PIERRE MAKES A FRIEND
The buyer who came to Bellerivre from the Gaspard silk mills was a
lively little Frenchman whom Pierre had often seen before.
"So it is you, my young friend, who this year raises the cocoons!" cried
the merchant cordially. "Who would have thought it possible? But
yesterday you were a baby in your father's arms. And now----" the little
man shrugged his shoulders. "Eh bien, le bon chien chasse de race! N'est
pas, Madame?"
Madame Bretton smiled.
"The lad is but doing his best to fill his father's place," she answered
quietly.
"That is as it should be with all good French boys, too," the
merchant assented. "And have you ever visited our silk mills at
Pont-de-Saint-Michel? No? Ah, but you should do so. It is only an hour's
journey, and if you are to raise silk you must learn all you can about
it. If I should give you a letter to our foreman would not Madame, your
mother, be willing you should go?"
Pierre glanced up eagerly.
His eyes sparkled.
"Would you, Mother? It would not cost very much, would it?" He turned
apologetically to the silk buyer. "You see," he explained, "in these war
days we must be very saving, for every franc that we can spare goes to
my father and my uncle, who are in the army."
"I know," sighed the agent. "Wherever I go it is the same. All the men
are at the front. But the cost of the trip I suggested is very little,
and I myself should be glad to----"
"No, Monsieur Leclerq," interrupted Madame Bretton. "I know what you
would say, and I thank you; but we are well able to pay Pierre's
expenses to Saint Michel, since you are so kind as to invite him. I am
sure the excursion would more than repay us. It would not be like taking
the money for a mere pleasure tour. Pierre shall go. It will be another
step toward making a silk merchant of him."
"I wish I could go, too," whispered Marie.
"You are not to be a silk merchant, cherie," answered her mother gently.
"We women are the stay-at-homes, who do all we can to help our men
forward in their careers; that is our work."
And so the next day Pierre, very happy and important, and with a large
box of luncheon under his arm, set out upon the train for the
Pont-de-Saint-Michel silk mills. To be going on such a long journey all
alone was a novel undertaking for the lad, who seldom left his own green
valley. It was almost as wonderful as if he were starting for
Marseilles, or indeed Paris itself. The place where he was going did
not, however, possess the glamour of either of these great cities. On
the contrary it was merely a sort of depot or centre to which all the
cocoons bought up in the vicinity were sent to have the silk reeled
from them; there were also at this plant some extensive throwing mills,
but no weaving was done there. Instead the thrown silk was sold to the
great weaving factories at Lyons, Tours, or other silk-making cities of
France; and the raw product was sent to Marseilles, from which market it
was either distributed to French mills or shipped to England or the
United States for manufacture.
The day was a beautiful one. Massive white clouds hung low over the
distant mountains; but the valley was flooded with golden sunshine that
illumined it like some vast search-light. The vineyards never looked
greener, the hillsides more velvety and cool, or the river more
sparkling. Now the train skirted the banks of the stream, now shot past
meadows of fertile farming land; or of a sudden it crossed a noisy
mountain torrent and crept up the hillside until the vegetation became
low and stunted, and the rocky peaks of the Pyrenees seemed but an arm's
length away. Then slowly down over a trestle of airily poised
bridge-work it descended to the valley again. Was ever a journey such a
marvel? To the French boy who had seen little of the outside world it
was an Arabian Night's dream.
All too soon Saint Michel was reached, and Pierre set out for the silk
mills, where he presented the card that Monsieur Leclerq had given him.
Then for a few minutes he waited in a small office where the jar of
machinery and the whirr of wheels caused a monotonous and unceasing
vibration.
Presently a giant foreman with sleeves rolled to the elbow came hurrying
out.
He regarded Pierre with surprise.
"They told me that one of our silk-growers wanted to see me," faltered
he uncertainly. "There has doubtless been some mistake. You are but a
boy."
"I am nevertheless a silk-grower," smiled Pierre modestly. "It is
because the men of our household are in the trenches that I----"
Impulsively the foreman thrust out his hand.
