal finished leather for the uppers
of black shoes; the leather is, as you see, put through a series of
rollers where it is blacked, oiled, and ironed, and comes out with that
dull surface."
"Are all these different kinds of leather really made from calfskins?"
asked Peter at last.
"Practically so--yes," replied Stuart. "Upper or dressed leather is made
from large calfskins or else from kips. Kips, you know, are the skins
of under-sized cows, oxen, horses, buffalo, walrus, and other such
animals. These are tanned and sorted out in the beamhouse when wet. The
thick ones are usually split thin by machinery and the two parts are
finished separately. The part of the leather where the hair grew is the
more valuable and is called the grain; the other part which was next to
the animal is called the split. Remember those two terms--the grain and
the split."
"I'll try my best," said Peter with a doubtful shake of his head. "I am
dreadfully afraid, though, that I shall forget some of the things you
have told me to-day."
"I don't expect you to remember all I've told you, Strong," laughed
Stuart, good-naturedly. "Why, you would not be a human, breathing boy if
you did. It has taken me a long time to learn the facts that I have been
telling you. But do remember about the grain and the split; and while
you are remembering that, try also to remember that a rough split is the
cheapest leather made. Some heavy hides are split two, four, and even
six times and are then sold. You can see this sort of leather up-stairs
in the shipping-room of the other factory, and if I were you I would
take the trouble to go up there some time and look at it. You may be
interested, too, to know----"
But what the interesting item was Peter never found out.
A boy, breathless from running, came rushing into the room.
"If you please, sir," he panted, "Mr. Bryant sent me to find Peter
Strong! Young Jackson has been hurt. He slipped on the wet floor and the
wheel of a heavy truck went over his ankle. Jackson says it is only a
sprain, but Mr. Bryant thinks the bones are broken. They've telephoned
for a doctor. Jackson is lying on the floor awful white and still, and
he says he wants Peter Strong. Mr. Bryant told me to tell you to send
him right away."
Peter needed no second bidding. Down the stairs he flew.
Only yesterday he had longed for a chance to prove his friendship for
Nat. Now, all unsolicited, the opportunity had come.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VI
TWO PETERS AND WHICH WON
Aflutter with anxiety, Peter followed the messenger back to the
beamhouse.
Of all people why should this calamity come to Jackson? In addition to
the suffering that must of necessity accompany such a disaster Peter
reflected, as he went along, that Nat could ill afford to lose his wages
and incur the expense of doctor's bills. Poor Nat! It seemed as if he
had none of the good luck he deserved--only disappointment and
misfortune.
Peter found his chum stretched on the floor in a dark little entry
adjoining the workroom, with Bryant keeping guard.
"I am down and out this time, no mistake, Pete!" called Nat with a
rather dubious attempt to be cheerful. "You see what happens when you go
off into another department and leave me. I was all right while you were
here."
Peter knelt beside him.
"I'm mighty sorry, old chap," he said. "Does it hurt much?"
As Jackson tried to turn, his lips whitened with pain.
"Well, rather! I guess, though, I'll be all right in a few days. It's
only a sprain."
As Peter glanced questioningly at Bryant, who was standing in the
shadow, the older man shook his head and put his finger to his lips.
"Well, anyway, Nat," answered Peter, trying to feign a gaiety he did not
feel, "you will at least get a vacation. I told you only the other day
you needed one."
"I don't need it any more than you do, Peter. Besides I can't stop work,
no matter what happens. What would become of my mother, and who would
pay our rent if my money stopped coming in? No sir-e-e! I shall get
this foot bandaged up and be back at the tannery to-morrow. The doctor
can fix it so I can keep at work, can't he, Mr. Bryant?"
"I hope so, Jackson," replied Bryant, kindly. "We'll see when he comes."
But the doctor was far less optimistic. He examined the ankle,
pronounced it fractured, and ordered Nat to the hospital where an X-ray
could be taken before the bones were set.
Nat, who had endured the pain like a Spartan, burst into tears.
"What will become of us--of my mother, Peter?" he moaned.
"Now don't you get all fussed up, Nat," said Peter soothingly. "Leave
things to me. I'll take care of your mother and attend to the house
rent. I have plenty of money. You know I have been saving it up ever
since I came here."
"Oh, but Peter--I couldn't think of taking your money!" Nat protested.
"Stuff! Of course you can take it! I should like to know whose money you
would take if not mine. Anyway you can't help yourself. I have you in
my power now and you've got to do just as I say."
"But I don't see how I can ever pay it back, Peter."
"No matter."
"It does matter."
"Well, well! We will settle all that later. Don't worry about it. I am
only too thankful that I have the money to help you out," was Peter's
earnest response. "I'd be a great kind of a chum if I didn't stick by
you when you are in a hole like this. You'd do the same for me."
"You bet I would!"
"Of course! Well, what's the difference?"
"I'm afraid I'll have to take you at your word, Peter," agreed Nat
reluctantly, after an interval of reflection. "I do not just see what
else I can do at present."
"That's the way to talk," cried Peter triumphantly. "I'll look out for
everything. See! They have come with a motor-car to take you to the
hospital! You are going to have your long-coveted ride in an automobile,
Nat."
Nat laughed in spite of himself.
"I'm not so keen about it as I was."
Gently the men lifted him in and the doctor followed.
"I'll be out in a week, Peter--sure thing!" called Nat shutting his lips
tightly together to stifle a moan as the car shot ahead.
"A week, indeed!" sniffed Bryant, as he turned away. "It'll be nearer a
month. So Jackson has a mother to look after, has he?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, suppose you go right over there and ease her mind about this
accident before she hears of it through somebody else. Tell her there is
no cause for alarm. The boy will have the best of care at the hospital,
and she can go there and see him every day during visiting hours."
"And you think it will be a month before he will be about again, Mr.
Bryant?" questioned Peter, anxiously.
"Oh, I'm no doctor. How can I tell?" was Bryant's somewhat testy answer.
"One thing is certain, however; he won't be here again this week.
Sprint along."
And so it was Peter Strong who bore the sorry tidings to Nat's mother,
and who cheered and encouraged her as affectionately as if he had been
her own son; it was also Peter who, during the weeks that followed, paid
the Jacksons' rent and provided sufficient funds for living expenses.
How he blessed his motorcycle savings! Without them he never could have
helped Nat at this time when help was so sorely needed. Far from
begrudging the money Peter exulted in spending it. A motorcycle seemed
singularly unimportant when contrasted with a crisis like this. Yet
magnificent as his little fortune had seemed it dwindled rapidly. How
much everything cost! How had Nat ever managed to keep soul and body
together on what he earned? Peter's savings melted like the snows before
the warm spring sunshine, and one day the lad awoke to the fact that
there was no more money in the bank and that Nat's mother was absolutely
dependent for food upon his daily earnings. It was a new sensation and
a startling one--to know that you must work--that if you stopped some
one dear to you would go hungry.
Poor Peter!
He now had a spur indeed--an incentive to toil as he never had toiled
before!
Stuart was delighted with his recently acquired pupil.
"He is as steady a little chap as you would care to see," he told Bryant
when they met in the yard one day. "And he is bright as a button, too.
Already he has caught on to the various finishing processes and is as
handy as any of the men in the department. And then he is such a well
spoken lad; not like many of the boys who come into the tannery. He must
have come of good family. Do you know anything about his people?"
"Not a thing. I've heard that Mr. Coddington got him his job in the
first place, but that may not be true; I think, though, it is more than
likely, because they have pushed him ahead faster than is customary. But
at any rate the boy has made good, no matter who started him. He will
be at the top of the ladder yet."
Peter Strong, however, was not thinking at the present time of the top
of the ladder. His mind was entirely set upon relieving the worry of his
sick chum and providing the necessary comforts for Mrs. Jackson. Only on
Saturdays had he time to go to the hospital and see Nat; but he wrote
long letters--jolly, cheery letters, which he dashed off every night
before going to bed.
