Sara Ware Bassett

“ 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!” ”

“ 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.
[Pg 104] “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!” ”

“ 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 [Pg 213] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In consequence not a lad among all his former classmates was half so companionable or congenial as was his new friend, Nat Jackson.
[Pg 153] 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. ”

“ 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.
[Pg 80] “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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 204] 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 57] moved workmen who, as they wheeled barrows of freshly tanned skins, left a wake of slime behind them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Peter and Nat only laughed.
They enjoyed using big words that mystified her.
[Pg 203] “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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 87] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 109] 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. ”

“ 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.”
[Pg 66] “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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 99] 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 207] 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”