CHAPTER IX.
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.