to the price to be paid. The patterns for the uppers are now brought
into play--and, by the way, it is no small matter to prepare the
hundreds of patterns needed for a new line of shoes in all the
different widths and sizes. In some factories the cutting is done by
machinery; in others the "upper cutter" lays the leather on a block
and cuts around the pattern with a small but very sharp knife. It
needs skill and judgment to be a cutter; for a careless workman can
easily waste the skins badly by not laying the patterns on to the best
advantage. While this work is going on, the linings, trimmings, soles,
and other parts are also being prepared, and all these many pieces now
meet in the "stitching-room." At the first glance, it does not seem as
if the right ones could ever come together, even though they are
marked, and sometimes it does happen that a 4a vamp, for instance, is
put with 5a quarters, and nobody knows the difference until the
experienced eye of the foreman notices that something is wrong with
the shoe. The uppers of the shoe are now stitched up, and after a
careful inspection, they are sent on to the "lasting-room." The "last"
of the earlier times was roughly whittled out, and it was the same for
both feet; but the last of to-day is almost a work of art, so
carefully is it made and polished. The shoe manufacturers jokingly
declare that lasts must be changed three times a day in order to keep
up with the fashions. Feet do not change in form, save when they have
been distorted by badly shaped shoes; but in spite of this, people
insist upon having their shoes long and narrow, or short and wide,
with high heels or with low heels, with broad toes or with pointed
toes, as the whim of the moment may be. It really is a big problem
for the shoe manufacturers to suit people's fancies and yet give them
some degree of comfort.
While the uppers are being stitched, the soles and inner soles and
counters have been made ready and brought to the lasting-room. The toe
stiffeners and also the counters are now cemented into their places.
The inner sole is tacked to the last, and the uppers are put in place
and held there by a tack at the heel. This is done by machines; but
their working is simple compared with that of the machine which now
takes charge of the half-made shoe. This machine puts out sturdy
little pincers which seize the edge of the uppers, pull it smoothly
and evenly into place, and drive a tack far enough in to keep it from
slipping. Now comes the welting. A welt is a narrow strip of leather
which is sewed to the lower edge of the upper all the way around the
shoe except at the heel. This brings the upper, the lip of the inner
sole, and the welt together. The inside of the shoe is now smooth and
even, but around the outside of the sole is the ridge made by the welt
and the sewing, and within the ridge a depression that must be filled
up. Tarred paper or cork in a sort of cement are used for this. The
shank is fastened into its place and the welt made smooth and even.
The outer sole is coated with rubber cement, put into position under
heavy pressure to shape it exactly like the sole of the last, and then
sewed to the welt. If it was not for the welt, the outer sole would
have to be sewed directly to the inner sole. The nailing and pegging
of the old-fashioned shoemaker are also reproduced by the modern
machine.
The shoe is still open at the heel; but now the heel parts of both
sole and uppers are fastened together; the edges have been nicely
trimmed, and next the heels are nailed to the shoe by another machine
which does the work at a blow, leaving the nails standing out a little
below the lowest lift. Another lift is forced upon these; and that
is why the heel of a new shoe shows no signs of nails. The heel is
trimmed, and then come the final sandpapering and blackening. The
bottom of a new shoe has a peculiar soft, velvety appearance and
feeling; and this is produced by rubbing it with fine emery paper
fastened upon a little rubber pad. A stamping-machine marks the sole
with the name of the manufacturer. Last of all, the shoe is put upon
a treeing machine, where an iron foot stretches it into precisely
the shape of the wooden last on which it was made.
This is the method by which large numbers of shoes are made, but
there are many details which differ. Laced shoes must have tongues
as well as eyelets, while buttoned shoes must have buttons and
buttonholes. "Turned" shoes have no inner sole, but uppers and
outer sole are sewed together wrong side out and then turned. In
shoemaking, as in all other business, if a manufacturer is to
succeed, he must see that there is no waste. He has of course no
use for a careless cutter, who would perhaps waste large pieces of
leather; but even the tiniest scraps are of value for some purpose.
They can be treated with chemicals, softened by boiling, and pressed
into boards or other articles or made into floor coverings. At any
rate, they must be used for something. No business is small enough
or large enough to endure waste.