"About every man in the tannery has inquired for you, Nat," he wrote,
"and pretty soon I am going to charge a fee for information. Your mother
is all right, and declares that she now has two sons instead of one. You
better hurry up and come home, or she may decide she likes me better
than she does you!"
How Nat laughed when he read that message! The very idea!
Of all this busy life and its varied interests Peter's family knew
nothing. His father and mother had gone for a month's trip to the
Catskills and there was no one but the servants at home to tell his
troubles to had he wished to unburden his worries. So he plodded
bravely on alone. How glad he was that the beamhouse was left behind,
and that during those warm September days he could work in a large,
well-ventilated room where there was fresher air. Perhaps, however, he
grew a little thin under his unaccustomed load of anxiety, for when his
father and mother returned from their vacation Peter was conscious more
than once of his father's fixed gaze, and one evening when the boy was
going to bed there was a knock at the door and Mr. Coddington entered
the room. For a few seconds he roamed uneasily about, straightening a
picture here and an ornament there; then he said abruptly:
"Well, Peter--the summer is almost over. Here it is nearly the middle of
September! I fancy the weeks have gone pretty slowly with your friend
Strong. What do you say to quitting the tannery and going back to
school?"
Peter's breath almost stopped. He had not dreamed of leaving his work.
Such a myriad of thoughts arose at the bare suggestion that he could not
answer.
Mr. Coddington misunderstood his silence.
"Of course you are astonished, my boy, and not a little glad, I imagine.
When I sent you to the tannery, however, I did not intend to keep you
there permanently. I simply wanted to wake you up to doing something and
make you prove the stuff you were made of. You have done that and more
too. I have heard nothing but the best reports, and I am proud of you,
Peter. The tannery has served its purpose for the present. Suppose we
leave it now for a while."
Still Peter did not speak.
"Perhaps you are disappointed to stop short of earning money enough for
your motorcycle," suggested Mr. Coddington, puzzled by the lad's
silence. "Is that it? Tell me now, how much would you need to put with
what you have already saved? Do you recall the sum you have in the
bank?"
"I haven't any money in the bank, Father," was Peter's unwilling reply.
"What! Not a cent?"
Peter shook his head.
"Have you drawn it out and spent it all?"
"Yes, sir."
"I'm sorry to hear that--sorry, and a little disappointed. However, we
mustn't expect too much of you. Come now, what do you say to my
proposition of returning to school?"
"I can't do it, sir."
"What!"
"I'm afraid you can't quite understand, sir. You see Peter Coddington
would like to go back, but Peter Strong won't let him. Peter Strong must
stay at the tannery, Father. He can't leave. There are reasons why it
isn't possible," Peter blurted out incoherently.
"What reasons?" demanded his father. "You've not been getting into
trouble, Peter?"
"No, sir."
Mr. Coddington looked baffled--baffled, and displeased.
Poor Peter! He longed to explain, but a strange reticence held him back.
He had never mentioned at home either Strong's affairs or his friends
and it now seemed well-nigh impossible to make any one--even his own
father--understand how much he cared for Nat, and what this disaster had
meant to them both; besides, it was too much like blowing his own
trumpet to sit up and tell his father how he had played fairy godmother
to the Jacksons. It would sound as if he wanted praise, and Peter, who
was naturally a modest lad, shrank from anything of the sort.
Accordingly he said never a word.
Mr. Coddington wandered to the window and drummed nervously on the pane.
"You have no more explanations to make to me, Peter?" he asked at last,
turning and facing his son.
"I--I'm afraid not, sir. You see it is hard to explain things. No one
would understand," faltered the boy.
Chagrined as he was, Mr. Coddington strove to be patient.
"Come now, Peter," he urged, "no matter what you've done let's out with
it. Maybe I've made a mistake in not allowing you to talk more freely
here at home about your affairs at the tannery. It certainly seems to
have resulted in making you less frank with me than you used to be. Let
us put all that behind us now. Just what sort of trouble have you got
into down there?"
Words trembled on Peter's lips. Would it be loyal to tell his father--to
tell any one, all the Jacksons' affairs? Nat had told them in confidence
and had not expected they would be passed on to anybody else. No, he
must keep that trust sacred. He must tell no one.
"I can't tell you, Father," he said. "I'll come out all right, though.
Don't worry about me. I've just got to keep on working at the tannery as
hard as I can."
"Are you trying to pay up something?" inquired his father, an
inspiration seizing him.
"Yes, sir."
Mr. Coddington realized that further attempts to get at the truth were
useless, and not a little perturbed he left the room.
All the next day Peter was haunted by reproaches. It took no very keen
vision to detect that his father was worried, and this worry the boy
felt he must relieve. His course lay clearly outlined before him; he
would go to the hospital and ask Nat's permission to tell the entire
story. Much as Peter disliked to speak of what he had done to help the
Jacksons it was far preferable to having his father suffer the present
anxiety.
Accordingly when Saturday afternoon came Peter set forth to make his
appeal to Nat. It was not until he almost reached the hospital that a
new and disconcerting thought complicated the action which but a few
moments before had appeared so simple. How was he to explain to Nat this
intimacy with Mr. Coddington? The president of the company, Nat knew as
well as he, had not been near Peter since he entered the tannery. Why
should young Strong suddenly be venturing to approach this august
personage with his petty troubles? Of course Nat wouldn't
understand--no, nor anybody else for that matter who was unacquainted
with the true situation. Here was a fresh obstacle in Peter's path. What
should he do?
When he entered the ward he struggled bravely to bring his usual
buoyancy to his command; but if the attempt was a sad failure it passed
unnoticed, for the instant he came within sight Nat beckoned to him
excitedly.
"Guess who's been to see me!" cried he, his eyes shining with the wonder
of his tidings. "Guess, Peter! Oh, you never can guess--Mr. Coddington,
the boss himself! Yes, he did," he repeated as he observed Peter's
amazement. "He came this morning and he sat right in that chair--that
very chair where you are sitting now. He wanted to know everything about
the accident, and about you; I had to tell him about Mother and the
rent, and how you were taking my place at home and paying for things
while I was sick. He screwed it all out of me! He inquired just how much
we paid for our rooms, and what I earned, and how long I had been in the
beamhouse. Then he asked what Father's name was, and what Mother's
family name was before she was married; and strangest of all, he wanted
to know if we came from Orinville, Tennessee. That was my mother's old
home, but I don't see how Mr. Coddington knew it, do you? Goodness,
Peter! He shot off questions as if they were coming out of a gun. Then
he began to ask about you and where you lived, and who your people were.
Doesn't it seem funny, Pete--well as I know you I couldn't tell him one
of those things? So I just said that I didn't know, but that Peter
Strong was the finest fellow in the world, and he seemed to agree with
me. Afterward he went away. What ever do you suppose made him come?"
"I don't know," Peter replied thoughtfully.
All the way home Peter pondered on the marvel. How had his father found
out about his friendship for Nat? It must have been Bryant who had told;
nobody else knew. Bryant had overheard Nat's conversation the day he had
been taken to the hospital, and Bryant must have acquainted Mr.
Coddington with the whole affair. Well, it was better so. His father now
had the facts, and had them direct from Nat himself. Peter would be
divulging no confidence if he mentioned them.
During the next few days many a surprise awaited Peter Strong. When he
went to pay Mrs. Jackson's weekly rent he was told by the landlord that
the account had already been settled, and the rent paid three months in
advance. A gentleman had paid it. No, the landlord did not know who it
was. In addition to this good fortune Mrs. Jackson astonished the boy
still further by dangling before his gaze a substantial check which she
said had come from the Coddington Company with a kind note of sympathy.
The check was to be used for defraying expenses during the illness of
her son.
Peter had no difficulty in guessing the source of this generosity.
Nor was this all. Nat scrawled him an incoherent note that bubbled with
delight; he had been promoted to the finishing department, and
henceforth was to receive a much larger salary!
That night Peter went home a very happy boy. It seemed as if there was
not room for any more good things to be packed into a single day; but
when at evening a crate came marked with his name, and on investigation
it proved to contain the long-coveted motorcycle, Peter's joy knew no
bounds.
