ourse I know you
didn't have anything to do with it. The men in a factory are like so
many checkers--they are moved about just any way that those higher up
choose to play the game. It is all right and I want you to know I think
so. Don't start in at your new job feeling that I'm sorry you have it.
I'm glad; really I am, Peter!"

"It's mighty decent of you, Nat. I wish I had the chance to show you how
much I appreciate it."

"I don't want you to show me; I just want you to believe that I mean
what I say. And you mustn't mind our working in different departments.
We'll be together at noon time just the same. It won't make any
difference."

But still Peter was not happy. Day after day he waited hopefully to see
if Mr. Tyler would make good his promise and do something for young
Jackson; but nothing came of it, and no course remained but to accept
unwillingly the promotion and set his foot on this upward rung of the
ladder.

The finishing department occupied several floors of the building devoted
to calfskins, and the first task given Peter was to help stretch and
tack the skins which were still wet from dyeing on boards, after which
they were dried by steam in a large, hot room. In some factories, he
learned, the skins were put in great rooms with open shutters on all
sides, where they dried in the air. But the Coddington Company, he was
told, preferred drying by steam. Peter was very slow at tacking the wet
skins on the boards. The speed with which the boys worked who had been
long at the job astounded him. With lightning swiftness they took up the
big, flat-headed tacks, placed, and struck them. One could scarcely
follow the motions of their hands. Fortunately for Peter he was released
from this work after a few days and set to helping the men who measured
the finished skins in an automatic measuring machine; this machine
recorded the dimensions of the skins on a dial and was a wonderfully
intricate contrivance. Try as he would Peter was unable to fathom how it
could so quickly and exactly compute a problem that it would have taken
him a long time to solve.

Incidentally he learned many other things of the workmen. Some of the
very stiff calfskins, he discovered, were "dusted" or laid in bins of
damp sawdust and softened before they were taken to the finishers. There
were a multitude of processes, he found, for converting the leather into
the special kinds desired. What a numberless variety of finishes there
was!