UNDER A CLOUD.
Meanwhile there were some changes at the mill. Katie Robertson had been
promoted to the folding-room, which was on the lower floor, and where
the work was not so heavy, though the payment was much better. She now
received seventy-five cents for a regular day's work, and might often
have made a dollar if her mother would have allowed her to work a half
or quarter day extra. This promotion came soon after the occurrence of
the fifty-dollar bill, which, no doubt, had something to do with the
higher place in Mr. James's estimation, which the little girl held in
consequence. He took occasion to inquire of Miss Peters concerning her
work, and heard such a good account of her industry, capability, and
faithfulness that he felt sure she might be trusted with pleasanter
occupation and that which needed greater skill.
To enable our young readers who have never seen the process of
paper-making to understand the change in our heroine's surroundings, we
will tell them in a few words how paper is made.
As, of course, is universally known, rags, straw, old rope, poplar pith,
etc., are the materials used. The best writing-paper is made of linen
rags, which are for the most part imported from Germany. For ordinary
writing and printing paper cotton rags are used, while straw and hemp,
and even wool, go largely into the construction of manilla and wrapping
paper. The linen rags and the woolen ones are generally sorted out in
the places where they are gathered, at which time the others are all
packed into bales, when, after passing through various hands, they are
brought to the different paper-mills. Here the bales are hoisted to the
top loft of the building, where they are broken and their contents
turned over and over and subjected to a fanning process which removes a
large part of the dust. They are then passed through slides down into
the rag-room, where, as we have seen, they are sorted, cut in pieces,
and the buttons taken off. They are cut again, in the next room to
which they are carried, by a revolving cylinder whose surface is covered
with short, sharp knives, acting on each other much like the blades of
scissors. From here they are passed into the interior of a long,
horizontal, copper boiler containing a solution of soda and some other
chemical substances, and boiled for several days, at the end of which
time, the dirt being thoroughly loosened, the boiling mass is passed
through a long slide into vats, through which a constant stream of water
is flowing, and so thoroughly washed that it becomes as white as snow
and looks like raw, white cotton. It is then taken into another room,
packed into a "Jordan engine," and ground into an almost impalpable
pulp. This pulp is passed into other vats thoroughly mixed with water,
blueing, and some other substances calculated to give it a hard finish,
and then conveyed by pipes to the drying-room, where it is distributed
over the surface of fine wire netting stretched on cylinders and looking
much like "skim milk." It is now passed from cylinder to cylinder,
dropping the water with which it is mixed as it goes, and gradually
taking, more and more, the consistency of paper. At one stage--if it is
to be writing-paper, which was chiefly manufactured at Squantown
Mills--a certain amount of glue is poured upon it by means of little
tubes which are over the cylinders, and this gradually becomes pressed
into the fibre, giving the paper the shining surface to which we are
accustomed. This is called _sizing_. At another stage the wire netting
is changed for a blanket which passes over the cylinders and keeps the
weak, wet paper from friction, as well as from any chance of breaking.
Steam is now introduced into the cylinders, and the drying process goes
on so rapidly that, at the end of the long room, the pulp issues from
between the two last cylinders in sheets of firm, dry, white paper,
which are cut off in lengths by stationary knives, and caught and laid
in place by two boys or girls who sit at a table just below. So complete
and perfect is the machinery that, in addition to the two boys, only one
man is needed in the room, and he only to watch lest either of the
machines gets out of order, or lest the paper should accidentally break.
It is quite fascinating to watch the thin pulp as it gradually becomes
strong paper, and Katie one day overheard a gentleman visitor, to whom
Mr. James was explaining the process, say something that she never
forgot:--
"It makes me think of God's way of dealing with human souls. He takes
them, polluted and sinful, from the gutters and the slums of life, cuts
and fashions them till they are in a condition to be used; then washes
out their stains by his precious blood, grinds, moulds, dissolves, and
manipulates them, till they come out pure, innocent, white paper, on
which he can write just what he pleases."
"Yes," said Mr. James. "I have often thought out that analogy, but you
have not yet seen the whole process. No saint is completed till he has
gone through the polishing and finishing of his life and character. You
will see how we polish and finish our paper in the next room."
In the next room were great steel rollers, at each of which two women
were employed, as this work was generally considered too hard and
steady, as well as too particular, for the girls and boys. One of these
women places a sheet of paper between the rollers at the top; the engine
turns them, carrying the paper round and round between them, and the
other woman takes it out at the bottom, beautifully polished by the
pressure.
It is then carried in great piles to the ruling-machines, which stand at
the other end of the room, and there other girls and women act as
"feeders" and "tenders." The sheets are carried under upright,
stationary pens, filled with blue or red ink, and ruled first on one
side and then on the other, the machine never letting go of the sheets
till the ruling is perfectly dry.
The paper is now finished, but it must be prepared for being taken away
and sold; so great piles of it are placed on barrows, and it is carried
by the "lift" down to the lowest room of all, called the "folding-room,"
and this is a very gay, busy scene.
Multitudes of girls are at work here, and everything is so clean that no
checked aprons or mob-caps are needed. Some of them count out the paper,
first into quires, and then into reams and half-reams. Others fold the
sheets with an evenness and rapidity that only long practice can give;
others, again, stamp each sheet in the corner with a die; and still
others fold the reams--after they have been pressed together--into the
pretty, colored wrappers prepared for them, sealing them with wax, and
putting the packages, two together, into heavy brown papers, which are
closed with the label peculiar to the special brand of paper.