"Do you suppose now that your chum Strong could let Peter Coddington
return to school?" was his father's unexpected question.
Peter stopped short.
It was a long time before he spoke; then he said slowly:
"Father, I don't think there is a Peter Coddington any more. There's
only Peter Strong, and he is so interested in his work and in doing
real things that you couldn't coax him to go to school if you
tried--especially since he has just been given a new motorcycle!"
Mr. Coddington rubbed his hands together as he always did when he was
pleased.
"You must not decide hastily, Peter," urged he. "Take a week to think
carefully about it and then tell me your decision."
"But I know now!" cried Peter. "A little while ago I thought the tannery
the most awful place in the world; I hated the smell of it and the very
sight of the leather. But somehow I do not feel that way now. I did not
realize this until you spoke the other day of my leaving and going back
to school; then I was surprised to discover that, when I thought it all
over, I did not want to go back. Work can be fun--even hard work--if all
the time you know that you are doing something real--something that is
needed and that helps. If you don't mind, Father, I'd rather stay in the
tannery and aid Peter Strong to work up."
"Do you still insist on Peter Strong's doing the climbing? Why not give
Peter Coddington a chance?"
"I'd rather not, sir. It was Peter Strong who began at the foot of the
ladder, and I want him to be the one to reach the top if he can; it is
only fair. Please don't spoil it now by crowding Peter Coddington into
his place."
"Well, well! You may do your own way, Peter, but it is on one condition.
Nat Jackson needs a trip away. The doctors say he is tired out and won't
get well as fast as he should unless he has a change of some sort. I am
going to arrange with his mother to take him for a month to the
seashore, and I know he will be much happier if Peter Strong goes with
him. What do you say?"
Peter looked intently at his father, a tiny cloud darkening his face.
"You need not have any compunctions about going, Peter," explained Mr.
Coddington, reading the trouble in his eyes. "Both the boys have worked
faithfully and need a vacation. Their positions will be held for them
until they return and their pay will go on during their absence."
"Oh, Father! How good of you to do so much, not only for me but for Nat
and his mother!"
Mr. Coddington did not reply at once. After a pause he said gently:
"Peter, anything I can do for the Jackson family is but a small part of
what I owe them. All my life I have tried to trace them. I have searched
from Tennessee to Cape Cod. And now, here in my own tannery, I find the
clue for which I have been hunting. Your friend Nat and his mother are
proud people, and would never accept all that I wish I might offer them;
but at least I have this opportunity to furnish help in a purely
business way. To provide this trip is a great pleasure to me. Some time
you shall know the whole story and then you will understand. I want you
to know, for the obligation is one that will go down from father to son
so long as a Coddington lives to bear the name. Good-night, my boy."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VII
THE CLIMB UP THE LADDER
If 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 was arranged 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.
[Illustration: 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 about it 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 be worked
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 ordinary beamhouse.
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 told they 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 suspended from
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 to dry 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 which NO ADMITTANCE was 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 was such 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 be stretched 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 duty in 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. These
collectors 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 was buckskin, 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.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VIII
A NARROW ESCAPE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
All 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 that Peter 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
newly tanned 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, and they
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 beamhouse
of 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 no
sort 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 inward
resolve 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 some pieces 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 floor he 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 was almost 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.
[Illustration: 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 cold to 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
have the 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 who _is_ at 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.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IX
PETER AIDS IN A SURPRISE AND RECEIVES ONE
All 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 everything was 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
room now 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 the beamhouse 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 are not 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 personally responsible 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 like the 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 last spring 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 a career 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."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER X
THE CLIMB BECOMES DIFFICULT
It would not have been strange if with all this adulation Peter had come
to think himself a very clever boy--perhaps the cleverest one in the
world. Fortunately for his modesty, however, his daily life did not tend
to foster any such delusion. He received occasional commendation, it is
true, from his superiors, but to counterbalance it he continued to have
many a rebuke thrown at him during the year he and Nat toiled together
tanning hides. The newness of the work combined with a score of
well-meant blunders placed Peter Strong on entirely equal footing
with other workmen, and quite as liable to correction. Even had these
conditions been otherwise the memory of the lazy little snob who was a
great disappointment to his father would have served to crush in the lad
any undue sense of his own importance. Considering the popular rating of
Peter Coddington it certainly was just as well that he had entered the
works under some other name than his own.
But although the bitterness of this criticism rankled, its sting was
removed by the thought that lazy and snobbish as Peter Coddington had
been, thanks to Peter Strong he was neither lazy nor snobbish now; nor
was he, the boy acknowledged, the disappointment to his father that he
might have been had not prompt and heroic measures been taken. Yet even
Peter Strong was obliged to admit after truthful scrutiny of his
progress that there still was room for improvement. Accordingly he
accepted submissively the censure that fell to his lot and, as Carmachel
said, "did not consider himself the whole tannery just because one room
in it was named after him."
It was not until the spring of that year that the next upward step
came; then Peter and Nat were sent to the Elmwood plant for a few
months' experience at the sole leather factories. The inconvenience of
going seven miles and back every day was nothing to Peter because of his
motorcycle; but for Nat the case was different. Poor Nat was dependent
on street cars and once or twice, owing to delays, was tardy at the
works. Then one morning the trolley broke down and Jackson was forced to
walk three miles, arriving an hour late. In consequence his pay was
docked. This injustice was too much for Peter. All day he thought about
it.
"Father," he asked that evening when he arrived home, "do you think you
would like to lend Peter Strong some money?"
"Lend money to Peter Strong! What for?"
Hotly, earnestly, eloquently, Peter presented his case concluding with
the plea:
"Strong has some money in the bank, sir, but it is not enough. If he
paid back what you lent him month by month do you think you could let
him have what he needs to get a motorcycle for Nat?"
Mr. Coddington considered carefully.
"I do not at all approve of Peter Strong's borrowing money," said he.
"It is a bad habit to fall into."
"But Peter Strong isn't going to make a habit of it, Father. And he
isn't borrowing for himself, you know."
"Still he is borrowing."
"Yes, because if he waited until he had the cash in the bank Nat might
be too old to ride a motorcycle," chuckled Peter, mischievously.
A quiet smile crept into the corners of Mr. Coddington's mouth.
"Well," admitted he deliberately, "the case does seem to be an urgent
one. I might for once consent to break over my rule and furnish the sum
necessary. Yet it is quite a large loan that Peter Strong is asking. I
hope he will have no trouble in repaying it."
"I believe he can manage it all right," was the earnest reply. "His
wages have been going up and will probably be raised still more in
future. It does seem a little bit risky to loan him so much money, I
confess, but I feel sure you will get it back if you are not in too much
of a hurry for it."
Something in this answer evidently amused Mr. Coddington, for he bit his
lip to keep back a smile and walked away to the window where he stood
for some time looking out. At last he turned.
"We will close the deal, Peter," said he. "Since you vouch for Strong I
will take a chance. I would advise you, though, to let me buy the
motorcycle, as I can get a better price on it than you can."
"Thank you, Father."
Accordingly the dream that Peter had so long cherished really came true.
The motorcycle was purchased, and the crate containing it was set down
at the Jacksons' door the day before Easter.
Peter had planned not to say a word to Nat as to where it came from
and therefore was not a little chagrined when both the members of the
Jackson household jumped at once to the conclusion that the Coddington
Company had sent it. Nat's mother, who, as Peter well knew, was a very
proud woman, immediately refused to accept any more favors from that
source and in consequence poor Peter was driven to confess his part in
the mystery.
"But, Peter, my dear boy, you can't afford any such present as this. How
have you the money to pay for so magnificent a gift to Nat? You, too,
are working for your living and although you have no one dependent on
you I am certain you do not possess a sufficient bank account to warrant
your making such an extravagant purchase. It is like your big, kind,
generous heart to want to do it, but of course Nat and I cannot let you
take all your savings and give them away. How did you manage to get the
motorcycle anyway?"
