chilly surroundings congealed
the fluid silk in the ducts at each side of the silkworm, rendering it
too thick for the creature to spin into fibre.

The noise and the temperature could to an extent be controlled. But the
thunder-storms! Those were another matter.

Anxiously the Bretton family studied every passing cloud.

"If a severe storm should wreck our crop now--at the very end--it would
be cruel!" declared Pierre. "No matter how careful we are we cannot
prevent some great black thunder-head from rolling over the mountains
and down through the valley."

"It is useless to worry, dear," answered his mother. "If such a storm
comes it will be through no fault of ours."

"It would raise havoc in our harvest just the same," cut in Josef. "The
vibrations of thunder sound worse among the metal shelves. They catch
the jar, and seem to hold and echo it. Your father told me about a man
near Tours who had lightning wires along his shelves to protect his
silkworms from electric currents. The wires carried off the worst of the
vibration."

"I wish we could afford to equip our silk-house that way," said Marie.

"Just wait until we get rich. Maybe some day we can," answered Pierre
gaily.

Fortunately for the Brettons' silkworms, however, no electrical storm
came.

The caterpillars climbed serenely into the brush arches above their
heads, selected spots that pleased their fancy, and began constructing
their cocoons. First came the loose, web-like oval within which the
cocoon itself was to be made. This was the work of the first day and its
construction was of what is known as floss. Then followed the yellow,
compact cocoon requiring three or four days for its spinning.
Occasionally two worms would insist upon spinning together, crossing and
recrossing their threads; these double cocoons always had to be sorted
out from the others, however, as the silk could not be wound off them
easily.

The spinning was an interesting sight.

The silkworms poised themselves on the lower extremity of their bodies
and using their front legs to guide the thread, sent it hither and
thither from their mouths in wavy, irregular motion until the little
egg-shaped ball was finished. The two fibres from the right and left
side of the worm were so perfectly united in the spinaret that it was
impossible to detect more than one thread. Patiently the tiny spinners
toiled, and those worms that failed to spin were put into a room by
themselves wh