Vainly the man at the bat tried to hit them.
"Three strikes and out!" called the umpire.
The crowd cheered.
On went the game.
"Who"s pitching?" asked one man of another.
n.o.body knew.
"Carmachel says his name is Strong," some one at last informed the workmen.
"Hurrah for little Strong!" yelled a big Swede.
"Three cheers for the Little Giant!" piped a shrill voice.
On every hand the cry was taken up.
"Three cheers for the Little Giant!"
Then suddenly the one o"clock whistle sounded. Peter came back to the realities of life. He dropped his gloves. Already, as if the earth had opened, players and audience had vanished. In through the waiting doors of the tanneries filed the men. But Peter Coddington had won a place for himself, and with it a new name. Henceforth throughout the works he was known as "The Little Giant."
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER III
A NEW FRIEND
For a week Peter worked patiently cutting ropes from freshly received shipments of skins, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the skins, and learning to sort them. Every night he went home exhausted after his day"s work. Sometimes it was hard to realize that he was the same boy who, but a short time before, had jauntily sauntered out to play tennis every evening with his cla.s.smates.
He couldn"t have played tennis now had he tried, and he was not sorry when the rumor reached him that it was commonly reported at the high school that he had been sent away to a distant military academy. So that was the reason why the fellows had not hunted him up! Perhaps it was just as well. It saved many embarra.s.sing questions, and he was much too worn out when night came to do anything but fall into his bed. Still he did not complain of his fatigue. He was too proud to do that. Moreover had he not brought the entire situation upon himself? He would swallow his medicine in silence.
But he knew from his mother"s troubled questions; from her unusual care that his luncheon be tempting and nourishing; from the solicitous gaze she fixed on him that the present ordeal worried her not a little. Once he overheard her say to his father: "The boy isn"t strong enough to stand it! He will be ill."
"Don"t have any anxiety about Peter," was the retort. "The young scoundrel finds energy enough, I hear, to play ball with the men every noon time. He is the star pitcher of Factory 1." A chuckle came from the older man. "It is something of a joke, too," he continued, "for I thought I had put him beyond all possible range of a bat and ball. Don"t fret any more about him. Let him alone. He is showing more pluck than I dreamed he possessed."
"But suppose he should overdo."
"He won"t overdo."
And the prediction was true. Tired as he was every night Peter awoke in the morning entirely refreshed. The lameness of back and muscles soon wore away. At the end of the week, when he received his first pay envelope, no boy in the wide world ever felt as rich as he. Six dollars!
Six dollars of his very own! To be sure his father had often given him twice that amount; but receiving it as a present was a vastly different matter from earning it.
"I mean to save up for a motorcycle," Peter declared. "Then I could ride to the tannery every day."
"So you could," agreed Mr. Coddington. "It is not a bad idea. Don"t forget, though, that you will be needing clothes now and then. You spoke last night of wanting some flannel shirts to wear to work."
"Yes, but you----"
Mr. Coddington shook his head.
"I have bought your clothes up to this time," he answered, "but now that you have a salary of your own it is time you relieved me of that expense."
"Oh--of--of--course," Peter stammered. "I guess, though, I can get the motorcycle and pay for my clothes, too, without any trouble. How much do clothes cost?"
"Let me see!" Mr. Coddington took out a small expense book and turned its pages rapidly. "Clothing for Peter. Here it is. Last year I spent for you $638."
"For me! For my clothes?" gasped the boy. "Did I spend $638? Why, I had no idea of it! I could have gone without some of those overcoats and things as well as not if I had known they cost so much. That"s an awful lot for a boy to spend, isn"t it?"
"It"s a plenty."
"Why, it"s more than I will earn in a whole year."
"Yes, I am afraid it is--at least, for the present."
Peter was thoughtful.
"I can see that it"s good-bye to the motorcycle," he said at last, disappointment in every feature.
With an impulsive gesture Mr. Coddington thrust his hand into the breast pocket where his check-book lay; then resolutely took out the hand and put it behind him.
"There seems to be no way but for you to do without a motorcycle for a while, son," he replied. "Do not be discouraged, though. You are now pretty well stocked with the necessary clothing and in consequence will not require many new things for some time. If you are not too proud to wear your old suits to work you can easily put aside some money each week."
"I do not care how old and shabby my clothes are," smiled Peter. "It does not make much difference what I wear to the tannery if I can just have some flannel shirts, overalls, and rubber boots. I"ve packed away my white tennis suits in moth-b.a.l.l.s, you know, since I went into the mill."
They both laughed.
As flannel shirts and overalls were inexpensive and easily obtained, and as Peter already had rubber boots it was possible to begin the saving for the motorcycle without further delay.
In the meantime orders came that Strong was to leave his task of tr.i.m.m.i.n.g skins and present himself at the beamhouse. Reluctantly 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 pa.s.ser-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."