"I borrowed part of the money," explained Peter reluctantly.
"Oh, Peter, Peter! Borrowing is a dreadful habit! Never borrow money.
You had much better go without almost anything than borrow money to get
it."
"But I am paying up the loan week by week. My--the man I borrowed it
from is making it very easy for me, and is in no hurry for the whole
sum. You had better let me have my way, Mrs. Jackson. I am getting good
wages and shall soon be earning even larger ones. I might blow in my
spare cash on something dreadful--something much worse than a
motorcycle," pleaded Peter, teasingly.
Nat's mother shook her head.
"I am not one bit afraid that you would."
"Oh, you never can tell," chuckled Peter. "Besides, can't you see that I
shall have twice as much fun with my own motorcycle if Nat has one too?
It is no earthly fun to go riding by myself."
This and many another such argument caused Mrs. Jackson to waver, and
having once wavered her case was lost. Peter pursued his advantage and
after a whole afternoon of reasoning succeeded in winning Nat's mother
to his point of view. The motorcycle therefore was accepted in the
spirit in which it was proffered and became Nat's most treasured
possession.
What sport the two lads had going and coming from work! What wonderful
Saturday afternoon rides they took through the surrounding country!
Their work at the sole leather tanneries was interesting, too. Here
many new phases of leather making confronted them. First there was
the tremendous weight of the great skins, which were so unwieldy that
they could not easily be handled and, like cowhides, had to be cut
into halves, or "sidees." In addition to this they were usually
split--sometimes before tanning, sometimes after. The grain, or the side
next the hair, was the more valuable leather. After being split once the
splits could be split again, if desired, just as cowhides were. Some of
the hides were tanned in oak bark, some in hemlock, and some in a
mixture of both called union tannage.
Oak sole leather, the foreman said, was often considered preferable for
soling shoes because its close fibre rendered it waterproof, and it
seldom cracked. Much of the fine English leather imported into this
country was, Peter learned, oak tanned. Since oaks grew so plentifully
in Great Britain the bark was much less expensive there than here.
Hemlock leather--so deep red in color--was, on the other hand, used
largely for heavy, stiff soles to common shoes for men and boys, since
it made up in wear what it lacked in flexibility.
Union leather, being a combination of both oak and hemlock tannage,
possessed the virtues as well as the faults of each; it had not the deep
red of hemlock, nor the fine fibre of oak tanned leather. Still it was a
flexible material and was used, the foreman told Peter, for soling
women's shoes.
Sole leather seemed to the boys a very stiff and solid stuff after the
calf and sheep skins which they had previously handled.
Perhaps they did not enjoy the Elmwood tanneries quite as much as the
home works at Milburn, and perhaps they longed a little for their term
of service there to be completed. Nevertheless they made friends,
learned much that they were anxious to know, and had their motor rides
over and back each day together.
With so many of his ambitions reaching fulfilment it began to seem to
Peter as if life were a very smooth sea, and it was not until June when
he and Nat were transferred to the patent leather factory that he had
his first experience in navigating rough waters. This storminess came
about through Tolman, a sharp-tongued foreman who did not hesitate to
announce that too much favoritism had been shown Peter Strong in the
past.
"I bet if he ever comes to the patent leather factory and I get the
chance I will take some of the starch out of him," Tolman had been heard
to declare.
Unluckily he held just enough authority to be able to carry out his
threat. Power had hitherto been to him an unknown weapon. He had been
given the position of acting foreman of the new patent leather factory
only because of his long term of service with the company. It was
understood that he was to hold the post until a skilled and competent
foreman could be found; but while he enjoyed the distinction of "boss"
he made as arrogant use of his sovereignty as he could.
From the first he blocked the way for Peter and Nat, not only by
refusing to pass on to them any information, but by influencing the
other men to follow his example. Whether he feared Peter Strong might
usurp the vacant foremanship, or whether he simply cherished a grudge
toward the lad because of his previous good fortune, it was impossible
to discover. Whichever the case, his attitude was, from the moment the
boys set foot in the new tannery, one of complete antagonism. Had it not
been for Peter's agreement not to intrude his personal grievances at
home it would have been easy to appeal to his father to straighten out
the difficulty. But Peter would not for a moment consider this means of
escape. Therefore he and Nat struggled on by themselves, picking up what
scraps of information they were able. Try as they would they could wring
from the workmen only the most meager facts about making patent leather.
They did succeed in finding out that the shiny varnish which gave it its
finish was compounded in an isolated brick house in the factory yard
where, after the ingredients had been carefully measured out, the
mixture was boiled at a tremendous heat in great kettles. The formula
for this dressing was a secret and was the result of many chemical
experiments. All Peter and Nat could learn was that there was oil and
Prussian blue in it, and something else with a stifling odor which
caused it to dry quickly. No one was allowed in the room where, in the
intense heat, the mixers--almost naked--toiled amid the clouds of steam
which rose from the bubbling kettles. After the liquid had reached the
necessary degree of temperature it was poured out into tanks where it
was prevented from settling by being constantly agitated by the gentle
motion of revolving paddles. Here it was kept until taken to the
"slickers" to be used.
"And the reason that the building stands off by itself," declared Nat to
Peter one day, "is because there is danger of the oil and stuff in the
varnish taking fire or blowing up; I found that out from one of the men
to-day. In that other low building off by itself are stored the supplies
for making the varnish and that place has to be isolated too for the
same reason."
"Good for you, Nat! We've gained one point anyhow. Did you find out
anything else?"
"No. When the man saw that I was really interested he wouldn't tell me
anything more. There is, though, a nice old Irishman--a friend of
Carmachel's--here somewhere. I met him once at noon time over at the
park. Maybe he will help us."
"There are plenty of things that I want to ask him if he ever turns up,"
Peter replied. "I only hope he will be decent to us. I am sure he would
if he knew how hard we are trying to learn. One thing I am anxious to
know is why on earth they don't dry the freshly varnished patent leather
in the factory. Look at the work it makes for the men to bring it out
here in the yard and stand it up against these hundreds of wooden racks.
I should think by this time it would have dawned on somebody that it
would be lots less trouble to dry it indoors in a hot room; shouldn't
you?"
But it wasn't Nat who answered. Instead a voice with a decided Irish
brogue replied kindly:
"Well, you see, my lad, no way has ever been found to dry patent leather
except by the sun's rays. If somebody could invent a kind of japan that
would dry in the house his fortune would be made. But nobody ever has.
Every fine day the hundreds of frames have to be brought out and propped
up in the sun--a jolly bit of work, I can tell you!"
"But suppose it should rain?" questioned Peter, eager to get all the
information he could out of the friendly workman.
"If the weather is bad of course we do not put out the leather; in case
a sudden storm comes up while it is out the factory whistle sounds and
every man understands that he is to drop whatever he is doing, no matter
what it is, and rush to the yard to help rescue the stock before it is
spoiled."
"I never heard of anything so funny!" cried Peter.
"Funny, is it? You'll not be thinking so when you have to take your turn
at it," protested the Irishman, grimly. "Just you be busy at doing some
fussy thing you can't leave and wait till you hear the blast of the
whistle! Out you'll have to cut and run like as if you were a schoolboy
going through a fire drill. Then, you see, there are all those frames of
wet leather to be set up somewhere indoors where they won't be injured
until the storm is over and they can be carried out again."
"And suppose the stormy weather lasts several days?"
"No leather can be dried. Nor can you put it out on very dusty days lest
the particles in the air stick on the moist surface and dry there. A
strong wind is another bad thing, because it catches the frames as if
they were sails and often smashes them all to pieces, spoiling the
leather stretched on them."
"Well, it does seem as if somebody might be smart enough to think of
some plan to prevent all this. Have people tried--lots of people, I
mean--to make a gloss that will not need the sun to dry it?"
"Many and many a man has experimented and failed," replied the workman.
"For years chemists have been working at the puzzle, but so far they
never have got anywhere."
"If I only knew more about chemistry I'd try," cried Peter.
