The Story of Silk Part 11

CHAPTER XI

PIERRE TAKES ANOTHER JOURNEY

During the next few weeks many a letter pa.s.sed between Pierre and his new friend Henri St. Amant; and by and by came an invitation for Pierre to come again to Pont-de-Saint-Michel and spend the day visiting the Gaspard throwing mills, where the raw silk was twisted and prepared for weaving. The boy was all eagerness to go and his mother, too, favored the trip, for Pierre had been working very steadily and now had few pleasures. It seemed impossible to complete the never-ending round of duties, although with uncomplaining zeal Pierre kept patiently at them.

Marie, it is true, helped with some of the lighter work; but she was not strong enough to do much outside the house. As for Josef, faithful as he was, the old man was aging rapidly and could do little more than potter about the place and direct things. Therefore the cutting of trees for fuel, the drawing of water, the building of fires all fell to Pierre's lot.

What wonder that with such constant use the boy's strength was daily increasing until he was becoming a veritable young giant? With no small satisfaction he beheld the muscles of his arms tighten and stand out; and when he swung his axe and brought down a st.u.r.dy sapling it was with a glow of pleasure that he heard it crash to the ground. Certainly there were compensations in hard work! Moreover was not every French boy who was too young to serve in the army being a man at home? He was but doing what all his friends were. Nevertheless the thought of a holiday did fill him with antic.i.p.ation. To get into something beside his workaday clothes, and to mingle for an entire day amid new scenes, to say nothing of seeing Henri St. Amant again--what a delight it would be!

Madame Bretton caught a reflection from his happiness and that nothing should be left undone that should enhance the joy of her son's outing she broke over her rules of strict frugality and packed a luncheon for him, to which she added a few of the little luxuries which for a long time the family had denied themselves.

And so in high spirits Pierre set forth for Pont-de-Saint-Michel. How familiar every step of the journey seemed this time! And how good it was to find Henri St. Amant awaiting him in the office of the Gaspard mills!

"I have been working over time all the last week, so they are letting me have this morning to show you about the throwing mills," he explained, his eyes s.h.i.+ning into Pierre's still brighter ones. "And at noontime when we have finished our round of the factory we can go down by the river, and while we eat our luncheon we can talk together. Therefore suppose we do not waste precious moments in visiting now, for we shall scarcely have time to see all I want to show you before the noon whistle blows."

Accordingly Pierre's box of lunch was stowed away in Henri's locker, and speeding across the little bridge that connected the filature with the throwing mills, the two boys entered the great factories.

"Before we go another step there is one question I must ask you," said Pierre, stopping in the doorway. "I want you to tell me why the twisting of raw silk into thread is called _throwing_."

"I'll try to explain it as well as I can, Pierre," answered Henri.

"Maybe you have stuck me on the very first question you've asked," he added smiling. "All I know is that the operation of twisting, or throwsting, the fibres of raw silk has come to be abbreviated into throwing. The workmen are known as silk throwsters. It is an old trade.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century there were throwing mills at Bologna which were so good that it is from them our present day machinery has been copied and perfected. Usually the work is done on commission--the manager, or throwster, receiving orders from weaving mills for exactly the sort of thread they wish to use."

"Isn't it all alike?"

"No, indeed! It varies in size according to the number of threads in a strand, and the number of twists and turns to the inch. Some materials that are to be woven require heavy, loosely twisted thread; others, that which is fine and tightly twisted. And in addition to these differences some thread is not made from pure silk, or even from silk of the best quality; raw silk which is imperfect can just as well be used for certain purposes, or silk that is twisted with a strand of cotton or some other filling. There are a great many qualities and kinds of thread and each one has to be specified."

Pierre opened his eyes.

"Organzine, for example, is used for the warp of woven silk materials and is generally spun from the best quality raw silk, the threads being firm and strong. Tram, on the other hand, is silk of a second grade and is composed of a greater number of fibres. Many of the mills manufacturing woven silks prefer not to own throwing mills. Often their plants are in large cities where land is expensive and they must economize s.p.a.ce; or the manufacturers estimate that they can get thread thrown for them cheaper than they can do it themselves. Anyway, they either send their own raw silk here to be thrown according to certain specifications, or they tell us to get the raw silk ourselves and throw it into the varieties required. If the firm sends its own silk it comes to the throwster in bulk with an order to throw a certain proportion of it into organzine of so many threads and twists; and the rest into tram of specified size, the price being computed by the pound."

"I understand."

"The throwsting of silk is a great test of the reeling. If the reeling has been well done, and the size of the strand is uniform, we have no trouble; but if the reeling has been poor, and the gum not thoroughly soaked out of the filament, the threads will snarl and break when they are put on the machines. Frequently there is great loss from poorly reeled coc.o.o.ns, as I think I told you. And you must keep in mind that the coc.o.o.n gives us two kinds of silk thread--the reeled silk, which is of the best quality and is the continuous filament wound from the coc.o.o.n requiring no textile machinery to prepare its fibres; and the spun silk, which is made from the loose floss taken off before the coc.o.o.n is reeled, or comes from coc.o.o.ns that were too imperfect to be wound off by the reelers. The latter variety must be treated much as are the fibres from the cotton plant, or those of sheep's wool. By that I mean that the short lengths have to be twisted and spun together before they can be woven on a loom. Do you see the difference?"

Pierre nodded.

"Reeled silk comes direct from the coc.o.o.n, leaving the filatures on spools, as you saw when you were here before. After that it is brought to these mills and wound over into hanks or skeins of a specified length--usually from 333 to 500 yards. The foreman told me that long ago they had to employ one person to attend to every reel; but now with modern machinery a single girl can watch twenty-four spools at once. One of the interesting things is that all the finest reels used in France, Italy, China, and j.a.pan, come from America."

"But why don't the Americans reel their own raw silk, then, instead of importing it?"

"They have no coc.o.o.ns. My father says they tried raising silk in America, but it was not successful. Mulberry trees will grow in some parts of the country, but there is no cheap labor to be had over there as here, and therefore it costs too much to feed and care for the silkworms, and reel the raw silk. It is far less expensive for American merchants to import the reeled silk for their looms. But they can beat us at making machinery, if not at raising coc.o.o.ns."

Henri chuckled.

"My father says," he went on, "that the Americans did not perfect the reeling machines so much for our good as for their own. They used to get all kinds of silk thread from the different parts of Europe; and it could not be woven on their looms, which are finely adjusted and require material of uniform size and strength. So they perfected machinery for the preparation of silk thread, and practically insisted that if they were to buy of us in Europe the material ordered must be made as they wanted it. Most of the countries over here were glad enough to comply with their demands, for the Americans are not only enormous buyers, but their machines are much better than ours."

"Why couldn't they have coc.o.o.ns s.h.i.+pped to them in bulk?" speculated Pierre.

"They could not be easily packed, for they are not in form to s.h.i.+p. It would be foolish. Besides, there is the same old problem of the lack of cheap labor. You see, reeling silk is often slow work. Different breeds of silkworm turn out, as you know, different qualities of thread. You wouldn't believe how it varies as to size, cleanliness, l.u.s.tre, and perfection of filament. The Americans cannot afford to pay people to cla.s.sify all these varieties; nor stop their machinery at irregular intervals to pick out the imperfections, or slugs, as we call them; also the many knots must be tied by hand. It is fussy work. It would cost an American manufacturer lots of money to get the sort of thread he wants.

You remember, too, how some of the best reelers that you saw when you were here before sometimes had to take as many as five or more filaments from different coc.o.o.ns to get raw silk of a necessary coa.r.s.eness; even then, in spite of all their care, the skeins have to be sorted and sometimes re-reeled to perfect the thread and make it acceptable to American buyers. Our weavers over here would not begin to be so particular; and in fact they often rate as _fair_ stuff that the Americans consider _poor_, and refuse to take. You can readily see that all this preparation of the material can be done for less price in Europe, where workmen do not expect such high wages."

"What a lot of trouble the caterpillar makes people before his silk is ready for the loom!" exclaimed Pierre laughing.

