Peter nodded.

"Oh, there are lots of interesting things to learn about hides. Why, you wouldn't believe, now would you, that the way the animals live would make a difference in the weight of their skins? Yet it is so. Cattle raised in stalls and supplied regularly with good food have far better hides than those that range the fields and are forced to forage for the scant rations found there. Wild cattle, on the other hand, have much tougher hides than do domesticated animals."

"It's curious, isn't it?" replied Peter.

"Yes, it is," the foreman answered. "Two factors always go hand in hand in the making of a fine leather. One is the quality of the hide itself; and the other is the way in which it is tanned. For the tanning liquid, you know, reacts on the fibres of the skin in such a way that the material becomes tougher, closer grained, and more pliable. Here again you are back to the importance of the beamhouse processes."

All these items of information Peter and Nat added to their acc.u.mulating fund. Through the long summer they worked hard, cla.s.sifying all they learned and collecting more as one gathers up snow by rolling a s...o...b..ll.

Then came the fall, with its frosts of ever increasing heaviness. The park flowers drooped; baseball failed to drive the cold from chilled fingers; and lunching in the open had to be abandoned. It was then that notices were posted in all the tanneries saying that at noon on a certain day the president of the Coddington Company desired to meet his men in the vacant room of Factory 2.

Peter's heart beat high!

At last the secret of the reading-room was to be made public!

Would the men like their new quarters, he wondered. What an absurd speculation! Of course they would.

Yet it was not without some anxiety that, in company with Nat, Peter made his way to Factory 2 the moment the noon whistle blew on that great day. A tide of workmen moved hither with him. On every hand they poured in through the doors and streamed up the stairways. The two boys followed. Everybody was speculating as to what the president could want.

Then, as the vanguard of the crowd reached the fifth floor, Peter heard a rush of sound--cheers and cries of surprise. The mystery, so long guarded, stood revealed!

A lump rose in the lad's throat. The men were pleased, and his father, who had spent so much time and money on the carrying out of this project, would consider himself more than repaid for all he had done.

Poor Peter! He almost felt personally responsible that the men should appreciate his father's kindness. So anxious had he been that had those hundreds of voices not risen with just the spontaneity they did it would have broken his heart. But the cheers swelled from the scores of throats with a heartiness not to be questioned.

Silently he and Nat pushed their way into the crowded room. Far away in the glow of a blazing fire Peter could see his father, wreathed in smiles, talking with Mr. Tyler. And it was just at that moment that the boy remembered about the picture which was to have been purchased and raised his eyes curiously to the s.p.a.ce over the fireplace. To his chagrin the spot was covered with a piece of green cambric. The picture his father had promised to buy had not come! For a fraction of a second Peter sobered with disappointment; then in the excitement of the cheering he forgot all about it.

In answer to shouts and cheers Mr. Coddington stepped forward and raised his hand.

There was instant stillness.

"It gives me great pleasure to see that you like the room," said he, simply, "and I am grateful to you for so heartily expressing your approval. But before we go further I feel it is only honest to confess to you that it is neither the Coddington Company nor myself that you should thank for this new library. Shall I tell you how you chanced to have it?"

"Yes! Yes!" came from all over the room.

Then in humorous fashion Mr. Coddington sketched the tale of two boys and an interrupted luncheon, drawing a vivid picture of how the lads had been unceremoniously tumbled to the floor out of their stronghold in the packing-boxes. Mr. Coddington had a gift for telling a story and he told this one with consummate skill.

At its conclusion there was a general laugh.

"Those boys are with us to-day," continued the president. "They are not strangers to you. One of them is Nat Jackson, whom you all know well, and the other--the lad who furnished me with the inspiration for this venture is----"

Instantly the curtain over the fireplace was withdrawn.

"Peter Strong!" cried the men.

It was indeed Peter who smiled down on the throng from out the broad gilt frame! Not Peter Coddington of the fashionable "west side,"--the son and heir of the president of the company, but Peter Strong--Peter in faded jumper and with the collar of his shirt turned away so that one could see where the firm young head rose out of it; Peter with hair tumbled, cheeks flushed from hard work, and his eyes shining as they always shone when he was happy; Peter Strong--the Peter the men knew and loved!