The old man looked amused at the boy's enthusiasm.
"Would you, indeed!" grinned he. "Well, if you succeeded you would be
the first. But I'm not discouraging you, sonny. Sure if none of us were
young and hopeful nothing great would be done in the world. You sound as
if you might be Peter Strong--the lad they talk so much of in the other
factories."
"I am Peter Strong."
"I might have guessed it! Carmachel said I'd know you because you had
the strength of a tiger cub, the smile of the sun across the lake of
Killarney, and the courage of a fighting cock. It's good to see you,
laddie, starting out to move the world. I was going to do it once
myself, but somehow I never did. It does no harm, though, to set out
thinking you're going to budge the universe. Now listen to me. There is
no kindly feeling toward you two boys in this place. Tolman is scared
that you'll get his job away from him, so he's sore on your being sent
here; the men are afraid of him so they side with him. Let me give you a
bit of advice: work the best you can and have little to say to those
around you. If you want to find out things keep your questions until
you see me outside and I'll tell you all you want to know. I have been
here twenty years, and what I can't answer I can ask. We'll beat Tolman
yet, the three of us!"
And so to the kindly old McCarthy Peter and Nat entrusted their
fortunes.
"I do believe we are going to like it at this factory, after all,"
announced Peter to Nat. "Certainly we shall not want for excitement.
There is the chance to invent a better patent leather varnish which will
dry indoors; there is the chance to learn the mystery of making patent
leather despite Tolman; and there is the daily liability of having to
tear out into the yard and rescue the stock from a sudden shower. It is
going to be great sport, Nat!"
But Nat was not so sanguine.
Being a toggle-boy was far from easy work.
"And what is a toggle-boy?" inquired Mrs. Jackson at the end of their
first day.
Peter and Nat only laughed.
They enjoyed using big words that mystified her.
"Why, you see, Mother, toggle-boys are what we are at present," said
Nat, teasingly.
"But what does one have to do to be a toggle-boy?" persisted she.
"I am afraid a toggle-boy is not as grand a person as he sounds, Mrs.
Jackson," interrupted Peter. "Nat and I are down at the lowest rung of
the ladder again. We couldn't get much lower unless they set us to
making the wooden frames the leather is stretched on before it is
japanned. Somebody has to do that. The frames are about three yards long
and two yards wide, roughly speaking; it isn't much work to make them,
though, because the light thin boards come cut just the right size and
simply have to be nailed together at the corners. Still I should not
want to be set to doing carpentry. Even a toggle-boy's work is better
than that--eh, Nat?"
"He is at least an inch nearer making leather," admitted Nat grudgingly.
"Of course he is! You see, Mrs. Jackson, Nat isn't stuck on his present
job. I shouldn't be either if I expected to do it for life. It is not a
position that inspires you with the feeling that you are well on your
way toward being a captain of industry," Peter chuckled. "No, I'm afraid
there is more than one step between being a toggle-boy and being
president of the company."
Nat smiled in spite of himself.
"Now, Mrs. Jackson, to make our career a little clearer to you I'll tell
you more about the toggle-boys," Peter continued. "When the dyed leather
is sent over from the other factories to be made into patent leather it
is first stretched on the wooden frames, as I told you, so that the
gloss can be put on. The reason why they stretch the leather on frames
instead of boards is because a frame, being open, allows the wet japan
to run off the edges of the material and drip through to the floor as it
could not do if it were stretched to a solid surface. They have found
that for many reasons it is much better not to nail the leather to the
frames. Nails make holes in the stock and waste it; besides the tacks
might catch in the brushes as the men work and cause the dressing to
spatter. Then, too, the leather is irregular in shape and some of it
does not reach to the edges of the frame anyway. So steel nippers, or
toggles, are snapped at intervals around the edge of the material and by
means of strings knotted to the nippers the leather can be pulled out
tightly and tied to the frame. Do you understand?"
Mrs. Jackson nodded.
"And you boys are the ones who put on the toggles?"
"Well, no, we're not," replied Peter, a little apologetically. "But we
shall be some day. Just now we are employed in taking from the toggles
that have already been used the strings that have been cut or knotted,
and substituting instead new, long strings so that the nippers will be
ready for the men."
"It isn't much of a job, Mother," put in Nat, ruefully.
"I admitted it was not next to the presidency," declared Peter,
laughing. "But just keep in mind that we are not going to do it always."
And Peter's prediction was true, for in a few days notice came that the
boys were to be promoted to a more difficult task.
Strangely enough, and fortunately too for the beginners, it was their
cheery old friend McCarthy who gave them their first lesson in trimming
off the stock to fit the frames; attaching the toggles, or nippers; and
tying the leather so that every part of it could be drawn out taut.
"The finishers, or slickers as we call them, cannot put any gloss on
unless the leather is perfectly tight," insisted McCarthy.
Peter tugged at his twine.
"What kind of stock do they use for patent leather?" he puffed. "Let me
see! This must be----"
"Colt. Colt, calf, or kid is used. Colt, as you already know from your
experience in the tanneries, is either the skin of a young horse or the
split skin of a full-grown one. It works up into a light weight, fine
grade patent leather. Calfskins you know all about too; they run light
in weight anyway and, you remember, only need to be trimmed down to
uniform thickness before tanning and dyeing. Patent calf is a heavy,
air-tight leather which has been known to crack," whispered McCarthy
with a wink, "but if it doesn't it wears well. Our best patent leather,
though, is made from kid----"
"Which in reality is goat," interrupted Peter.
"True enough. So it is. Well, patent kid, as we call it, is not only
light weight and elastic, but it is also porous. In fact, it is the only
patent leather made that is not air-tight. It is the air-tightness of
patent leather, you know, which makes it so hot to wear."
"Why, I always thought the trouble was with my feet!" ejaculated Peter.
McCarthy shook his head.
"Well, I never!" said Peter. "So it is the fault of the leather itself."
"I'm afraid it is, young one."
"Well, that settles it! I never shall buy another pair of patent leather
shoes as long----"
"Go easy," retorted McCarthy dryly. "I guess you are safe, though, to
make that vow. Your toggle-boy wages won't furnish you with endless
numbers of patent leathers, I reckon. But cheer up! You won't be needing
pumps here at the works, for while the richest of us always wear Tuxedos
every day we excuse the small salary people from appearing in full
dress."
Peter answered the jest with one of his well-known chuckles.
He was in high spirits, for although there was, as he himself was forced
to own, many a step between him and the presidency of the Coddington
Company he felt he had at least made one loyal friend in the patent
leather factory--McCarthy from the County of Cork!
When Saturday night came, however, and Peter received his pay envelope
he peered anxiously inside it; then he drew a sigh of satisfaction.
"It is a lucky thing," he remarked to himself, "that Peter Strong is not
on real toggle-boy wages. If he was he never would be able to pay the
president another cent toward Nat's motorcycle!"
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XI
TOLMAN EXPERIENCES A SHOCK
During the next few months Peter and Nat talked little and learned much.
An occasional question was all they dared to ask, and that only when the
men with whom they were associated seemed amiably disposed. Far from
pushing their way to the front they took orders obediently from their
superiors, slighting no task to which they were assigned, no matter how
trivial it appeared. In consequence sentiment throughout the factory
slowly turned in their favor. The chill silence of the workmen melted to
gradual friendliness. Two such modest boys as these could not be coming
to usurp anybody's position. No, indeed! First one and then another of
the employees advanced bits of information which were accepted so
gratefully that it became a pleasure to follow them with more. Before
two months had passed the general opinion prevailed that Tolman had been
grossly unjust to the newcomers, and with the reaction a strong desire
arose among the men to atone for any previous unfairness.
This change in the atmosphere caused the good spirits which Peter and
Nat had found it difficult to sustain through the ordeal of censure and
misrepresentation to well up in a great happiness. Their daily work
became a joy instead of a matter for dread. Making patent leather
certainly was absorbingly interesting.
