ghout the year in the beamhouse and the
different finishing departments of Factory 2. Although this factory was
known as the sheepskin tannery they soon found that the skins of lambs,
kids, and goats were also tanned and finished there. The skins of the
young kids or goats were much too delicate for shoes and were made into
thin flexible leather for kid gloves; the leather commonly known as kid
and used for shoes was not really kid at all, the boys were told, but
the skin of mature goats. Inquiry also brought forth the surprising
information that there were between sixty and seventy different kinds of
goatskin, the thickness and grain of the material depending on the
climate and the conditions under which the animals had been raised. Some
of these skins were imported from Brazil, some from Buenos Ayres,
Mexico, France, Russia, India, China, Tripoli, or Arabia.

Goat breeders, the foreman said, killed their flocks at the season of
the year when the men who collected skins made their rounds. These
collectors went from one station to another and the goat herders,
carrying bundles of skins on their backs, went down to the station
nearest the hill country in which they were grazing their flocks and
sold their stock to the collector, who promptly paid them in cash. When
the collector had bought all the skins he wished he had them baled and
sent them across country to the nearest seaport from which they were
shipped to America. Many of the skins coming from India and Russia were
sent first to London and then reshipped to the United States.

All goatskins, of no matter what variety, were tanned by the chrome
process, and because they were smaller and of lighter weight than hides,
tanned much more quickly. They were finished in many different ways:
glazed kid, which was made in colors as well as black, had a shiny
surface made by "striking" or burnishing the leather on the grain side;
mat kid, soft and dull, was treated with oil and wax; suede kid was made
in fancy colors for party shoes. These were some of the most important
varieties. Then there was buckskin, the skin of the reindeer, most
frequently buffed and finished in colors for gloves, or in white for
shoes. Kangaroo was also classed under the head of kid.

"Is patent kid finished in this factory?" inquired Peter one day.

"No. All the patent leathers--both patent kid and patent calf--have a
factory all to themselves."

"I'd like to see it."

"Oh, you will some day