A CATASTROPHE

N 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.