They had now reached the department where the varnish was put on the
leather, and although not skilful enough to share in the actual doing
the boys gained much knowledge simply by watching the process and asking
questions. They learned that it was necessary to apply three coats of
varnish to the material, and when the slickers put them on it was a
fascinating operation. Sometimes the men used a rotary sweep of the
arm, swirling the varnish round and round over the surface of the
leather; sometimes they took quick backward and forward strokes. Usually
four men worked together enameling a single skin. Amateurs would have
spread the japan too thickly in some spots, too thinly in others; but
not so these veterans at their trade. Deftly the blue-black liquid--so
elastic and so oily--was coated over the leather, and the glistening
finish put out in the sun to dry. After the second coat had hardened it
was rubbed down with pumice that the surface might be perfectly smooth
before the final layer of japan was applied. The last coat was then put
on evenly with the spreaders of thin wood, and before the material was
put out for its last sunning it was baked in an oven heated to a
temperature of about a hundred and sixty degrees.
"I should think the last baking would be enough to dry the stuff without
putting it outdoors a third time," ventured Peter to one of the men.
"Wouldn't you!" responded the laborer with a smile. "But no! Nothing
but the sun will do the business."
"It's strange, isn't it?" mused Peter.
"Strange, and almighty inconvenient," his companion assented.
That it was inconvenient Peter, after his months of experience at the
factory, agreed only too cordially. Many a shower had fallen and more
than once had he been forced to rush out into the yard at the sound of
the whistle and help the others drag the half dry stock to a place of
shelter. Since the difficulty was one not to be obviated it was accepted
good-humoredly as an evil necessary to this branch of leather
manufacture.
"I tell you what, Nat, some day science has got to find a way to get rid
of certain obstacles that stand in the path of making leather," declared
Peter. "Somebody must invent an unhairing device to do away with the
taking off of the white hair by hand. You'd better try your brain at
the puzzle. Another chance for you to make yourself famous is to think
out a machine for softening fine leather that will take the place of
knee-staking. Still another opportunity to write your name in golden
letters across the tanneries of the world is to perfect a patent leather
varnish that will dry indoors. Now there are three roads to fortune open
to you, old man. You'd better select one."
Nat grinned.
"After you, Peter," said he. "You choose your path to fame first and I
will follow."
"I'll leave the fame to you, Nat," laughed Peter. "Somehow I've never
aspired to be famous--it's lucky for me, I guess, that I haven't, too."
But fame came to Peter notwithstanding--came that very day, and in a way
he did not at all expect.
Directly after lunch he was sent by Mr. Tolman to the office in Factory
1 to carry some samples of finished leather to Mr. Tyler. Little
dreaming how eventful was to be his errand he set out, whistling as
he went. Mr. Tyler was busy that afternoon, so busy that he glanced
hurriedly at the samples of stock, gave Peter a roughly scrawled message
to take back, and dismissed him. Now it happened that the patent
leather plant was quite a little walk from the other factories, for the
site purchased for it was far less convenient than the old ball field
would have been. A dusty stretch of road intervened which wound its way
to the summit of a rise of ground and then sloped gradually down to the
yard of the new factory. Peter ambled up this hill none too swiftly, for
the day was hot, and on reaching its crest he was surprised to notice
that although the sun was shining brightly overhead across the green
marshes to the east a shower was stealing in from the distant sea.
Instantly his mind flew to the tannery. The patent leather would have to
be rushed in. To-day an unusually large quantity of stock was sunning on
the racks, and it would take the united efforts of all hands to get it
under cover before the approaching storm reached the factory yards.
Even now the warning whistle should be sounding.
Peter stood still and listened.
But no discordant blast broke the stillness.
He quickened his steps.
Despite the cloudless blue of the heavens the wall of mist with its
burden of rain was steadily creeping nearer.
There must be some mistake.
Tolman couldn't have seen the storm coming.
Breaking into a run Peter dashed in at the factory gate and raced up two
stairs at a time to the office.
Tolman was nowhere to be seen. The room was empty!
Aghast, the boy glanced about. Every second was precious. What should he
do? He thought a moment of his father and what the loss would mean to
the company. Then, without further hesitation, he touched the bell that
gave to the engineer the signal for the blowing of the factory whistle.
It seemed as if the interval of silence in which Peter waited, listening
only to the beating of his own heart, was endless.
Then the well-known belch from the great chimney told him that his
warning was being carried to every corner of the building. From the
window he could see the men, hatless and alert, pouring out into the
yard.
Eager to join in the work he rushed down-stairs and was soon in the
thick of the excitement.
Although the sun was still unclouded no one questioned the wisdom of the
order. In and out toiled the men and the stock was very nearly all
within doors when Mr. Tolman strode into the yard.
His face was flushed with rage.
"Who gave that signal?" he bawled when he came near enough to be heard.
Every one stopped.
Immovable with surprise the men waited, the great frames of wet leather
suspended in their hands.
Peter Strong stepped forward.
"I did, Mr. Tolman," he answered quietly.
"How dare you touch that bell! I'll teach you, young man, that we have
no practical jokes here."
"It isn't a joke," Peter said. "I tried to find you and tell you that a
storm was coming. When I couldn't, I gave the signal myself."
"Who's running this factory, Strong--you or I? Tell me that."
"You wouldn't want the stock ruined, Mr. Tolman."
"That's my affair. Storm! There isn't going to be any storm! You're a
meddlesome young scoundrel! Just because you have had some notice taken
of you over at the other works you think you can come in here and run
the whole place. Well, I'll show you that you can't manage my business."
Fuming with anger Tolman sprang forward, his arm upraised.
"Don't you touch that boy, Tolman!" cried a voice from the crowd.
It was McCarthy.
But the man was too enraged to heed the warning.
With a quick thrust he struck out toward the lad.
All the blood in Peter's body seemed to throb in his cheeks. Swiftly as
a deer he leaped forward and, catching the upraised arm, he held it as
if in a vise.
"Let me go! Let me go, or it will be the worse for you," blustered
Tolman, struggling vainly to wrench himself free from Peter's grasp.
"I shall not let you go until you cool down a bit, Mr. Tolman," replied
Peter firmly.
"You had no right to meddle," snapped Tolman.
"I had the same right that any man has to prevent the destruction of the
company's property," was Peter's retort.
"You let me go this minute, you young cub, or you'll regret it," yelled
Tolman in a fury. "Who are you that you think you can come here and give
orders to me and my men?"
Fearlessly Peter met his eye. Then he sent the man spinning into the
crowd.
"Who am I, Mr. Tolman? Who am I? I'll answer that question. I am Peter
Coddington, and I have the right to protect my father's property
whenever I think it is necessary."
An awed silence fell upon the group of men.
[Illustration: HE SENT THE MAN SPINNING INTO THE CROWD]
No one doubted the truth of the lad's assertion. It spoke in the dignity
of his whole figure; in the proud poise of his head; in the
unflinching gaze with which he met their eyes.
Of course he was Peter Coddington!
Why had they never guessed it before?
More than one man, as the work of carrying in the skins was completed,
reviewed in his mind Peter's career at the tanneries and marveled that
he had not suspected the secret from the first.
Tolman, astounded at the shock of the discovery, paused, then shuffled
shamefacedly forward as if to offer an apology, but no word came to his
lips.
The awkwardness of the stillness was dispelled by Peter himself, who,
turning at last to the men, said simply: "We made good time getting the
leather under cover, and we were none too soon. See--here comes the
rain!"
* * * * *
How the news sped through the vast tanneries! It seemed fairly to leap
from one building to another. On every hand the men took up the tale and
discussed it.
Peter Strong--their Peter--was the president's son! He was Peter
Coddington!
It was all too wonderful to believe; and yet, after all, it was so
simple!
Why hadn't they known it all along, the workmen asked each other.
"He was a thoroughbred from the minute he began pitching calfskins!"
ejaculated Carmachel. "Think of it! Think of his pitching calfskins in
my old brown overalls--him as could have picked out any job in the
tannery that he chose!"