The boy himself looked on, bewildered. Well he knew the source of the portrait. It had evidently been copied from a snap-shot Nat had taken of him one day when the two were coming out of the beamhouse. His father's delay in finding a suitable picture was also now explained. He had had to wait for the portrait to be painted.

Nat, who was watching Peter's face with no small degree of amus.e.m.e.nt, now whispered:

"I kept one secret from you anyhow, Peter. Mr. Coddington came to see us one evening last spring and asked if I had any kodak picture of you, explaining what he wanted it for. So I let him look over what I had and he chose this one. It's fine, isn't it?"

"Why, I don't know," stammered Peter. "I--I'm so flabbergasted I----"

Nat laughed.

All this time the men were cheering and now cries of "Peter Strong!"

"Peter Strong!" rent the air.

The unlucky Peter, who was vainly trying to flatten himself against the wall and hide in Nat's shadow, was dragged forth by Carmachel and made to stand upon a table, from which elevation he waved his hand to the men and then, ducking suddenly, buried himself once more in the crowd.

After waiting a little while for the tumult to subside Mr. Coddington again began to speak--this time in a low, uncertain voice:

"I see you all recognize the portrait. It is Peter Strong as you have met and known him. Yet we can never tell what the future will unfold. If it chanced that time should bring to this lad a career fraught with greater responsibilities than he now holds I want you to remember that he came into the works a boy, like many of you; that he was one with you in play as well as in work; that he toiled at the hardest tasks, never shunning what was difficult or disagreeable; that he was, is, and I hope will always be, your comrade--the product of the Coddington tanneries."

With a bow and a smile to the silent crowd before him the president withdrew. Then as the workmen turned to disperse a few clear words from some one in the throng behind caught Peter's ear:

"It's more than likely the president means to push Strong along to the top of the ladder. He is mightily interested in the boy; anybody can see that. Mayhap the lad will make up to him for his own son who, I've heard say, is a lazy little sn.o.b and a great disappointment to his father."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER X

THE CLIMB BECOMES DIFFICULT

It would not have been strange if with all this adulation Peter had come to think himself a very clever boy--perhaps the cleverest one in the world. Fortunately for his modesty, however, his daily life did not tend to foster any such delusion. He received occasional commendation, it is true, from his superiors, but to counterbalance it he continued to have many a rebuke thrown at him during the year he and Nat toiled together tanning hides. The newness of the work combined with a score of well-meant blunders placed Peter Strong on entirely equal footing with other workmen, and quite as liable to correction. Even had these conditions been otherwise the memory of the lazy little sn.o.b who was a great disappointment to his father would have served to crush in the lad any undue sense of his own importance. Considering the popular rating of Peter Coddington it certainly was just as well that he had entered the works under some other name than his own.

But although the bitterness of this criticism rankled, its sting was removed by the thought that lazy and sn.o.bbish as Peter Coddington had been, thanks to Peter Strong he was neither lazy nor sn.o.bbish now; nor was he, the boy acknowledged, the disappointment to his father that he might have been had not prompt and heroic measures been taken. Yet even Peter Strong was obliged to admit after truthful scrutiny of his progress that there still was room for improvement. Accordingly he accepted submissively the censure that fell to his lot and, as Carmachel said, "did not consider himself the whole tannery just because one room in it was named after him."

It was not until the spring of that year that the next upward step came; then Peter and Nat were sent to the Elmwood plant for a few months' experience at the sole leather factories. The inconvenience of going seven miles and back every day was nothing to Peter because of his motorcycle; but for Nat the case was different. Poor Nat was dependent on street cars and once or twice, owing to delays, was tardy at the works. Then one morning the trolley broke down and Jackson was forced to walk three miles, arriving an hour late. In consequence his pay was docked. This injustice was too much for Peter. All day he thought about it.

"Father," he asked that evening when he arrived home, "do you think you would like to lend Peter Strong some money?"

"Lend money to Peter Strong! What for?"

Hotly, earnestly, eloquently, Peter presented his case concluding with the plea:

"Strong has some money in the bank, sir, but it is not enough. If he paid back what you lent him month by month do you think you could let him have what he needs to get a motorcycle for Nat?"

Mr. Coddington considered carefully.

"I do not at all approve of Peter Strong's borrowing money," said he.

"It is a bad habit to fall into."

"But Peter Strong isn't going to make a habit of it, Father. And he isn't borrowing for himself, you know."