“They are trying to preserve it by a preparation of parafine,” said Miss Graham.
“I should think it would have to be repeated every winter,” said Helen. “It doesn’t seem as if parafine was much of a protection against heavy frost.”
Just inside the entrance of the building they found Della and Tom awaiting them. Miss Graham called their attention first to the tapestries hanging in the entrance hall, and told them something of the patient work that went into the production of one of these great sheets of painstaking embroidery.
“Are they making them anywhere, nowadays?” asked Ethel Blue.
“When the war is over and you go to Paris, you can see the tapestry workers in the Gobelins factory,” said Miss Daisy. “Every machine has hung upon it the picture which the worker is copying. It may take a man six or seven years to complete one piece.”
“Shouldn’t you think he would be sick to death of it!” exclaimed Dorothy.
“I suppose the first year he tells himself he must be pleasant, so that he will see the picture get started. In the second year perhaps he’ll be ready to put in the feet of his figures. Then all the middle years must be comparatively exciting because he’s doing the central part of the picture; and the last year he has a sort of a thrill because it’s almost done, even though the work may be all in the clouds.”
“I judge that they make landscapes with figures, chiefly,” guessed James.
“Many of them are landscapes with figures,” replied Miss Daisy. “They have a wide variety of objects. The factory belongs to the government and the pieces are used as decorations for government buildings, and as gifts to people of other countries. The French Government gave Miss Alice Roosevelt a piece of Gobelin when she was married. I’ve seen it on exhibition in the Art Museum at Cincinnati.”
“I suppose all the workmen now have gone to the war, and the factory is closed,” said Tom.