"And think of the months he put in working in the beamhouses too!
Slaving away there in the smell and heat just like any of the rest of
us!" said another man.
"And how he duffed in in the other department! He wasn't afraid of
getting his hands dirty! And what a worker he was!"
"And mind how he stood by us men and got the park for us--stood up and
faced his father man to man. The Little Giant!"
"Aye! Don't forget the ball playing!"
"And how he brought his lunch every day like the rest of us!"
On every hand the men admitted that their idol, Peter, was indeed worthy
to be the son of the president of the great Coddington tanneries.
"And yet I can't help thinking," reflected Carmachel, "that in spite of
his parentage, and his money, and everything else he really is our
Peter--a product of the works, just as his father said."
There was little work done in the factories that afternoon. Excitement
ran too high. Over and over the men talked in undertones of the
wonderful story. Of course no one questioned its veracity and yet there
was no rest until the tale was taken to Mr. Coddington for confirmation.
It was Tyler who first ventured to broach the matter to the president.
He related the chain of events leading up to Peter's avowal and then,
receiving no reply, fumbled uncomfortably at his scarf-pin and wished he
had not spoken.
Finally Mr. Coddington glanced up, answering with characteristic
terseness:
"Yes, it is true that Peter is my boy, Tyler," he said. "Not a bad sort
either, as boys go."
"Why, he is one boy in a hundred, Mr. Coddington--a son to be proud of!"
burst out Tyler.
"Oh, Peter has possibilities," admitted the president with a smile.
But he would say nothing more. Instead he shut himself up in his office
where he went determinedly to work. But those who peeped through the
glass door could see that throughout the whole afternoon the smile that
had lighted his face still lingered there faintly.
He smiled as he rode home in his big limousine too, and he continued to
smile during dinner, but he said nothing.
Peter, who was watching him closely, thought every instant he would
either make some allusion to the events of the day or make some opening
so that he could do so.
Now that all was over the boy was not a little chagrined that in a
moment of anger he should have let his secret pass his lips. Henceforth
the game was spoiled. Probably his father thought he should not have
lost his temper and blurted out the truth. It was a foolish thing to do
and now that he thought it over coolly Peter regretted that he had done
it. He longed to talk with his father, but he did not just know how to
begin.
He was finally spared the embarrassment of confession or explanation,
for as the president pushed back his chair from the table he remarked
casually:
"So your secret is out, son."
"Yes, sir. I didn't mean to tell, but I got so angry at Tolman, Father."
"Well, perhaps it is just as well to travel under your own name from now
on. It's a rather good name. And by the by, Peter, here is a receipt for
the money Strong owes me on that motorcycle. We'll cancel that debt. The
company was saved several times the amount by getting that lot of patent
leather in out of the rain to-day."
"But I can't take money for that, Father," stammered Peter.
"Strong can. That will close my dealings with him. To me it is worth a
far bigger sum than that to get my own boy back again."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XII
MR. CODDINGTON TELLS A STORY
One of the first things Peter did the next afternoon was to go with his
father and mother to Mrs. Jackson's and relate to her himself all the
happenings of the previous day. The story was, to be sure, no surprise
to her, for had not Nat rushed home and incoherently rattled it off? But
how much nicer it was to hear it from Peter! The boy spared no detail of
the truth; he told of his school, his failures there, of his disgust at
being put into the tanneries, of his desire to conceal his identity.
During the tale no one interrupted him. Mr. and Mrs. Coddington, Mrs.
Jackson, and Nat all listened intently to the end. Then when the story
was at last finished Peter looked up and smiled at Nat's mother.
"So one of your sons, you see, has been sailing under a false name, Mrs.
Jackson," he concluded whimsically. "Do you think you can forgive him?"
"You must try," pleaded Mr. Coddington, putting in a laughing word. "My
son has been doing the same thing and yet I've overlooked it."
Everybody smiled and the tension was instantly broken.
"But to think neither Nat nor I ever suspected you, Peter!" mused Mrs.
Jackson. "We must have been very stupid. Why, I don't see how we could
have helped guessing the truth long ago. As I look back on it all it
seems as if a score of incidents might have told us. Either you kept
your secret marvelously well or Nat and I are not very keen."
"And even though you fooled every one else, Peter, I can't quite
understand how you fooled me," murmured Nat.
"Peter certainly carried his scheme through well," declared Mrs.
Coddington. "Yet for our part we are very glad that the time for
dissembling is past."
"Indeed we are," Mr. Coddington echoed. "This game of Peter's has
complicated our plans to no small extent."
"Why, Father, I did not know it made any difference to anybody except
myself," Peter answered, looking at his parents in surprise.
"Nevertheless it has made a difference, my son," returned the president
of the company kindly. "Strong was assuredly a good fellow; indeed he
was a lad to whom I always shall feel grateful, for he has taught me
several lessons that I needed to learn."
Peter opened his eyes very wide.
To think of his father's learning lessons!
"Still," continued Mr. Coddington, "so long as Peter Strong and not
Peter Coddington formed a part of our household many plans which we had
hoped to make realities had to be abandoned. Now, however, we shall try
to carry through some of them; one in particular we are eager to see
fulfilled, and that is why Mrs. Coddington and I have come here
to-day."
Peter wondered what was coming.
His mother answered the question that trembled on his lips.
"Your father and I thought best not to tell you beforehand, Peter," she
said softly.
"I'll do it, whatever it is, Father," cried Peter. "Only please do not
say that you want me to go back to school. I'd even do that, though, if
you really thought I had better," he added bravely.
Mr. Coddington dropped his hand on the boy's shoulder and smiled down
into the anxious face.
"There will be no more school for you, son," he answered slowly. "At
least not the sort of school that you dread so much. No, in future you
must find your books in the great world about you--in men, and in the
things they are doing; and this education of yours is precisely the
subject I came here to talk about."
Leaning forward the president began slowly:
"Mrs. Jackson, on the fifteenth of next month, Mrs. Coddington and I are
to sail for England."
"What!" gasped Peter, forgetting for the moment that he should not
interrupt.
"We are to take Peter with us," went on Mr. Coddington ignoring the
interruption and proceeding in the same earnest, deliberate tone. "He
has worked hard and faithfully, and needs a good rest. The trip,
however, is not to be an entirely profitless one, for while in England I
shall take him to visit some of the finest tanneries, that he may
observe other methods for doing the same things that we are doing here."
An exclamation of pleasure escaped Peter's lips.
His father smiled.
"After we have collected in England all the information possible and
have seen something of the sheep country there, and the great houses
from which hides are shipped, we shall go to Paris and place orders for
several large consignments of skins. I want my son to see for himself,
Mrs. Jackson, just how this end of the business is conducted, for I hope
and expect that some day these duties will be his, and I want him
equipped to meet them with wisdom and intelligence."
"You mean that you are going to fit Peter to manage the tanneries,"
nodded Mrs. Jackson.
"Precisely."
There was a pause.
No one spoke.
It was evident that Mr. Coddington had more to say, and that he was
finding it a little difficult to continue.
"In this great business, however," he went on at last, "Peter will need
help. He will not be able to carry so much care all alone."
"But you will----" burst out Peter.
"Oh, I shall be around here for some time yet, God willing," replied his
father cheerily. "Still we old fellows cannot expect to stay here
forever. We must consider the future, dear boy. Therefore I wish to
train up another lad to share Peter's burdens with him--a fellow with
good stuff in him; some one whom Peter likes and can trust. It is with
this end in view, Mrs. Jackson, that when we sail for England we wish to
take your son with us."
"Me!"
Nat sprang from his chair.
"Would you like to go, Nat?" asked Mrs. Coddington, watching the light
leap into the boy's eyes.
"Would I like to go! Why, it is the thing I have dreamed of all my
life--dreamed of, and never expected to be able to do. To go to Europe!
To see all those places I've read about and seen pictures of! Think of
it! Do you really mean it, Mr. Coddington?"
