"Why, no; unless you are really tired of it. I think you had better go on as you have commenced."
"I am not fit to be a Sunday-school teacher."
"I am not fit to be a minister; but God, in his providence, has seen fit to make me one, and so I trust him to give me the strength and wisdom I need. If you will do the same, you will become a very successful and efficient Sunday-school teacher; and this is a good way in which to consecrate your talents and opportunities to his service. Now, good-by; I must prepare for the evening service. Whenever you want help, advice, or sympathy, be sure you come to me."
Etta went home in a new world of thought and feeling. She seemed to herself scarcely to be the same girl; but in fact she was not thinking particularly about herself. God's love in desiring to save sinners, Christ's love in dying for them, the love of the Holy Spirit in being willing to come and abide with them, filled all her soul, and she was not trying to love this triune God, but loving him with all her might, because she could not help doing so. How strange it is that we go on from year to year, trying to be better, trying to feel right, trying to make ourselves holy, instead of just opening the door of the temple of our heart and believing that Jesus Christ loves us, and because he loves us will make us all that he wants us to be.
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:—