"I too have relatives in the battle line," he said. "My brother and
cousins are there, and I should be with them now were it not for an ugly
wound I got at the Marne. They will not take me back to fight, even
though I have begged to go. And so here I am--restless and half angry
that I must remain boxed up at Saint Michel and make silk instead of
being where the firing is going on. Yet some must stay behind and carry
on the country's industries. Perhaps I can still do my bit here. I have
tried to be philosophical about it and work as hard as I can, for I feel
that those who cannot help in one way can, maybe, help in another."
He glanced at the card Pierre had brought.
"Bretton is your name?"
"Pierre Bretton."
"Monsieur Leclerq says your shipment of cocoons was a good contribution
to the prosperity of France."
Pierre flushed.
"I am glad if it seemed so. We must support ourselves--my mother,
sister, and I--and not be a burden to the country while my father is
away."
"That's the right spirit," answered the foreman heartily. "And so you
want to see your silk reeled off--yours, or somebody's else? Well, you
shall. I am busy myself and so cannot go with you; but Henri, one of our
boys, shall take you with him and tell you all you wish to know. Do not
fear to ask questions if you do not understand, for Henri is well able
to answer them. He knows everything that anybody can about silk
reeling."
As he beckoned to a tall, slender boy who sat at a desk opposite the
foreman smiled kindly down at Pierre.
"Henri," he continued when the employee approached, "I want you to show
this young silk-raising friend of ours, Monsieur Bretton, how we sort
cocoons and reel them off. Tell him everything you can, for he is a
grower and has the right to know."
"Mais, oui, avec beaucoup de plaisir," answered the boy. "I will do my
best." He bowed to the foreman, who, after shaking Pierre by the hand,
turned away. "Now Monsieur Bretton----"
"My name is Pierre. No one ever called me Monsieur Bretton before, and I
do not like it," protested Pierre smiling. "I am but a boy like
yourself. Please call me by my first name--if you do not mind."
Henri beamed on him.
"I should like it much better," he replied cordially. "And I am Henri
St. Amant. Now it is all understood, is it not? Shall we begin then our
journey through the filature? We will go into the sorting rooms first,
where the cocoons that are sent to us are classified. Most of them have
already been cured, or baked, for the majority of our customers do that
for us. When they do not we have to expose the cocoons in our own
ovens."
"Don't most of your cocoons come to you sorted?" questioned Pierre.
"Most of them are roughly classified," nodded Henri. "But the grading
must be much more finely done. Only experts can sort cocoons
thoroughly."
[Illustration: HE LED THE WAY INTO A LONG ROOM]
As he spoke he led the way into a long room, where on every hand girls
were moving in and out among heaps of cocoons that were either piled
high on tables or massed upon squares of canvas on the floor. The room
and everything in it was spotless.
"We try to keep the cocoons from getting soiled, you see," explained
Henri.
"Is the sorting done by girls?" questioned Pierre, astonished.
"Since the war, yes. We have had to train them to take the places of
those who have gone to be soldiers. It is not, of course, heavy work,
but it requires skill and judgment since the many varieties of cocoons
need different treatment. Here, for example, are dupions, or double
cocoons, which as you doubtless already know have more floss on the
outside than do others, and must be well cleaned before any attempt at
reeling can be made. Often they cannot be run off at all because the two
caterpillars that worked together to make the single cocoon have
intertwined the threads until they break all to bits when we try to
separate them. Here is another species of cocoon." Henri pointed to a
pile on the next table. "These are of beautiful texture, smooth and
satiny. But they must be treated with tepid, not hot, water, as are a
good proportion of the others, and the accumulation of gum mixed with
the filament must be soaked out with soap-suds. This will give you an
idea how many things there are to think of in reeling. Some cocoons give
off their silk too easily, and unless put into cool water will snarl;
others fail to give off the thread at all and instead must be treated
with hot water, which aids in loosening it. Another difficulty we
sometimes encounter is that the reelers cannot catch the end of the
thread to begin their work; this usually indicates that the water into
which the cocoons have been put is too cool. On the other hand if the
silk ruffs up and comes off in snarls upon the brush, the matted masses
indicate that the water is too hot. All this the reelers must learn by
experience, and they must learn it, too, without wasting our silk. Two
general laws underlie this feature of silk-reeling: hot water makes the
silk run faster, and cold water retards its progress. Your problem is to
see which treatment your cocoons require."