"I certainly do, my boy," answered the president, heartily enjoying his
delight. "I cannot promise to take you to all your dream-countries but
you shall see some of them. It all rests with your mother. If she gives
her consent you shall go."
Mrs. Jackson's answer was ready. While Mr. Coddington had been speaking
she, with woman's intuition, had leaped forward to the coming question
and had decided upon her reply. Her one thought was for her boy. She did
not permit a consideration of self to bar his way.
"I am only too glad to give my consent, Mr. Coddington," she said
firmly. "It is a great opportunity for Nat, and his mother would be the
last person to allow him to refuse it. Of course he shall go."
Then the significance of her words broke upon Nat.
He flushed.
He was mortified to realize that in his enthusiasm his thought had been
only for himself and his own pleasure. For an instant his face fell.
Then he sprang to his mother's side and throwing his arms about her
exclaimed:
"Of course I shall not go, mother. Go, and leave you here all by
yourself! I guess not! I did not think at first that my going would mean
that. It was very good of you, Mr. Coddington, to ask me, but nothing
would hire me, sir, to leave my mother."
"Oh, you would not be leaving me for long, dear," argued his mother,
crushing the boy's cheek against her own and hurriedly dashing away a
tear. "Why, people go back and forth across the ocean every day. It is
not--not far--very far. You could write to me often and before you or I
knew it you would be back at home again." The trembling voice gained
steadiness. "Why, it would be nothing at all, Nat! And think of all the
stories you would have to tell me! While you were away I could get books
and read about the places you were seeing and----"
"I never shall leave you here alone, mother, never!" repeated Nat.
"But we do not mean to have you leave your mother, Nat dear," Mrs.
Coddington said. "You have not waited to hear the end of our plan. Your
mother is to go too. She is to be my guest on the trip. Oh, yes, Mrs.
Jackson. That is the other part of our plan. I shall be very forlorn
while these three leather makers are rushing about among the tanneries
and warehouses. They won't want to take me with them--nor am I at all
sure I should care to go if they did. So I am depending for my pleasure
on your companionship, you see."
With charming grace she bent forward and put her hand pleadingly on Mrs.
Jackson's.
"You won't refuse Peter's mother this favor, will you?" she begged.
Mrs. Jackson covered the hand with her own slender one and when she
answered her voice quivered with emotion.
"You are very, very kind, both you and Mr. Coddington," she answered. "I
have no words to thank you; but believe me, while I heartily appreciate
your generosity, I feel that too much has already been done for Nat and
me--far more than I should have accepted had I realized that it was Mr.
Coddington himself and not the company who was doing it. Do not consider
me ungracious in being unwilling to add this favor to the others. I
would rather be under obligations to you and Mr. Coddington than to any
one else in the world if it were possible. Nat shall go. The trip will
be a wonderful education for him and he will, I am sure, work hard in
the future to repay you for your kindness; but I could not accept such a
gift."
Unconsciously Mrs. Jackson's chin lifted, and her figure drew itself up.
"Oh, but _I_ want you to go," broke in Peter.
Smiling, she shook her head.
"I think, if you will pardon my frankness, you are making too much of a
very slight thing, Mrs. Jackson," declared Mr. Coddington. "Come, be
honest. You are too proud to accept this trip from Mrs. Coddington and
me. Isn't that it? You doubt her wanting you as a traveling companion.
But there you wrong her. She really does want you. It would be a genuine
favor to her, and the obligation would be entirely on our side, you
see."
"I think your kindness blinds you to your real motive, Mr. Coddington,"
Mrs. Jackson returned.
"Then listen. I will tell you a story. Long ago, at the time of the
Civil War, my father----" Mrs. Jackson started, then recovered herself;
but there was no question that his words had caught her keenest
attention.
Imperturbably he went on with his tale.
"My father, who was a fearless young Northerner, was sent forward to
carry a dispatch through the Southern lines. It was a dangerous mission
and on the delivery of that message depended not alone his honor but a
large measure of the success of the Northern cause. He pledged his life
to carry that word. All went well until quite without warning he found
himself in a rebel ambush. He made his escape but in so doing was
seriously wounded and nothing but the speed of his horse prevented his
recapture. His enemies were still hot in pursuit when he found he could
go no further. Then when he saw his strength failing and knew the
struggle was useless he took a desperate chance. A plantation stood in
his path and he rode up to the house and begged for aid. Now it happened
that the owners of that plantation, although Southerners, were in
sympathy with the Northern cause; not only did they take in the wounded
man and nurse him back to life, but the son of the family, a daring lad,
ventured to continue the ride through the lines and deliver the
stranger's message."
Mr. Coddington paused a moment.
"And did he succeed?" cried Peter breathlessly.
"Yes."
"Oh, it was splendid! Think of a boy's doing a thing like that for his
country!"
"And a boy not much older than you either, Peter," added Mrs. Jackson
eagerly.
"Why--why--how did you know?" queried Peter, bewildered.
Instantly Mrs. Jackson was all confusion; but she did not explain her
impulsive words.
"That Northern soldier, Peter, was your grandfather," declared Mr.
Coddington quickly. "He all but died in the fulfilment of his task and
had it not been for the nursing he received in that Southern home he
undoubtedly would have done so. His family owed his life, his honor, and
the success of the cause they prized so dearly to those brave friends
who risked everything they possessed to serve their country and a fellow
creature. And now if you will ask Mrs. Jackson perhaps she can tell you
who the boy was who carried the dispatch through the Southern lines."
"It was my brother--Nat's uncle, Peter," whispered Mrs. Jackson.
"Why, mother," Nat ejaculated, "you never told me it was these
Coddingtons!"
"And not until the day I came to see you at the hospital, Nat, did I
find out that it was these Jacksons," said Mr. Coddington. Then turning
to Nat's mother he said: "Now you must certainly admit that the
Coddingtons, Mrs. Jackson, owe a good deal to the Jacksons--life, honor,
their country's success. Between your family and mine on which side lies
the obligation?"
"It was a service gladly rendered."
"But one that cost your family dear. Oh, I have discovered, you see, how
the incident came to the knowledge of your Southern neighbors and how,
in rage, they burned your father's plantation driving you all from it. I
have looked up all the facts. Your father came North in the hope of
recovering his fortunes; he died; you married, strangely enough, another
Jackson; your husband was unfortunate and before he won a place in life
he, too, was taken from you and you were left with this boy. You strayed
into Milburn--it is needless to go on; you see I know all your story. I
wished, my dear madam, to verify my suspicions. I have verified them.
You and Nat unconsciously came to a haven where you never again shall
have cause to worry. Your son shall be trained to share my son's
fortunes. The Coddingtons can never cancel their debt to the Jacksons,
but at least they shall repay a part of it. You who know so well what
pride is will not, I am sure, deny me this pleasure and satisfaction."
For a few moments there was silence.
Then Mrs. Jackson extended her hand toward Mr. Coddington.
"Let us not consider it a debt between strangers," she said. "Rather let
it be a bond between friends. I will gladly accept your kindness and go
to England with you all."
* * * * *
And so two weeks later Peter, amid the cheers of the workmen, bade
good-bye to the tanneries.
As he and his father stood alone on the deck of the great liner and
watched her make her way out of the harbor Mr. Coddington said:
"Do you recall, Peter, the evening of your failure at school, and how I
told you that although it was hard for me to be so severe I felt I must
make a man of you?"
"Yes, sir."
"I was very confident in my own strength that night; but I see now I was
not so powerful as I thought, and it is you who have shown me my folly.
No one in this world can build the character of another; each of us must
rear his own. You have made a far better man of yourself, my boy, than I
ever could have made of you. I am proud of my son, Peter!"
* * * * *
The stories in this series are:
THE STORY OF COTTON
THE STORY OF GOLD AND SILVER
THE STORY OF LUMBER
THE STORY OF WOOL
THE STORY OF IRON
THE STORY OF LEATHER
THE STORY OF GLASS
THE STORY OF SUGAR
THE STORY OF SILK
THE STORY OF PORCELAIN
***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF LEATHER***
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