X
IN THE COTTON MILL
If you ravel a bit of cotton cloth, you will find that it is made up
of tiny threads, some going up and down, and others going from right
to left. These threads are remarkably strong for their size. Look at
one under a magnifying glass, in a brilliant light, and you will see
that the little fibers of which it is made shine almost like glass.
Examine it more closely, and you will see that it is twisted. Break
it, and you will find that it does not break off sharp, but rather
pulls apart, leaving many fibers standing out from both ends.
Cotton comes to the factory tightly pressed in bales, and the work of
the manufacturer is to make it into these little threads. The bales
are big, weighing four or five hundred pounds apiece. They are
generally somewhat ragged, for they are done up in coarse, heavy jute.
The first glance at an opened cotton bale is a little discouraging,
for it is not perfectly clean by any means. Bits of leaves and stems
are mixed in with the cotton, and even some of the smaller seeds which
have slipped through the gin. There is dust, and plenty of it, that
the coarse burlap has not kept out. The first thing to do is to loosen
the cotton and make it clean. Great armfuls are thrown into a machine
called a "bale-breaker." Rollers with spikes, blunt so as not to
injure the fiber, catch it up and tear the lumps to pieces, and
"beaters" toss it into a light, foamy mass. Something else happens to
the cotton while it is in the machine, for a current of air is passing
through it all the while, and this blows out the dust and bits of
rubbish. This current is controlled like the draft of a stove, and it
is allowed to be just strong enough to draw the cotton away from the
beater when it has become light and open, leaving the harder masses
for more beating. When it comes out of the opener, it is in sheets or
"laps" three or four feet wide and only half an inch thick. They are
white and fleecy and almost cloudlike; and so thin that any sand or
broken leaves still remaining will drop out of their own weight.
In this work the manufacturer has been aiming, not only at cleaning
the cotton and making it fluffy, but also at mixing it. There are many
sorts of cotton, some of longer or finer or more curly or stronger
fiber than others, some white and some tinged with color; but the
cloth woven of cotton must be uniform; therefore all these kinds must
be thoroughly mixed. Even the tossing and turning and beating that
it has already received is not enough, and it has to go into a
"scutcher," three or four laps at a time, one on top of another, to
have still more beating and dusting. When it comes out, it is in a
long roll or sheet, so even that any yard of it will weigh very nearly
the same as any other yard. The fibers, however, are lying "every
which way," and before they can be drawn out into thread, they must be
made to lie parallel. This is brought about in part by carding. When
people used to spin and weave in their own houses, they used "hand
cards." These were somewhat like brushes for the hair, but instead of
bristles they had wires shaped much as if wire hairpins had been bent
twice and put through leather in such a way as to form hooks on one
side of it. This leather was then nailed to a wooden back and a handle
added. The carder took one card in each hand, and with the hooks
pointing opposite ways brushed the cotton between them, thus making
the fibers lie parallel. This is just what is done in a mill, only by
machinery, of course. Instead of the little hand cards, there are
great cylinders covered with what is called "card clothing"; that is,
canvas bristling with the bent wires, six or seven hundred to the
square inch. This takes the place of one card. The place of the other
is filled by what are called "flats," or narrow bars of iron covered
with card clothing. The cylinders move rapidly, the flats slowly, and
the cotton passes between them. It comes out in a dainty white film
not so very much heavier than a spider's web, and so beautifully white
and shining that it does not seem as if the big, oily, noisy machines
could ever have produced it. In a moment, however, it is gone
somewhere into the depths of the machine. We have seen the last of the
fleecy sheet, for the machinery narrows it and rounds it, and when it
comes into sight again, it looks like a soft round cord about an inch
thick, and is coiled up in cans nearly a yard high. This cord is
called "sliver."
[Illustration: IN A COTTON MILL
The "sliver" coming through the machine, and the "roving" being
twisted and wound on bobbins.]
The sliver is not uniform; even now its fibers are not entirely
parallel, and it is as weak as wet tissue paper. It now pays a visit
to the "drawing-frame." Four or six slivers are put together and run
through this frame. They go between four pairs of rollers, the first
pair moving slowly, the others more rapidly. The slow pair hold the
slivers back, while the fast one pull them on. The result is that
when the sliver comes out from the rollers, its fibers are much
straighter. This process is repeated several times; and at last when
the final sliver comes out, although it looks almost the same as when
it came from the carding-machine, its fibers are parallel. It is much
more uniform, but it is very fragile, and still has to be handled
with great care. It is not nearly strong enough to be twisted into
thread; and before this can be done, it must pass through three other
machines. The first, or "slubber," gives it a very slight twist, just
enough to suggest what is coming later, and of course in doing this
makes it smaller. The cotton changes its name at every operation, and
now it is called "roving." It has taken one long step forward, for
now it is not coiled up in cans, but is wound on "bobbins," or great
spools. The second machine, the "intermediate speeder," twists it a
very little more and winds it on fresh bobbins. It also puts two
rovings together, so that if one happens to be thin in one place,
there is a chance for it to be strengthened by a thicker place in
the other. The third machine, the "fine speeder," simply makes a
finer roving.
All this work must be done merely to prepare the raw cotton to be
twisted into the tiny threads that you see by raveling a piece of
cotton cloth. Now comes the actual twisting. If you fasten one end
of a very soft string and twist the other and wind it on a spool, you
will get a spool of finer, stronger, and harder-twisted string than
you had at first. This is exactly what the "ring-spinner" does.
Imagine a bobbin full of roving standing on a frame. Down below it are
some rolls between which the thread from the bobbin passes to a second
bobbin which is fast on a spindle. Around this spindle is the
"spinning-ring," a ring which is made to whirl around by an endless
belt. This whirling twists the thread, and another part of the machine
winds it upon the second bobbin. Hundreds of these ring-spinners and
bobbins are on a single "spinning-frame" and accomplish a great deal
in a very short time. The threads that are to be used for the "weft"
or "filling" go directly into the shuttles of the weavers after being
spun; but those which are to be used for "warp" are wound first on
spools, then on beams to go into the loom.
Little children weave together strips of paper, straws, and
splints,--"over one, under one,"--and the weaving of plain cotton
cloth is in principle nothing more than this. The first thing to do
in weaving is to stretch out the warp evenly. This warp is simply
many hundreds of tiny threads as long as the cloth is to be,
sometimes forty or fifty yards. They must be stretched out side by
side and close together. To make them regular, they are passed
between the teeth of a sort of upright comb; then they are wound upon
the loom beam, a horizontal beam at the back of the loom. Here they
are as close together as they will be in the cloth. With a magnifying
glass it is easy to count the threads of the warp in an inch of
cloth. Some kinds of cloth have a hundred or even more to the inch.
In order to make cloth, the weaver must manage in some way to lower
every other one of these little threads and run his shuttle over
them, as the children do the strips of paper in their paper weaving.
Then he must lower the other set and run the shuttle over _them_.
"Drawing in" makes this possible. After the threads leave the beam,
they are drawn through the "harnesses." These are hanging frames, one
in front of the other, filled with stiff, perpendicular threads or
wires drawn tight, and with an eye in each thread. Through these eyes
the threads of the warp are drawn, the odd ones through one, and the
even through the other. Then, keeping the threads in the same order,
they pass through the teeth of a "reed,"--that is, a hanging frame
shaped like a great comb as long as the loom is wide; and last, they
are fastened to the "front beam," which runs in front of the weaver's
seat and on which the cloth is to be rolled when it has been woven.
Each harness is connected with a treadle. The weaver puts his foot on
the treadle of the odd threads and presses them down. Then he sends
his shuttle, containing a bobbin full of thread, sliding across over
the odd threads and under the even. He puts his foot on the treadle
of the even threads and sends the shuttle back over the even and
under the odd. At each trip of the shuttle, the heavy reed is drawn
back toward the weaver to push the last thread of the woof or filling
firmly into place.
This is the way cloth is woven in the hand looms which used to be in
every household. The power loom used in factories is, even in its
simplest form, a complicated machine; but its principle is exactly the
same. If colors are to be used, great care is needed in arranging warp
and woof. If you ravel a piece of checked gingham, you will see that
half the warp is white and half colored; and that in putting in the
woof or filling, a certain number of the threads are white and an
equal number are colored. If you look closely at the weaving of a
tablecloth, you will see that the satin-like figures are woven by
bringing the filling thread not "over one and under one," but often
over two or three and under one. In drilling or any other twilled
goods, several harnesses have to be used because the warp thread is
not lowered directly in line with the one preceding, but diagonally.
Such work as this used to require a vast amount of skill and patience;
but the famous Jacquard machine will do it with ease, and will do more
complicated weaving than any one ever dreamed of before its invention,
for it will weave not only regular figures extending across the cloth,
but can be made to introduce clusters of flowers, a figure, or a face
wherever it is desired. By the aid of this, every little warp thread
or cluster of threads can be lifted by its own hooked wire without
interfering with any other thread. Cards of paper or thin metal are
made for each pattern, leaving a hole wherever the hook is to slip
through and lift up a thread. After the cards are once made, the work
is as easy as plain weaving; but there must be a separate card for
every thread of filling in the pattern, and sometimes a single design
has required as many as thirty thousand pattern cards.
The machines in a cotton mill are the result of experimenting, lasting
through many years. They do not seem quite so "human" as those which
help to carry on some parts of other manufactures; but they are
wonderfully ingenious. For instance, the sliver is so light that it
seems to have hardly any weight, but it balances a tiny support. If
the sliver breaks, the support falls, and this stops the machine.
Again, if one of the threads of the warp breaks when it is being wound
on the beam, a slender bent wire that has been hung on it falls. It
drops between two rollers and stops them. Then the workman knows that
something is wrong, and a glance will show where attention is needed.
Success in a cotton mill demands constant attention to details. A mill
manager who has been very successful has given to those of less
experience some wise directions about running a mill. For one thing,
he reminds them that building is expensive and that floor space
counts. If by rearranging looms space can be made for more spindles,
it is well worth while to rearrange. He tells them to study their
machines and see whether they are working so slowly that they cannot
do as much as possible, or so fast as to strain the work. He bids them
to keep their gearings clean, to be clear and definite in their
orders, and to read the trade papers; but above everything else to
look out for the little things, a little leak in the mill dam, a
little too much tightness in a belt, or the idleness of just one
spindle. Herein lies, he says, one of the great differences between
a successful and an unsuccessful superintendent.
Weaving as practiced in factories is a complicated business; but
whether it is done with a simple hand loom in a cottage or with a big
power loom in a great factory, there are always three movements. One
separates the warp threads; one drives the shuttle between them; and
one swings the reed against the filling thread just put in.
XI
SILKWORMS AND THEIR WORK
About silk there is something particularly agreeable. There are few
people who do not like the sheen of a soft silk, the sparkle of light
on a "taffeta," and the richness of the silk that "can stand alone."
Its delicate rustle is charming, and the "feel" of it is a delight.
It has not the chill of linen, the deadness of cotton, or the
"scratchiness" of woolen. It pleases the eye, the ear, and the touch.
The caterpillars of a few butterflies and of many moths are spinners
of fibers similar to silk. Among these last is the beautiful
pale-green lunar moth. Spiders spin a lustrous fiber, and it is said
that a lover of spiders succeeded, by a good deal of petting and
attention, in getting considerable material from a company of them.
Silkworms, however, are the only providers of real silk for the world.
Once in a while glowing accounts are published of the ease with which
they can be raised and the amount of money which can be made from them
with very small capital. This business, however, like all other kinds
of business, requires close attention and skill if it is to be a
success. An expert has said that it needs more time to build a spool
of silk than a locomotive.
The way to begin to raise silkworms is first of all to provide
something for them to eat. They are very particular about their bill
of fare. The leaf of the osage orange will answer, but they like much
better the leaf of the white mulberry. Then send to a reliable dealer
for a quarter of an ounce of silkworm eggs. That sounds like a small
order, but it will bring you nine or ten thousand eggs, ready to
become sturdy little silkworms if all goes well with them. Put them on
a table with a top of wire netting covered with brown paper, and keep
them comfortably warm. In a week or two, there will appear some little
worms about an eighth of an inch long and covered with black hairs.