"Of course those who sort the cocoons can tell nothing of that,"
ventured Pierre.
"Oh, no. The sorters simply put into one place those cocoons that are of
the same kind. The way the cocoons behave in the water is the business
of the reeler. We have tanks or basins of a graduated temperature, and
the operators soon learn into which one to put a cocoon of a certain
type."
"I did not dream one had to know so much just to reel off the silk,"
murmured Pierre. "I had always supposed it would be an easy matter; but
now I see it isn't."
Henri laughed.
"But I have not told you half our troubles yet," he answered
mischievously. "Thus far I have spoken only of the cocoons. In addition
there is the water to consider. That must be the right sort, too. It
must be as pure as we can get it, both chemically and in color. And even
then the high temperature necessary to bring the silk off the cocoons
will cause any sandy sediment there may be in it to rise to the surface
and cut the filament as we reel it off. We have to be prepared for that
emergency as well as the others. And now to return to the sorting of
the cocoons. Do you see that pile over there? Those are what we call
perfect ones. The thread from them will go into the finest quality silks
and satins, as the filament has neither spots nor flaws."
"But those cocoons are very small," objected Pierre.
"Yes. The best cocoons are not always the largest, by any means. It is
quality, not size, that counts." Henri passed on. "Here now," he
continued as he paused before another lot, "are some more pointed at one
end than at the other. We know from bitter experience that they will
reel badly, because the silk which runs smoothly at the beginning will
prove to be weak in some places and break. We toss them aside and reel
them separately. These _cocalons_, as we call this other kind, are also
thrown out because they are hard to wind."
"They are much larger," observed Pierre.
"You are right. Nevertheless they have no more silk on them. The reason
they look bigger is because the worm spun them less compactly; unless
they are put into cold water they will tangle and mat when reeled."
"And that next lot?"
"_Soufflons_? They are the most imperfect cocoon made. The silk is so
loosely spun that it cannot be wound at all, and is good only for
floss."
Pierre shook his head despairingly.
"I thought I knew quite a lot about cocoons," he said. "But by the time
I go home I shall feel I don't know anything. Why, I never could learn
to sort all those kinds if I kept trying for years."
"Only those who have handled thousands of cocoons can," returned his
guide consolingly. "I couldn't begin to do it. Here is a pile now! They
have a hole in the end and cannot be reeled because every time the
thread comes to the perforation it is broken. Probably the moth was
allowed to escape and injured the filament. They must be used for floss,
too, for they are good for nothing else."
The boys wandered on down the room.
"In this pile you will see what we call _good choquettes_," resumed
Henri. "I must tell you about them, for the species is peculiar. The
worm inside them died before finishing its work and stuck onto the
inside of the cocoon." He took one from the heap and shook it. "It does
not rattle, you see. Nevertheless the filament on it is of excellent
quality--not very strong, perhaps, but of fine texture. In contrast to
these good choquettes is this tableful of _bad choquettes_. Like the
others the silkworm died during his spinning, but this time he rotted
away inside, leaving the cocoon black and mottled."
"Healthy worms make the best cocoons, of course," Pierre rejoined.
"Not at all," contradicted Henri. "Here is what is known as a calcined
cocoon made by a worm which had a peculiar disease that turned it to
powder. You would not think that such a creature could spin the best
quality of silk there is, would you? Yet it is so. Listen to the queer
rattle the cocoon has."
Holding it to Pierre's ear he shook it gently.
