"It is now dry weather, and as this is the best time to reel silk we are working very hard," explained Henri as they went along. "Every machine we have is running overtime. But before we inspect the reels themselves suppose we see how the cocoons are soaked and made ready. The important thing is to get the gum which the silkworm has blended with the silk out of it, and for this purpose we use soft water, having found that it loosens the filament better than anything else. That is what they are doing here. They begin by raising the water to the boiling point, and afterward reduce its temperature by means of cold water if they find it necessary. Care must be taken to submerge each cocoon evenly so that its entire surface will be covered; otherwise one end will be softened and the other end remain hard, in which case it cannot be reeled off."

"But why do the girls stir the cocoons with those whisks of peeled birch?" inquired Pierre curiously. "What are they trying to do?"

"The stirring frees the ends of the filaments, and the brush of twigs serves to collect them," answered Henri. "When the ends have been caught in this way they are passed on to the reeler; but if after trying this method the girls find the ends do not free themselves they put such cocoons into a different temperature of water, or else toss them out entirely and leave them to the employees who handle the lots that require special treatment. They cannot stop here to fuss with cocoons that fail to wind off readily; not only would such troublesome ones retard the work, but they would be likely to snarl the others. Frequently we find cocoons with uneven places in the thread, spots where the silkworm has been interrupted in its spinning and stopped, afterward going on with its work and making a lump or knob where the filament has been joined. Such cocoons wind badly, as you can well imagine, and they, too, cannot be reeled with the general lot."

"I notice those boys are taking the empty cocoons out of the tanks after the silk has been reeled from them. Is it necessary?"

"Yes. We never allow the discarded cocoons, or shells as we call them, to stand in the water with those that are soaking, because they not only spoil the sheen of the silk on the unreeled cocoons but discolor it," Henri replied. "Now let us watch the reeling. Shall we?"

The boys turned toward the whirling machinery.

"I had no idea they reeled so fast," declared Pierre, speaking loudly so his companion could hear.

Fascinated he stood watching the flying threads pass over the glass rods.

"The speed of the reels can be regulated, of course," answered Henri. "It is not often, though, that the filament snaps because the reel is moving too fast. When the thread does break it is more frequently because the regular motion of the machinery wears it until it parts. This cannot always be avoided. All filatures count on some loss by winding. But the percentage in a modernly equipped filature is very small. We use the glass rods to prevent the thread from being caught or roughened. The process of winding cocoons has been so carefully studied that now our French reelers can turn off silk of fifteen or twenty fibres and lose only one or two per cent. of it by waste. In Turkey the loss runs as high as six or eight per cent.; in Syria it is fifteen or twenty per cent.; and in other countries where the people have less mechanical skill the rate of loss is much higher. Successful silk reeling is a matter of good machinery, practice, and deftness. An experienced reeler knows his business too well to waste material."

"All this is amazing to me," said Pierre. "I thought the men just took the end of the thread and wound it off without any trouble."

Henri shook his head.

"No, indeed. I wish it were as easy as that. A reeler needs judgment, judgment, judgment at every turn. Not only must the floss be removed from the outside of the cocoon before it is reeled, but also the first part of the filament, which usually is weak and too fine for use, must be wound off until the firm, strong thread is reached. You see, the caterpillar has to work a little while before it gets under way and does its best spinning. All that poor filament on which it experiments or gets started must be broken off and saved for embroidery floss, since it is fit neither to be woven into broad goods or twisted into sewing silk. The reeler begins to wind where the end of the filament becomes strong. He then must combine enough fibres of the same size and strength to make a thread uniform in size. And this is not so easy as it sounds, since there is great diversity in the coarseness and fineness of the filament on the cocoons. He cannot always put the same number of filaments together. In addition to this fact he is often required to reel silk of various sizes. The coarseness or fineness demanded all depends on the purpose for which the silk is to be used. But always each kind must be of uniform size throughout."

"And how does he join the fresh cocoons to the others? By tying?"

"No. He runs them in so skilfully that the joining cannot be detected. Every moment he must be on the watch to add new filaments when he sees any of his cocoons giving out. As one cocoon takes the place of another its filament blends unnoticed in the thread. You can see that it would never do to join a lot of new ones all in the same spot."

"I suppose the cocoons run in uneven lengths, anyway, don't they?" ventured Pierre. "Scarcely any of them would contain the same number of yards of filament even were they all to be started together."

"Precisely. So the reeler keeps adding fresh fibres, being careful always that his thread is running uniform all the time. If he uses fibres of fine quality there must be more of them; if coarser fibres not so many. He can't turn out thread that is thick in one place and thin in another."

"That is what you or I would do," laughed Pierre. "Or at least I should. I never could reel so fast, either."

