ed to it."

"I don't believe I shall like it at all," was Peter's rueful reply.
"It's an awful place, isn't it?"

"Oh, it's not so bad as it seems. You won't mind it--really you won't.
Of course the smell is disagreeable and it is wet and sloppy, too; but
Bryant, the foreman, is a mighty white fellow and the men, although
mostly foreigners, are pleasant enough. I myself was so thankful to get
any work that I did not much care what it was."

"Have you been here long?" questioned Peter.

"Ever since I was old enough to go to work--a year this August."

"And you've been in this room all that time!"

"Yes. It takes quite a while to get a promotion here at the tannery. My
pay has been raised to nine dollars, though. Maybe I wasn't glad to get
the money! You see, I support my mother." Jackson threw back his head
proudly.

"You? You support yourself and your mother?" repeated Peter
incredulously.

"Sure I do! Why not?"

"But you--why, you are not much older than I am!"

"I'm sixteen. Mother and I get on very well on what I earn, even though
it isn't much. Don't you have anybody to take care of?"

"No."

Jackson regarded Peter with astonishment.

"I should think you would be rich as a lord if you have all your money
to yourself!" he exclaimed. "What on earth do you find to do with it?"

Once--and the time was not far passed, either--Peter would have laughed
at the naive question; now he answered gravely:

"Oh, I am saving some of it."

"That's right. I can't save a cent at present, but some time I hope to
get a better salary and then I shall be able to. Now let's go over to
the other end of the room and see where they are putting the skins to
soak in those big vats of water to get out the salt and dirt. That's the
first thing they do after the skins are sent into the beamhouse. You
remember how stiff and hard the dry skins were when you unloaded them.
Well, they are put into the great revolving wooden drums that you see
overhead and are worked about in borax and water until they become soft.
They are washed, too. Then after all the skins have been washed and
softened they are thrown into lime and are left there until the fibre
swells and the hair is loosened. The men you see with rubber gloves on
are the limers. If they did not wear gloves they would get their hands
burned and raw, for the lime and the chemicals used in the tan often
make the hands and arms very sore."

"But I don't see that the skins that