The Story of Silk

by Sara Ware Bassett

"Better sell less now and be assured of a plentiful supply of eggs next year," was the dry answer. "Don't you think so?"

Therefore the cocoons for hatching were gathered into one place and after the floss that clung to the outside of them had been removed so that it should not entangle the moth when it came forth from its house, Madame Bretton took a needle and being extremely careful not to pierce the chrysalis inside by putting it through the centre of the cocoons she strung them on strings from three to four feet long and hung them over some wires stretched across the top of the room.

"There!" she said. "Nothing can reach them now. They will be well up out of the way of both mice and chickens, and in a month or two should hatch out all right."

The weather in the meantime had become very hot. The southern sun beat down on Bellerivre, parching its hillsides, and tanning its people to a dusky brown. But the peasants complained not of the high temperature, for was not this torrid sun that burned so fiercely the very factor they were calculating upon to complete for them the final preparation of their cocoons for the market? This consisted in killing the chrysalis, or sleeping worm inside the cocoon, lest it come out and snap the delicate threads that it had spun. In cooler countries the process was accomplished by putting baskets of cocoons covered with paper and wrapped in cloth into ovens about hot enough for the baking of bread. Here they were left an hour or so until all moisture had exuded from them, proving that the worm had been dried up. Sometimes a blast of steam-heat was the method used for the destruction of the chrysalis. Such methods required greatest care, however, lest in employing a degree of heat sufficient to exterminate the worm the silk also be damaged. But in Bellerivre no such artificial means had to be resorted to. Instead the cocoons were spread out beneath the burning rays of the sun and left to bake, being wrapped each night in heavy black cloth that had also absorbed the heat and would retain during the night the high temperature acquired through the day. For three days this process was continued, the cocoons being spread in the sun from dawn until dusk, and then bundled up inside the hot cloth throughout the night.

On the fourth day Josef said:

"Now it is time that we investigated and found out whether the worms are really dead."

He thereupon took a few cocoons and cutting them open proceeded to examine the chrysalis inside. It was motionless and dry. Again he looked at it, this time touching it with the point of a needle. Still it did not move.

"It is quite dead," he remarked. "And the others must be so too. What wonder, when they have been so steadily exposed to this broiling sun? I should be dead if I were to lie in it day after day without protection, and so would you. We can now safely gather the lot into baskets and put them away until Monsieur Leclerq, the buyer, comes for them at the end of the week."

So once again the cocoons were collected to await their purchaser, and the silk-raisers sat down with sighs of content to anticipate the payment of the money they had so faithfully earned, and speculate as to what they should do with it.

"I don't believe you are any more glad to rest than your silkworms are!" reflected Josef. "When you consider that each one of them spins between three and four hundred yards of thread you can't blame it for wanting to sleep when its work is done."