These tiny worms have to become three inches or more in length, and
they are expected to accomplish the feat in about a month. If a boy
four feet tall should grow at the silkworm's rate for one month, he
would become forty-eight feet tall. It is no wonder that the worms
have to make a business of eating, or that the keeper has to make a
business of providing them with food. They eat most of the time, and
they make a queer little crackling sound while they are about it. They
have from four to eight meals a day of mulberry leaves. The worms from
a quarter of an ounce of eggs begin with one pound a day, and work up
to between forty and fifty. Silkworms like plenty of fresh air, and if
they are to thrive, their table must be kept clean. A good way to
manage this is to put over them paper full of holes large enough for
them to climb through. Lay the leaves upon the paper; the worms will
come up through the holes to eat, and the litter on their table can
be cleared away. As the worms grow larger, the holes must be made
larger. It is no wonder that their skins soon become too tight for
them. They actually lose their appetite for a day or two, and they
slip away to some quiet corner under the leaves, and plainly wish
there were no other worms to bother them. Soon the skin comes off,
and they make up for lost time so energetically that they have to drop
their tight skins three times more before they are fully grown. Wet
mulberry leaves must not be given them, or they will become sick and
die, and there will be an end of the silkworm business from that
quarter-ounce of eggs. They must have plenty of room on their table as
well as in their skins. At first a tray or table two feet long and a
little more than one foot wide will be large enough; but when they are
full-grown, they will need about eighty square feet of table or
shelves. At spinning time, even this will not be enough.
After the worms have shed their skins four times and then eaten as
much as they possibly can for eight or ten days, they begin to feel
as if they had had enough. They now eat very little and really become
smaller. They are restless and wander about. Now and then they throw
out threads of silk as fine as a spider's web. They know exactly what
they want; each little worm wants to make a cocoon, and all they ask
of you is to give them the right sort of place to make it in. When
they live out of doors in freedom, they fasten their cocoons to twigs;
and if you wish to give them what they like best, get plenty of dry
twigs and weave them together in arches standing over the shelves.
Pretty soon you will see one worm after another climb up the twigs and
select a place for its cocoon. Before long it throws out threads from
its spinneret, a tiny opening near the mouth, and makes a kind of net
to support the cocoon which it is about to weave.
The silkworm may have seemed greedy, but he did not eat one leaf too
much for the task that lies before him. There is nothing lazy about
him; and now he works with all his might, making his cocoon. He begins
at the outside and shapes it like a particularly plump peanut of a
clear, pale yellow. The silk is stiffened with a sort of gum as it
comes out of the spinneret. The busy little worm works away, laying
its threads in place in the form of a figure eight. For some time the
cocoon is so thin that one can watch him. It is calculated that his
tiny head makes sixty-nine movements every minute.
The covering grows thicker and the room for the silkworm grows
smaller. After about seventy-two hours, put your ear to the cocoon,
and if all is quiet within, it is completed and the worm is shut up
within it. Strange things happen to him while he sleeps in the quiet
of his silken bed, for he becomes a dry brown chrysalis without head
or feet. Then other things even more marvelous come to pass, for in
about three weeks the little creature pushes the threads apart at one
end of the cocoon and comes out, not a silkworm at all, but a moth
with head and wings and legs and eyes. This moth lays hundreds of
eggs, and in less than three weeks it dies.
This is what the silkworm will do if it is left alone; but it is the
business of the silk-raiser to see that it is not left alone. About
eight days after the cocoon is begun, it is steamed or baked to kill
the chrysalis so that it cannot make its way out and so spoil the
silk. The quarter of an ounce of eggs will make about thirty pounds
of cocoons. Now is the time to be specially watchful, for there is
nothing in which rats and mice so delight as a plump, sweet chrysalis;
and they care nothing whatever for the three or four thousand yards of
silk that is wound about each one.
To take this silk off is a delicate piece of work. A single fiber is
not much larger than the thread of a cobweb, and before the silk can
be used, several threads must be united in one. First, the cocoon is
soaked in warm water to loosen the gum that the worm used to stick its
threads together. Ends of silk from half a dozen or more cocoons are
brought together, run through a little hole in a guide, and wound on a
reel as one thread. This needs skill and practice, for the reeled silk
must be kept of the same size. The cocoon thread is so slender that,
of course, it breaks very easily; and when this happens, another
thread must be pieced on. Then, too, the inner silk of the cocoon is
finer than the outer; so unless care is taken to add threads, the
reeled silk will be irregular. The water must also be kept just warm
enough to soften the gum, but not too hot.