The Story of Silk Part 15

Still, the wild silk made by the moths of India is not carefully grown.

From it the Oriental Tussah silk is made; then there is Eria silk, also an uncultivated product from India; the f.a.gara silk from China; and the Yamamai silk from j.a.pan, which is next to domestic silk in value. All these are manufactured from silk spun by silkworms that have had no care. The foreman was telling me about it the other day."

There was a pause.

"What did you mean, Pierre, when you spoke of loaded silk?" questioned his mother. "I have heard the term used many times, but I have never understood it."

Pierre looked at her with amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Anybody would think that I was your schoolteacher, Mother mine!" he returned. "I feel very silly telling you things when you are so much older and wiser than I."

"I certainly am older; and I used to be a little wiser," replied his mother humorously, "but I shall not be so long. You see, dear, I never had much education and I am now too old to learn. But you are acc.u.mulating knowledge every day. You are like a sponge, Pierre. You seem to soak up every bit of information that you hear."

"I must get my schooling this way, Mother, since I can secure it in no other," answered the boy soberly. "And perhaps it is a good way after all, for since I am eager to know something I try and remember every sc.r.a.p I hear. I may want to use it later."

"Your father used to say that no knowledge comes amiss," was his mother's soft answer. "How proud your father would be of you, Pierre!"

"But I must know more, and more, and still more, Mother, before I can get to the top!" exclaimed the boy eagerly. "And now to tell you of weighted silks. You see, in dyeing silk the material shrinks and loses about a quarter of its weight. Manufacturers found that by adding chemicals, or sugar and glucose during the boiling off, they could make up for this loss. That is how the custom started. Black silks, which shrunk the most, were treated first. Later the practice spread to colored, and even to white silks. Now, alas, the evil seems to have come to stay. Salts of tin in varying degrees are used in the dyeing of most silks, and the result is that the material becomes crisp and harsh so that it cracks when folded, and does not wear long."

"What a pity!"

"Yes. And yet perhaps the Americans, who are none too anxious to wear out their old clothes, are quite as well satisfied," chuckled Pierre.

"In what an endless number of ways silk is used!" reflected Madame Bretton.

"Yes. And when you have done with the ribbons, and tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, and braids, and silks, and upholstery brocades, and satins, think of the velvets and plushes that can now be made in this country in all sorts of fancy designs on power-looms instead of on hand-looms as formerly. Of course it is still cheaper to import certain kinds of velvets and plushes; but a great many of them are made here, as are the larger proportion of the velvet ribbons which are easily turned out on high-power machines."

"What about silk hosiery and underwear?" questioned his mother, much interested.

"Silk stockings and silk gloves, Uncle Adolph says, are a big American product. There is little finis.h.i.+ng to them except putting the b.u.t.tons on the gloves. In fact I read the other day that the silk used for them was only slightly adulterated, and that they were made even better than in Europe. But making underwear seems to be another story. Each garment manufactured has to be shaped as it is made, and therefore the process is a special one and the knitting is slow. This results in expensive labor, and a very limited output. After the seams are finished, the b.u.t.tons on, the fancy braid and facings in place, and the final tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs st.i.tched where they belong, the profit is small. All this can be done much cheaper in Europe, and were it not for the protection of a high tariff, Uncle Adolph says, Americans would buy all such goods abroad. The tariff protects the American silk industry at every turn. I don't know where the United States would be without it! Then you must remember that after this silk underwear is done it is not sold to individual customers in any considerable quant.i.ty. Instead it retails piece by piece, and therefore every piece has to be folded and packed separately. No wonder such things are expensive here!"

"I never realized before how interesting the problems of making things were," said Madame Bretton, glancing up at Pierre.

"It is all fascinating when you take it as a whole. But if you just do one part of the work over and over and never connect it with the entire process, it is tiresome enough. Every workman should consider himself a link in the big chain, and try to make himself familiar with the other links. Then he will feel as if he is really doing something, and not just pegging away day after day as if he were a machine. That is why I want to learn all I can about silk as a complete industry. It makes winding bobbins and reeling thread a more important matter. Some firms, Uncle Adolph says, have moving picture lectures and by means of them explain to their employees the entire process of their particular industry so they will be more intelligent about what they are doing. I think that is a fine thing. n.o.body likes to do some uninteresting thing over and over, week after week and year after year, unless he understands what he is doing. Even the money you earn doesn't help to make your work less monotonous. How can employers expect their men to have any ambition, or any desire to turn out flawless products unless they realize that each detail of a process makes the perfect whole? I mean to know every step of the road I am traveling so when I get to the top----"

"So when you get to the top you can make silk all by yourself,"

interrupted his mother, completing the sentence with a smile.

"Well, I'm going to know how, anyway," nodded Pierre. "And I wish to learn not only of silks and velvets, but laces, too. Laces are fussy, difficult, and expensive to make. I want to find out all about them. I know they have to have the strongest and most perfect thread. In Europe such goods are made either by hand, or on hand-looms. It is a slow process at best. But the power machines here, slowly as they are forced to work, can of course turn out lace much faster than it can be made in Europe on hand-looms. Consequently the commoner kinds of laces are made in this country, used, and worn out while they are in fas.h.i.+on; for the Americans s.h.i.+ft their fas.h.i.+ons in laces quite as fast as they do their fas.h.i.+ons in silks. Before a certain design can be sent to Europe, manufactured, and sent back again the vogue for that particular pattern will have ceased and Americans will be wearing something else. That is what saves the lace trade for America. It is the same with the making of lace veils."