"These cocoons not only have excellent silk on them, but they have more
of it than if they had been spun by a healthy worm. As a result they
command the highest price and buyers are eager to find them."
"I guess I don't know anything about silkworms or cocoons either,"
announced Pierre in dismay.
Both boys laughed.
"It is amazing how much there is to know about almost anything when you
once start to learn about it from top to bottom," declared Henri. "I
came into this filature when quite young, and it has taken me years to
find out even the little I know now."
"I think you know a lot," Pierre returned admiringly. "I'd be happy if I
knew even half as much."
"Oh, no you wouldn't," was the prompt retort. "You'd want to know a
great deal more, just as I do--that is, if you were any good. There are
a thousand things I want to find out. The silk business, you see, is to
be my trade. I have an uncle in the weaving mills at Lyons, and some
day when I know more he is to find a place for me there. So I am
learning all I can about the classifying and reeling of cocoons; and I
have also raised a few silkworms so as to be familiar with the very
beginnings of the industry. Soon I am to go into the filature to help
with the reeling; and after that they have promised to send me on into
the throwing mills, where the filament is twisted into thread
preparatory to weaving. Then I shall be ready to go to Lyons and see how
silks, satins, and velvets are made. Lyons, you know, is a famous
silk-making city. It was there that Philippe de la Salle, the great silk
designer, lived. Because he did such beautiful work he was decorated by
Louis XVI with the Order of Saint Michel and was given a pension of six
mille livres. Think of that! Alas, such things do not happen now. That
was long ago--between 1723 and 1803. His good fortune did not, however,
last long, for the Revolution came, and the court which gave him his
money went out of power. Still the people of Lyons were proud of him and
despite the fact that he had been a court favorite they provided for
him lodgings in the Palais Saint Pierre, where he lived for the rest of
his life."
"I am afraid I do not know much about what he did," said Pierre with
engaging frankness.
"Why, it was Philippe de la Salle who designed the silk hangings for the
chamber of Marie Antoinette, and who originated the Empire motif of the
wreath of laurel; he also designed silks gorgeous with garlands
intertwined with ribbon; or decorated with baskets of fruit and flowers;
and sometimes he made use of great birds. He has done some of the finest
silk designs ever woven. My uncle told me, however, that years and years
before that wonderful silks were made; and that fragments showing
beautiful designs are in the museums of Berlin and Nuremberg, as well as
in our own Cluny Museum, and the great museums of London. He said there
were also marvelous church vestments of even earlier date and also some
very ancient Byzantine silks splendid with griffins, eagles, and lions.
Some day, perhaps, I shall go to see them, and maybe I myself may learn
to weave such fabrics. Who knows? And what are you going to do,
Pierre?"
"I suppose I shall just go on raising silkworms," was the quiet reply.
"It is hard work, but I see nothing else ahead for me. However, when my
father and uncle return from the war there will be time enough for me to
think what I will do."
"Ah, but you have a plan already; I can see that!" Henri cried.
Pierre nodded gravely.
"Yes, I have a plan--or perhaps I better call it a dream. I should like
to go to America. One can earn more money there. My mother's brother is
at Paterson, New Jersey, which is in America, and I have some young
cousins there also."
"Yes, yes, I know," exclaimed Henri eagerly. "There are great silk mills
at Paterson where they make fine silks and ribbons--some of them as
beautiful as any we make in France. Maybe some day you will go there."
"I'm afraid not," returned Pierre. "Even should the war end and my
father and uncle come home again I have no money to go to America."
"Don't give up so easily," Henri said, placing a hand on the younger
boy's shoulder. "We never can tell what will happen. My mother says that
if we do the best we can every day sometimes the thing we wish most will
come to us; if not, Le Bon Dieu will send something else which may be
even better."
"I am trying to do my best," Pierre answered bravely. "And anyway so
long as my father and uncle are safe nothing else really matters."
The boys exchanged a smile and passed on into the filature, as the
factory where the reeling was done was called.
[Illustration]