CHAPTER XI
TOLMAN EXPERIENCES A SHOCK
URING the next few months Peter and Nat talked little and learned much. An occasional question was all they dared to ask, and that only when the men with whom they were associated seemed amiably disposed. Far from pushing their way to the front they took orders obediently from their superiors, slighting no task to which they were assigned, no matter how trivial it appeared. In consequence sentiment throughout the factory slowly turned in their favor. The chill silence of the workmen melted to gradual friendliness. Two such modest boys as these could not be coming to usurp anybody’s position. No, indeed! First one and then another of the employees advanced bits of information which were accepted so gratefully that it became a pleasure to follow them with more. Before two months had passed the general opinion prevailed that Tolman had been grossly unjust to the newcomers, and with the reaction a strong desire arose among the men to atone for any previous unfairness.
This change in the atmosphere caused the good spirits which Peter and Nat had found it difficult to sustain through the ordeal of censure and misrepresentation to well up in a great happiness. Their daily work became a joy instead of a matter for dread. Making patent leather certainly was absorbingly interesting.
They had now reached the department where the varnish was put on the leather, and although not skilful enough to share in the actual doing the boys gained much knowledge simply by watching the process and asking questions. They learned that it was necessary to apply three coats of varnish to the material, and when the slickers put them on it was a fascinating operation. Sometimes the men used a rotary sweep of the arm, swirling the varnish round and round over the surface of the leather; sometimes they took quick backward and forward strokes. Usually four men worked together enameling a single skin. Amateurs would have spread the japan too thickly in some spots, too thinly in others; but not so these veterans at their trade. Deftly the blue-black liquid—so elastic and so oily—was coated over the leather, and the glistening finish put out in the sun to dry. After the second coat had hardened it was rubbed down with pumice that the surface might be perfectly smooth before the final layer of japan was applied. The last coat was then put on evenly with the spreaders of thin wood, and before the material was put out for its last sunning it was baked in an oven heated to a temperature of about a hundred and sixty degrees.
“I should think the last baking would be enough to dry the stuff without putting it outdoors a third time,” ventured Peter to one of the men.
“Wouldn’t you!” responded the laborer with a smile. “But no! Nothing but the sun will do the business.”