PETER AIDS IN A SURPRISE AND RECEIVES ONE

LL the next few months corps of men worked secretly transforming into a reading-room the great vacant place, which, on that memorable day, Peter and Nat had appropriated as a lunch room. Carpenters laid the new floor and stained it; painters tinted the walls a soft green; masons constructed a hospitable fireplace. One end of the room was furnished with tiers of book-shelves, tables, chairs, and reading lights; the other was dotted with a myriad of small tables for the use of those who wished to lunch at the factories.

Then one Sunday afternoon when 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.”