and upholstery materials. Here in this country, where
electricity is in general use, artificial silk is a blessing, for it
serves as a substitute in the insulating of electric light wires, and
the manufacture of mantles for lights."

"How clever people were to find anything that could be used instead of
the real, carefully nurtured cocoon silk," mused his mother.

"I know it. I suppose chemists worked at the problem a long time before
they solved it. That is the way most of the great discoveries were made.
Still, the wild silk made by the moths of India is not carefully grown.
From it the Oriental Tussah silk is made; then there is Eria silk, also
an uncultivated product from India; the Fagara silk from China; and the
Yamamai silk from Japan, which is next to domestic silk in value. All
these are manufactured from silk spun by silkworms that have had no
care. The foreman was telling me about it the other day."

There was a pause.

"What did you mean, Pierre, when you spoke of loaded silk?" questioned
his mother. "I have heard the term used many times, but I have never
understood it."

Pierre looked at her with amusement.

"Anybody would think that I was your schoolteacher, Mother mine!" he
returned. "I feel very silly telling you things when you are so much
older and wiser than I."

"I certainly am older; and I used to be a little wiser," replied his
mother humorously, "but I shall not be so long. You see, dear, I never
had much education and I am now too old to learn. But you are
accumulating knowledge every day. You are like a sponge, Pierre. You
seem to soak up every bit of information that you hear."

"I must get my schooling this way, Mother, since I can secure it in no
other," answered the boy soberly. "And perhaps it is a good way after
all, for since I am eager to know something I try and remember every
scrap I hear. I may want to use it later."

"Your father used to say that no knowledge comes amiss," was his
mother's soft answer. "How proud your father would be of you, Pierre!"

"But I must know more, and more, and still more, Mother, before I can
get to the top!" exclaimed the boy eagerly. "And now to tell you of
weighted silks. You see, in dyeing silk the material shrinks and loses
about a quarter of its weight. Manufacturers found that by adding
chemicals, or sugar and glucose during the boiling off, they could make
up for this loss. That is how the custom started. Black silks, which
shrunk the