"I guess you'll think so when you see all we have to do to it," agreed Henri. "I hope you won't mind the smell of the factory. It is horribly stifling, and makes some of the men sick at first. It is the oil and water in the silk. Silk must be damp for winding and spinning, otherwise it breaks. It is never, even at best, thoroughly dry, for it has the faculty of absorbing and holding moisture. Some time you'll learn more about how they have to allow for the moisture in silk when they weigh and s.h.i.+p it. Raw silk will often take up as much as thirty per cent. of its weight in moisture without any one suspecting it. Therefore, in order to be fair to the buyer who purchases his material by weight, they have in all great silk centres what they call silk-conditioning houses, where they test the goods to find out how much water is in it. This is done by an apparatus known as a _desiccator_, which tells what the silk would weigh if dry. To this estimate they add a definite percentage, ordinarily about eleven per cent., to total what the raw silk would weigh with a normal percentage of moisture. Every purchaser must expect to pay for some moisture in his material--that is, pay more for it than the silk itself actually weighs."

Pierre regarded Henri mischievously.

"There seems to be so much to learn that I do not believe I shall get through this mill to-day. Maybe I'll have to spend the night here."

"I wish you could!" cried Henri. "Why didn't you plan to come home with me and stay until to-morrow?"

"I couldn't be away over night, Henri," answered Pierre, "although it is kind of you to ask me; there is so much that I have to do at home."

"Let us make haste then," Henri cried. "You have not seen anything yet, and the morning is pa.s.sing."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XII

THE HOME-COMING

"There are about a dozen different processes which taken together are known as throwing," explained Henri. "First the silk reeled from the coc.o.o.ns must be wound; then cleaned of all gum; picked--which means that the uneven lumps must be removed; doubled, to make the thread stronger; twisted, to make it still firmer; rewound; and finally reeled all over again into silken yarn. Then it is ready to be put into any form desired, in accordance with orders received from the weaving companies.

Sometimes it is made into what we call _singles_, one thread being given a twist to make it stronger. Sometimes, as I told you, it is made into _tram_, two or three threads being twisted lightly together just enough to hold them; tram, as I said, is used for the filling or woof of woven materials. Or perhaps _organzine_, which forms the warp threads of woven goods and is composed of two or as many more singles as desired, is ordered. Organzine can, of course, be made in any size specified, its coa.r.s.eness or fineness varying with the strength necessary; and it can also be twisted any number of times to make it loose or tight. It must, however, be twisted in the opposite direction from the twist given it when the thread is made into singles or else that twist would come out and do no good. And just here is an amusing point and one that nettles the American buyers not a little. The moment raw silk is twisted even once, transforming it into singles, the custom-house officials on the other side of the water cease to regard it as a raw product although nothing in the way of actual manufacture has taken place in its preparation. The difference in its rating makes a difference in the duty levied on it. Odd, isn't it?"

"How do you come to know all these things, Henri?" demanded Pierre. "You seem to have studied everything there is to learn about silk."

"Indeed I haven't! But when you hear silk-making talked on every hand you can't help picking up more or less information about it. Let me be set down in a weaving mill, though, and I should be ignorant as a baby.

The problems of weaving are not in my line. Here in Pont-de-Saint-Michel almost every one is employed in the Gaspard filature, or in the throwing mills; and if not, the people raise silkworms. Since the men have been called to the colors practically all the work of this big manufacturing plant is being done by women, boys, and children. The few men we have who are operating the heavier machines have either been sent home from the front because they were wounded or else they are not strong enough to fight. So you see, silk is the language of the whole village."

Henri gave a little shrug to his shoulders.

"It seems as if France must turn out enough silk for herself and all the world," observed Pierre, motioning to the great bales heaped in a near-by s.h.i.+pping-room.

"The output is, of course, very small now in comparison with what it usually is," answered the elder boy. "The war has made a great difference. Normally France does provide a good share of the world's silk. But other countries do as much, if not more. For a long time Asia sent most of the silk to the United States. Labor was very cheap in China, as well as Canton and Shanghai. The natives, however, employed very primitive methods in preparing their material and did it very poorly, often winding the raw silk on bamboo sticks that roughened or broke it. Frequently the thread would be a ma.s.s of dirt and slugs.

Merchants would not stand for this, and now American manufacturers have gone to China and set up their own filatures equipped with American machinery."

"How stupid of China to lose a chance like that for trade!"

"The Chinese are the slowest of all the big nations to adopt new ideas, my father says; but they are waking up. They have been so clever in the past, and the foremost to discover so many things that it is a pity others should take from them the fruits of their learning. It is to China, people say, that we owe the entire silk industry. And careless preparation of their raw silk has not been their only or greatest crime."

For a moment Henri paused.