CHAPTER VIII
A NARROW ESCAPE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
LL this time, strangely enough, no hint of Peter Strong’s identity had become known. It was little short of a miracle that it should not have been discovered. Many circumstances, however, fostered the secret. In the first place none of the men from the tanneries ever came to the fashionable west side of the town; there was nothing to call them there. Had they come the chances were that they would probably at some time have encountered Peter in company with his father and mother driving, motoring, or going to church. Several school friends had, it is true, unearthed the interesting information that Peter was “working,” but the discovery was greeted with but scant curiosity. One’s place in life closes up very quickly after one drops from sight. When the idol of the Milburn ball team had vanished it had caused great agitation and for a brief interval he had been sincerely mourned; then some one else had been raised up to fill the gap, life was readjusted, and soon Peter and his glorious record were forgotten.
Under other conditions this lack of loyalty on the part of his friends would have wounded Peter sorely; now, however, the feeling was one of mortified pride rather than pained regret. His own attitude toward his former comrades had also in the meantime undergone a change. The boys he had looked up to, even the wisest of the seniors, seemed to him very young indeed, and their football worries pitiably unimportant. They were but preparing for the real work of the world while Peter, and others like him, were actually doing it. In consequence not a lad among all his former classmates was half so companionable or congenial as was his new friend, Nat Jackson.
And so, as the months sped past and Peter’s second year in the tannery neared its end, he found himself not only content with the present life but more and more absorbed in each fresh experience of leather making. The bond with the Jackson home strengthened, and the desire to make good at his “job” drove him to throw all the interest and power of his strong young life into his task.
Winter had added many facts to his growing knowledge about leather. Up to February he and Nat had been together in the beamhouse and seen the great care which was taken that the freshly tanned skins should not freeze. Fortunately for the Coddington Company most of their buildings were new and were equipped with steam-heated lofts where drying could be accomplished with little trouble; but one or two of the old buildings had shutters and in consequence were dependent upon drying the wet skins in the outer air. If the leather was allowed to freeze its fibre was greatly weakened and its value decreased. Accordingly during cold weather the shutters in the old factories had to be closed and the newly tanned hides piled on the floor and covered with heavy canvas. Of course the leather rolled badly, but since it was possible to dampen and stretch it into shape this difficulty could be overcome.
In the finishing department where the two lads were next sent many more new features swelled their increasing fund of information. Wherever they went they left a train of friends behind them. Peter seemed to be the general property of the tanneries. The men quarreled good-naturedly over which factory could really claim the Little Giant. To all this chaff Peter returned modest replies and the odd little chuckle that had so endeared him to his schoolmates. Nobody could imitate that chuckle—nobody—although many of them tried. It was a part of Peter himself, a part of the good will he felt toward the world and everybody in it.
“You can’t hear it without your heart warming toward the lad,” remarked Carmachel one day.
Armed with this simple weapon Peter went on his way. He met the men about him with a frank expectation that they would like him, and they did. Nat also made friends, but as he was a much quieter boy most of those who sought him out did so because he shone with a glory reflected from Peter. Was he not Strong’s chum? He must somehow be worth knowing if he had that honor.