"It winds better fast," replied Henri. "It has not so much time to loosen or get caught. It just has to keep moving right along. If we can get cocoons soon enough so they can be wound off before the moth has time to come out, instead of having them cured first, they reel far more easily. The curing affects the silk. Of course in most cases it is unavoidable, for it would require very quick work for our agents to buy up the products of outlying silk-raisers and get them to us before the chrysalis matured. We should be taking a big chance of having our silk ruined, since one never can predict exactly how long it will be before the moth will come out. Varying conditions bring different results. It is a pity, however, that they have to be cured. Still, the curing has one advantage—it decreases the weight of the cocoons about twenty-five per cent."

"I didn't realize that curing caused shrinkage."

"Oh my, yes. And perhaps you did not know what a difference there is in the weight of individual cocoons. This depends not alone on the species of silkworm raised, but also on the care that has been given it. A carefully fed caterpillar will grow larger and make a bigger cocoon. The same law holds with well cultivated flowers or with well tended live stock. Even persons show the results of proper nourishment. It is just so with silkworms. Cultivation tells. And not only does good care result in larger caterpillars and finer cocoons, but also in more silk. So the number of cocoons necessary to total a pound of raw silk vary. We cannot compute that, except roughly. But we do estimate that broadly speaking it takes about an acre of full grown mulberry trees to produce forty pounds of raw silk."

"How interesting!" exclaimed Pierre. "I never thought of measuring silk in mulberry trees."

"Not precisely in trees, but in their leaves," corrected Henri. "If you were a scientific sericulturist, as many men are, you would know just how many pounds of leaves you used each day; and you would work to economize them so as to get the largest possible yield of silk from the smallest possible outlay of leaves. All the big silk-growers manage their business that way."

Pierre sighed.

"My mother said that too," he returned. "But you see, we do not know enough to plan things so closely. However, it does not make much difference, for we have plenty of mulberry trees. With the number of silkworms we raise we never could use them all up. Years ago my father set out our grove, and each season he has added new trees to it until now it stretches from behind our house far down to the river."

"It would bring you in a lot of money if you ever wanted to sell it."

"Sell it!"

"Yes."

"But we'd never sell it!" retorted Pierre. "Pray, how should we live if we gave up raising silkworms?"

Henri shrugged his shoulders.

"I only meant that your grove is valuable," he explained kindly. "Do not forget that. Some time you might want money. I did not know whether you realized how much a big grove of full grown mulberry trees is worth."

"I never thought anything about it," was Pierre's thoughtful reply. "Our trees have never seemed to me anything I could sell. I thought only of gathering the leaves for our own use."

"Well, just remember that your silk-house and your trees are worth a good sum to a silk-grower. In these uncertain days of war one can never tell when money may be needed. Of course you might not be able to get such a good price for your property now, because France is poor, and everything is selling for less than usual—everything except food. Still, if you found the right customer you should be able to make a good many francs out of your homestead."

"It isn't mine," Pierre answered gaily, as if suddenly coming to himself. "It belongs half to my uncle and half to my father. What do you suppose they would say when they came back from the war if they found I had sold their mulberry grove and silk-house?"

"If you needed money for your mother and little sister they would probably feel you had done wisely, even though it caused them disappointment to see their cherished possessions in the hands of others. And if," added the elder boy gravely, "anything happened to them how glad they would be that those they loved were not left penniless."

"Anything happen to them!" Pierre's face paled. He had never, strangely enough, pictured such a calamity. His father! His uncle! True, other men were injured fighting for France, thousands of them. But surely no harm could come to his family. Those he loved would return when peace came; take up life where they had left it; and the home would once more be united.

The boy glanced up to find Henri studying his face sympathetically.

"I did not mean to make you sad, little brother," declared the elder lad softly. "The father and uncle will without doubt come again just as you say. But must we not all be brave enough to look at things squarely and with courage? Now that your father is gone to the war you have a man's work to do. Surely you are going to meet life like a man, not as a child. Forgive me if what I have said has hurt you."

With instant friendliness Pierre put out his hand.

"You have not hurt me," he returned quickly. "You have just set me to thinking. I'm afraid I have been pretty thoughtless. My mother must have had fears and have been worrying; yet so bravely has she kept it to herself that she has shown Marie and me only her joyous side. I might have helped her had I realized this before. She has always treated my sister and me as children, keeping from us everything that was hard. But I'll prove to her in future that I, at least, am no longer a child. Thanks to you, Henri, I will go home to Bellerivre not only wiser about silk-growing but wiser, I hope, about life."

"Perhaps, then, our talk has been fortunate," answered Henri, gazing earnestly into the upturned face. "I hope so. And maybe some time you will write to me and let me know how you are getting on. If I could ever help you about your silk-raising I'd be glad to. There might be something you'd like to ask. Henri St. Amant is my name, remember; and I am always here at Pont-de-Saint-Michel."

With a cordial clasp of the hand the two boys parted.

Little did Pierre know what a loyal friend his chance acquaintance of the morning was to prove.