"I knew there were artificial flowers and artificial—well, almost everything," laughed Pierre to his mother. "But artificial silk!"
He gasped.
"What is it made of, Pierre?" questioned Madame Bretton, who had come to regard with wonder the fund of information her big son was acquiring.
"The man who told me about it said that cotton and the pulp from soft wood were used for one sort," he answered. "Another kind comes from dissolving cellulose in chemicals, and forcing this mixture through long tubes into some sort of a bath that makes the material come out in threads; these threads can then be wound, spun, washed, soaked, and dyed. Here in America most of the artificial silk which, by the way, is known as viscose, has cellulose in some form as its base, afterward being treated with different combinations of chemicals."
"What shall we do with you, Pierre, if you learn so much?" questioned Madame Bretton mischievously.
Pierre smiled.
"I'm going to learn every bit I can, so that I may soon work up to earning lots of money," he said. "Then you and Marie can leave the mills, and I can take care of you."
"You are a good son," his mother answered with an odd little catch in her voice. "But do not be distressed because we are in the mills. Indeed we are very happy there."
"You would make the best of anything you had to do, Mother; you're that sort," replied the boy, taking her hand in his. "But I know well it is hard for you to work at a machine all day when you have never been accustomed to it, and I do not mean you shall do it one moment longer than I can help."
"There, there, son——" his mother's eyes filled, and to change the subject she said briskly: