"The broom-corn comes from the West," he said, "though a good deal grows in the Mohawk valley, and the largest broom establishment in the United States is at Schenectady.
"It often grows, if thriving stalks, ten or twelve feet tall; it can be cultivated here, but not so profitably. It comes in large bales, weighing anywhere from one hundred and fifty to five hundred pounds. Where I buy mine in Boston it costs me six cents a pound, though the price varies.
"I sort it out on a "sorting bench," first, for if I took it as it is, the brooms would be of queer qualities. Sorting is a regular trade to learn.
"The next thing, I tie it in bundles, and then it is ready for use. I put as many of these to soak the night before, as I want to make up in the day. I leave it in the water half an hour, then let it drain, and it keeps damp enough for working; if it was dry it would break when I sew it. Here you see this lot, from which I shall make the broom. I call now we have wire, and it is galvanized to prevent it from rusting. It costs me twelve cents a pound; it used to cost seventeen."
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE COMEDY OF BROOMS--MAMMA"S LITTLE HOUSEMAID.]
Having made the handle fast, he took a bunch of the corn, smoothed it carefully through his hands to even it, laid it against the handle, put his foot on the treadle or whatever the hour-gla.s.s shaped piece of mechanism might be named, and with one or two revolutions wired it tight.
This lot had the b.u.t.ts left on, but from the next layer he sliced them down wedge-fashion with a very sharp knife, having secured them to those already on by a strap which could be fastened at such length as he chose by means of a leather b.u.t.ton; another and another tier, each time of choicer quality, succeeded, and so on till the stock for that broom was used up.
"This," he explained, "is a number eight broom. If there had been time I would have made a _hurl_ broom, which is the best. (The "hurl" is the finest part of the corn, the heart.) I make five sizes: number six is the smallest, and it is the smallest manufactured in this country. I can make twenty of those in a day. Of the number ten, the hurl, I have made twelve, and they sell for forty cents apiece. Sometimes when I have got a lot of brooms on hand I hire a horse and cart, take a boy with me, and go round the country to sell them; and people will object to paying my prices, and I can"t always make them believe that it pays to buy a good article, even if it is a broom. They sometimes say that they can get enough of them at fourteen cents, but I tell them when they pay fourteen cents for a broom, they only get a fourteen-cent broom."
[Ill.u.s.tration: UP IN THE ATTIC.]
He had now a rough broom, which he released from the vise and took over to the press which had three pairs of cruel-looking irons that he said were "the jaws," of sizes to shut round brooms of three different thicknesses and hold firmly, while he did the next thing, which he made known in this wise:
"Now I shall sew it. The number six have only two sewings--all they need, they are so thin. The others have three. They are all sewed with waxed linen twine: the higher sizes have pink, because it looks better; the others have tow-colored. You see my needle? It is some like a sail-maker"s, but not exactly. I have two, though one will last a lifetime. I keep them in this oiled rag to prevent them from rusting.
They cost fifty cents apiece, and were made of the very best of steel.
See what nice metal it is!" He held out one, shaped more like a paddle than anything else, polished to the last degree, and as l.u.s.trous as silver; then he threw it on the floor to show us how it would ring.
"Broom tools of all kinds are made at Schenectady, but my needles, knives and combs come from Hadley. I will show you the combs pretty soon; the knives you have already seen. Let me see--where did I lay that other needle? No, you need not look for it; I must find it myself. I have to be careful where I leave my things, so that I can put my hand on them the moment I want them. Oh, here it is," picking it up with his long supple fingers, and rolling it securely up in the oiled cloth.
"Now you notice I put on this _palm_," and he held up what looked like a mitt just large enough to cover the palm of the hand and the wrist, having a hole to slip the thumb through and leaving that and the fingers free. It was made of cowhide, and sewed together on the back, while in the inside was set a thimble against which the needle was to be pressed in doing the hard sewing, while the leather protected the skin from being fretted by the broom.
"It is not just like a sail-maker"s palm," he added. "I have one of those which a man gave me, and I will show it to you." So going again to his dark closet, he groped for it among his multifarious things, and came back with one similar, except that it was of raw-hide, and the thimble was a little projection looking like a pig"s toe.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "PLANT THE BROOM!"]
He sewed the broom through and through, producing the three pink rows.
Then he said he would comb it to clear away the loose and broken stems; and so he pa.s.sed through it a sort of hetchel made of thirty small knife-blades set in a frame, "which cost me," said he, "more than you would think--that comb was five dollars; and now I comb it out with this one to remove the small stuff and the seeds." And releasing it from the clamp, he took down a fine comb from a nail, and repeated the process.
"And now it is ready to be trimmed. I lay it on this hay-cutter, which some friends bought cheap for me at a fair, and answered my purpose after a few alterations, and I trim it off, nice and even at one end--and now it is done. You have seen a broom made."
That was true. Our only regret was that we could not have that same broom to take away; but on our zig-zag journey, when we were likely enough to stop over or turn off anywhere, that was an absurdity not to be thought of. We did, however, "buy a broom" that we _could_ take--and an excellent one it proved--and we accepted a small package of broom-corn seed which the blind workman was anxious we should have, "to plant in some spare spot just to see how it looks when growing."