"There seems to be no keeping up with these Americans," laughed Madame Bretton. "Certainly there is no keeping up with their cost of living!"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XV

THE GREAT SURPRISE

During the next few months the Bretton family prospered in their careers in the Paterson mills. Madame Bretton, whose deftness and care in handling material was quickly recognized, was promoted to a position much better suited to her age and refinement, and also one that was more lucrative. In addition Marie, skilful too of touch, was put in the labeling department. But with undaunted spirit Pierre still drudged at the heavier work of the mill, mastering one step after another of its dull processes. To another boy the slow climb to the top of the ladder might have been tedious; but to the French lad, with eyes fixed constantly on the great industry of silk-making as a whole, every part in the ingenious art became interesting.

Despite the fact that Mr. Gautier was his uncle the boy received no favors. In such a vast group of factories one superintendent had small jurisdiction over individual workers; nor was Mr. Gautier a man to promote unjustly. Whatever progress Pierre made he made on his own merits. On entering the mills he had been employed at _lacing_, one of the simpler tasks usually given to beginners. His duty was to run short threads in and out through the skeins of silk in order to divide them into four parts, and prevent them from becoming tangled in the dyeing.

Many young boys and girls known as _lacers_ were set at this task for the first month or two. But Pierre did not remain a lacer. He went on to being a learner in other departments.

He saw how the raw silk which arrived at the factories in bales ranging from eighty to a hundred twisted skeins were weighed; sorted as to quality; soaked in oil so that the gum might be extracted, and the ends freed for winding. He witnessed the drying, or rather the partial drying, of the silk. All this was an old story, for he had seen every step of the process before when at the Gaspard throwing mills. Then followed the winding on big, three-inch spools; and the first spinning.

Afterward if the thread was for tram it went direct to the doublers, to be made stronger; but if it was for organzine it was spun again after leaving the doubling frames, and was given a much tighter twisting. It was then reeled into skeins again, this form being found the most convenient one for dyeing. The tying, or lacing of these skeins, had been Pierre's work. The skeins after being laced were then bundled, or packed tightly, to be sent to the dye-house. This finished the work of the throwing mills and Pierre was interested to see that the process was practically the same in America as in France.

But from the time the dyed silk came back to the weaving mills everything was new. The weaving of broad goods such as dress materials, m.u.f.flers, handkerchiefs, and necktie silks took place on the broad looms; while narrow goods such as ribbons were woven on the narrow looms. It was a long time, alas, ere Pierre came to understand the complex weaving machinery; and before he half comprehended it a most unexpected happening befell the Bretton family.

It was heralded by a letter from far-away Bellerivre--a letter from Monsieur le Cure; and before the amazing tidings in the missive could be a.s.similated another letter--a feeble scrawl--followed.

Monsieur Bretton lived!

The beloved father they had given up as lost was actually alive!

He had been wounded, captured, and kept a prisoner in a hostile camp from which it was impossible to communicate with his family. As soon as he was able he had been forced to work for his captors, and there he had remained cut off from all knowledge of his family or friends. By and by he had succeeded in escaping and reaching his own lines, only to be shot down in the next battle in which he had taken part. Then had followed a long illness in a French hospital where under the care of the kind sisters he had hovered 'twixt life and death. There had been no letters home because he had been too delirious to tell his nurses where to write. At length out of the chaos had come sanity, and now because his wounds were such that he could do no more fighting he had come home to Bellerivre. Monsieur le Cure and Josef were nursing him, and he hoped to join his dear ones in their new home as soon as he was able.

It was a wonderful story!

Some day, the doctor said, he would regain his strength and be well enough to do some simple work so that he could still earn a livelihood and not be a burden to his family.

How good the tidings were! How almost unbelievable!

Over and over again the jubilant Brettons rehea.r.s.ed the tale and framed new plans for the future. It took all Madame Bretton's resistance not to draw from the bank the treasured nest-egg still reposing there and go home to France to nurse her husband back to life. But Monsieur le Cure bade her not to come. The invalid was in good hands and progressing rapidly. Soon she might send money for the journey, and the kind priest himself would see the wounded Frenchman aboard a s.h.i.+p that would carry him to America. It was the wisest plan. Both he and Monsieur Bretton thought so. Then when peace was restored to the weary world, and the family had sufficient money they might all come back together to Bellerivre, never again to leave its sunny valley.

Thus argued the old priest.

But that day never came.

Pierre rose to a fine position at Paterson, enabling him to establish a pretty home there in which his father and mother lived in comfort.

Marie, in the meantime, married an American and settled next door.

Thus the new land, once but a haven to a tempest-tossed household, became the permanent dwelling place of the Bretton family.

Affectionately they remembered the green valley of Bellerivre; and the friends.h.i.+p of the old priest and the faithful Josef. Tenderly they spoke of their neighbors in the old home and ever loyally they loved La Belle France, the soil that had given them birth.

But the spell of America was upon them. They did not wish to go back.

The golden path of opportunity lay in the country of their adoption and in exchange for all that it was giving them they resolved to return a devoted citizens.h.i.+p.

And so between the two great sister Republics another bond was established--a humble bond to be sure, but one that linked in loving ties the old world and the new; and daily spanned the distance between them with many a kindly thought, and a speeding message of good-will.