There was plenty of work for everybody, and there was, moreover, a
variety, and Katie felt very much elated at her promotion when she first
came into the gay, pleasant folding-room.
But the poor girl was destined to meet with a very bitter
disappointment. Perhaps the most severe trial of her life awaited her in
that pleasant room. She had only been there a few days when she became
aware that she was looked upon with suspicion. The superintendent
watched her closely, and carefully verified the accounts she gave of her
work. The girls with whom she tried to make acquaintance turned away,
and either answered her in monosyllables or else declined speaking at
all, and often when she came in suddenly before work had commenced two
or three who were mysteriously whispering together would suddenly stop
and look curiously and strangely at her. Once or twice she overheard
some disconnected words, of which the following are specimens: "What was
it really?"--"You don't say so!"--"Dishonesty!"--"I never should have
thought it!"--"Are you sure?"--"Bertie Sanderson!"--"She saw it
herself," etc. etc. Katie, having no key to these disjointed sentences,
could make nothing of them, but she felt that she was what school boys
call "sent to Coventry," and had not the least idea why.
The fact was that Bertie, whose jealous dislike was greatly increased by
Katie's promotion, while she herself remained in the rag-room, had
uttered her innuendoes to all who would listen to her, till it was
pretty generally understood throughout the mill that Katie Robertson was
a thief, who appeared in unbecoming finery bought with ill-gotten gains.
The rumor never took sufficient definiteness of shape to reach the girl
so that she could confute it and explain its origin. Of course, she was
not likely to tell any one in the mill about the finding of the
fifty-dollar bill and what had passed between Mr. James Mountjoy and
herself, since it was largely to her own credit, nor had he ever thought
of mentioning it, for a somewhat similar reason. So the report traveled
from one mouth to another, losing nothing in its passage, and poor Katie
was obliged to endure the general avoidance and reprobation as best she
might. It was a hard trial and one in which she had no one to sympathize
with her, for Mrs. Robertson's gloomy disposition inclined her children
to keep from her anything that might add to her unhappiness, and somehow
she did not feel like making confidants of the boys. But hard as the
trial seemed in the passing, it was, in the end, good for our heroine,
for it drove her to the only Friend who knew all about it, who knew that
she was innocent of the charge, whatever it might be, and pitied and
loved her, whoever else might cast her out. The things which drive us
close to Him, no matter how hard they seem, are really blessings in
disguise. Katie had now but one friend in the mill, a slight, pale
girl, who stood by the folding-table next to herself. She had only just
come to the mill, was intimate with no one, and, so far, had not heard
the story, whatever it was, about Katie Robertson. Her name was Tessa.
Her father, who had been a traveling organ-grinder, was taken sick and
died very suddenly at Squantown. His little dark-eyed girl, who
accompanied him, was left perfectly destitute and in a most desolate
condition. She was at first taken care of in the poor-house, but as she
grew older, and it was thought best that she should do something for her
own support, Mr. Mountjoy had been appealed to, and had given her a
place in the mill. Not in the rag-room, however, for she had such a
delicate constitution that it was supposed she never could stand the
dust. Her work consisted in pasting the fancy paper over the edges of
little "pads," intended for doctors' use in writing their prescriptions,
and when she was tired she was allowed to have a seat. She could not
make much, but what she did receive sufficed to pay for her room in the
factory boarding-house, and Tessa was as happy as she could be without
her father.
The Italian girl had conceived a strong admiration for our bright
little Katie, and by degrees the two girls became great friends. Tessa's
love was the silver lining to the cloud under whose shadow her companion
lived.
But the heaviest part of the cloud was that the story reached Miss Etta.
She had noticed the general avoidance of Katie by the other girls in her
class, and was very much at a loss to account for it, for to her this
scholar had always seemed the best and brightest of them all, and she
could see no change in her reverent, attentive behavior, her carefully
prepared lessons, and her evident understanding and enjoyment of the
spiritual truths which they contained. This latter point she could
appreciate better than before, and she often shrank in humility from
attempting to teach Katie anything, feeling herself better fitted to be
the pupil. But the girls evidently did not feel so. What could be the
matter?
One day, when all had left the Sunday-school, except Bertie, she stopped
her and asked her directly why neither she nor the other girls were
willing to sit next to Katie Robertson, and why they all looked at her
so significantly when she came in or went out.
Bertie flushed, whether with joy or shame it would have been hard to
say, and at first would not answer; but on her teacher's insisting, said
that she didn't want to tell tales, etc.
The young lady saw that nevertheless her scholar was running over with
her secret and longing for an opportunity to divulge it, and, had she
been a little older and more experienced, she would not have given her
the opportunity. But Etta was very curious, and, moreover, thought she
had a right to know all that concerned her Sunday scholars, so she
waited until her patience was rewarded by the whole story--that is, the
version of it that Bertie's vindictive fancy chose to give.
She learned that Katie had been seen by two of the girls in the mill to
_steal_ a large sum of money, which she had appropriated to the use of
herself and family; that by degrees one after another had heard of it,
and that of course honest girls who had their own way to make did not
like to associate with a thief.
On being asked who the girls were that had seen the action, and why
they had not at once given information concerning it, Bertie declined to
give any answer to the first part of her question, and professed entire
ignorance concerning the latter; only she said: "All the girls knew, and
of course couldn't associate with a sly thief, especially when she gave
herself the airs of a saint."
Etta was very much troubled. She could not believe such a story of her
best pupil, and yet how could she contradict it? Without names and
particulars she did not know how to set about investigating the truth;
nor did she like to ask any one's advice, and thus cast suspicion upon
the child.