When we went down-stairs, the woman was out on the platform, her yellow hair tossing about in the wind, and she seemed as happy with her meagre accommodations in the freight house as if she were owner of a mansion.
She begged us to go in and get some of her apples, we were welcome, and "they did not cost me anything," she added. She told us more about her fellow-tenant, and said he paid half the rent, "and he used to board with us, but now he boards up in town, and he goes back and forth alone, his self."
This curious and pleasant little episode made us so ready to be interested in everything pertaining to brooms that it seemed a kind of sarcasm of circ.u.mstances when, at a junction not very far along our route, we saw, perched upon his cart, a pedler doing his best to sell his brooms to the crowd on their way home from one of the Cape camp-meetings.
His words were just audible as the train went on:
"Buy a broom! Buy a broom! Here"s the place to buy a cheap broom, for _fourteen_ cents! _only_ fourteen cents! A broom for fourteen cents! So CHEAP!"
And it happened not many days later that somebody read in our hearing that the broom-corn is a native of India, and that Dr. Franklin was the means of introducing it into this country; from seeing a whisk of it in the hands of a lady he began to examine it--being of an inquiring mind, as everybody knows--and found a seed, which he planted.
The street-sweeper"s broom is the genuine _besom_, made of birch stems, cut out in the country, and brought into town tied up in bundles like f.a.gots; suitable enough for those stalwart men who drag them along so leisurely, but burdensome for the hands of the wretched little waifs, who, tattered and unkempt, make a pretence of keeping the crossings clean; who first sweep, and then hold out a small palm for the penny, dodging the horses" hoofs, and just escaping by a hair"s breadth the wheels of truck or omnibus in their attempts to secure the coin, if some pitiful pa.s.ser-by stops at the piping call:
"Please ma"am, a penny!"
That is the almost tragic prose of brooms.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TRAGEDY OF BROOMS--THE CROSSING SWEEPER.]
But there is a bit of poetic history that ought not to be forgotten, for it was a sprig of the lovely broom bush--call it by the daintier name of heath if you will--such as in some of its varieties grows wild in nearly every country in Europe, a tough little flowering evergreen, symbol of humility, which was once embroidered on the robes, worn in the helmet, and sculptured on the effigies of a royal house of England. Which of the stories of its origin is true, perhaps no one at this distant day can determine; but whether a penitent pilgrim of the family was scourged by twigs of it--the _plantagenesta_--or a gallant hunter plucked a spray of it and put in his helmet, it is certain that the humble plant gave the stately name of "Plantagenet" to twelve sovereigns of that kingdom; and their battle-cry--which meant to them conquest and dominion, but has a very practical sound to us, and a specially prosaic meaning to one like the blind broom-maker of this simple story--was this:
"_Plant the broom! Plant the broom!_"
TALKING BY SIGNALS.
When boys live some distance apart, it is pleasant to be able to communicate with each other by means of signals. Many and ingenious have been the methods devised by enthusiastic boys for this purpose. But it can be brought much nearer perfection than has yet been done, by means of a very simple system.
At the age of fourteen I had an intimate friend who lived more than a mile away, but whose home was in plain sight from mine. As we could not always be together when we wished, we invented a system of signalling requiring a number of different colored flags; but we were not quite satisfied with it, for we could send but few communications by its use.
Then, when we came to test it, we found the distance was too great to allow of the different colors being distinguished. The white one was plainly visible. It seemed necessary, therefore, that only white flags should be used. We studied over the problem long and hard, with the following result.
We each made five flags by tacking a small stick, eighteen inches long, to both ends of a strip of white cloth,[B] two feet long by ten inches wide. Then we nailed loops of leather to the side of our fathers" barns, so that, when the sticks were inserted in them, the flags would be in the following positions:
The upper left hand position was numbered 1, upper right 2, lower right 3, lower left 4, centre 5. Notice, there was no difference in the _flags_; the _positions_ they occupied determined the communication.
Thirty combinations of these positions can be made:
1--1 2--2 4--1 2 3--1 4 5--1 2 3 5 2--1 3--2 5--1 2 4--2 3 5--1 2 4 5 3--1 4--3 4--1 2 5--2 4 5--1 3 4 5 4--1 5--3 5--1 3 4--3 4 5--2 3 4 5 5--2 3--4 5--1 3 5--1 2 3 4--1 2 3 4 5.
These combinations were written down; and opposite each was written the question or answer for which it stood. The answers likely to be used most we placed opposite the shortest combinations, to save time in signalling.
My old "Code" lies before me, from which I copy the following examples:
1. _Yes._ 2. _No._ 3. _Morning._ 4. _Afternoon._ 5. _Evening._ 1 2. _Can you come over?_ 1 3. _When?_ 2 5. _Wait till I find out._ 1 3 4. _Can you go a-fishing?_ 2 4 5. _Are you well to-day?_
Suppose, now, that I place flags in positions 2 4 and 5. (See the above examples.)
Harry glances down his "code" until he reaches 2 4 5 and its signification, and perhaps answers with a flag at 1.
Then the following dialogue ensues:
I. 1 2.
He. 1 5.
I. 4.
He. 2 5.