ctantly he bade
farewell to Carmachel and the other men--his first friends at the
tannery--and on the following Monday morning he made his way into the
long, low room where he had been told the skins were tanned. The room
was a revelation, and a none too pleasant one at that! If he had thought
the unloading and sorting department unsavory what should he say of
this? The floor of the beamhouse was slippery with water, lime, and
tanning solutions; unpleasant fumes of wet skins made heavy the air;
revolving paddle-wheels suspended from the ceiling dripped upon the
passer-by; and men, dragging saturated skins from vats in the floor,
piled them in heaps where the water oozing from them trickled out into
the general sloppiness and transformed the floor into a great shallow
pool of moisture. Back and forth through this wetness moved workmen
who, as they wheeled barrows of freshly tanned skins, left a wake of
slime behind them. Peter looked about in consternation. The steaming
odor of the room was nauseating and filled him with disgust. Could he
stand it? And they called this a promotion! What wonder that Carmachel
had chuckled when asked what the beamhouse was!

As Peter stood hesitating, a prey to these confused impressions, a lad
about his own age touched him on the shoulder.

"Bryant, the foreman, wants to speak to you," he said.

Peter roused himself and followed the boy.

In a corner of the room the foreman greeted him.

"How are you, Strong?" he began. "You see you are no stranger to me, for
I have watched you play ball at noon time. I am glad we are to have you
in our department."

"Thank you, sir. Yes, Mr. Tyler said I was to report here for the
present."

"That's good. We can put you to work, all right. Before you begin,
however, I should like to have you look about and get an idea what
we do in here. A man always enjoys his work better and does it more
intelligently, I contend, if he has some notion of the process in which
he is to have a share. Jackson is about your age and has been in this
room a long time." (He indicated the boy at Peter's elbow.) "Suppose he
takes you around and shows you what happens to the skins after they are
sent in here to us."

"Thank you, sir."

Jackson seemed pleased at the task assigned him.

"I'm glad you are coming into the beamhouse to work, Strong," he
ventured timidly. "There are not many boys here my age. You won't like
it at first, I'm afraid, but you will soon get us