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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of Sugar, by Sara Ware Bassett
+
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+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: The Story of Sugar
+
+Author: Sara Ware Bassett
+
+Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7803]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on May 18, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF SUGAR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Anne Folland, Ted Garvin
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "Sugar it is, then!"]
+
+The Story of Sugar
+
+BY
+
+SARA WARE BASSETT
+
+Author of
+
+"The Story of Lumber"
+"The Story of Wool"
+"The Story of Leather"
+"The Story of Glass"
+
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY C. P. GRAY
+
+
+_To my cousin_
+_William Pittman Huxley_
+_this book is affectionately inscribed_
+
+
+It gives me much pleasure to acknowledge the courtesy of the
+American Sugar Refining Company, and also the kindness of Senator
+Truman G. Palmer, of Washington, D. C.
+
+S. W. B.
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+I. COLVERSHAM
+
+II. A NARROW ESCAPE
+
+III. SUGARING OFF
+
+IV. THE REFINERY
+
+V. VAN SPRINGS A SURPRISE
+
+VI. A FAMILY TANGLE
+
+VII. MR. CARLTON MAKES A WAGER AND WINS
+
+VIII. VAN MUTINIES
+
+IX. VAN'S GREAT DEED
+
+X. HOW VAN BORE HIS PUNISHMENT
+
+XI. THE BOYS MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE
+
+XII. THE DAWN OF A NEW YEAR
+
+
+
+
+Illustrations
+
+"SUGAR IT IS, THEN!"
+
+"I DON'T REMEMBER THAT BIG ROCK"
+
+"I SHOULD THINK IT WOULD STICK TOGETHER"
+
+"IT IS NO EASY TASK"
+
+NO HORN HAD GIVEN WARNING
+
+"THESE TANKS ARE CONNECTED"
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF SUGAR
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+COLVERSHAM
+
+
+"Oh, say, Bobbie, quit that algebra and come on out! You've stuck at
+it a full hour already. What's the use of cramming any more? You'll
+get through the exam all right; you know you always do," protested
+Van Blake as he flipped a scrap of blotting paper across the study
+table at his roommate.
+
+Bob Carlton looked up from his book. "Perhaps you're right, Van," he
+replied, "but you see I can't be too sure on this stuff. Math isn't
+my strong point, and I simply must not fall down on it; if I should
+flunk it would break my father all up."
+
+"You flunk! I'd like to see you doing it." Van smiled derisively.
+"When you fall down on an exam the rest of us better give up. You
+know perfectly well you'll get by. You are always worrying your head
+off when there's no earthly need of it. Now look at me. If there is
+any worrying to be done I'm the one that ought to be doing it. Do I
+look fussed? You don't catch your uncle losing any sleep over his
+exams--and yet I generally manage to scrape along, too."
+
+"I know you do--you old eel!" Bob glanced admiringly at his friend.
+"I believe you just wriggle by on the strength of your grin."
+
+"Well, if you are such a believer in a grin why don't you cultivate
+one yourself and see how far it will carry you?" chuckled Van. "The
+trouble with you, Bobbie, is your conscience; you ought to be
+operated on for it. Why are you so afraid you won't get good marks
+all the time?"
+
+"I'm not afraid; but I'd be ashamed if I didn't," was the serious
+reply. "I promised my father that if he'd let me come to Colversham
+to school I'd do my best, and I mean to. It costs a pile of money
+for him to send me here, and it's only decent of me to hold up my
+end of the bargain."
+
+Van Cortlandt Blake stretched his arms and gazed thoughtfully down
+at the ruler he was twirling in his fingers.
+
+"Bobbie, you're a trump; I wish more fellows were like you. The
+difference between us is that while I perfectly agree with you I sit
+back and talk about it; you go ahead and do something. It's rotten
+of me not to work harder down here. I know my father is sore on it,
+and every time he writes I mean to take a brace and do better--honest
+I do, no kidding. But you know how it goes. Somebody wants me on the
+ball nine, or on the hockey team, or in the next play, and I say yes
+to every one of them. The first I know I haven't a minute to study
+and then I get ragged on the exams.
+
+"You are too popular for your own good, Van.  No, I'm not throwing
+spinach, straight I'm not. What I mean is that everybody likes you.
+Why, there isn't a more popular boy in the school! That's why you
+get pulled into every sort of thing that's going. It's all right,
+too, only if you expect to study any you've got to rise up in your
+boots and take a stand. That's why I shut myself up and grind
+regularly part of every evening. I don't enjoy doing it, but it's
+the only way."
+
+Van rose and began to roam round the room uneasily.
+
+"Goodness knows, Bobbie, if one of us didn't grind neither of us
+would get anywhere. By the way, did you manage to dig out that
+Caesar for to-morrow? Fire away and give me the product of your
+mighty brain. I guess I can memorize the translation if you read it
+to me enough times."
+
+Bob did not reply.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I don't think it is a straight thing for me to translate your Latin
+for you every day, Van," he said at last. "You ought not to ask me
+to do it."
+
+"I know it; it's mighty low down--I acknowledge that," answered Van
+frankly. "But what would you have me do? Flunk it? Come on. I'll get
+it myself next time."
+
+"That's what you always say, Van, but you never do."
+
+"But I tell you I will. This week I've been so rushed with the Glee
+Club rehearsals I couldn't do a thing. But you wait and view yours
+truly next week."
+
+Reluctantly Bob took up his Caesar and opened it.
+
+"That's a gentleman, Bobbie. Some time when you're drowning I'll
+throw a plank to you. I knew you'd save my life."
+
+"I do not approve of doing it at all," Bob observed, still searching
+for the place in the much worn brown text-book. "I've done about all
+your studying this term."
+
+"I own it, oh Benefactor. Are you not my brain--my intellectual
+machinery? Could I live a day without you?"
+
+Leaning across the table Van affectionately rumpled up Bob's tidy
+locks until every individual hair stood on end.
+
+"If it weren't for me you'd be dropped back into the next class--that's
+what would happen to you; and you deserve it, too."
+
+Van was silent.
+
+"I know it. I haven't put in an hour of solid work for a month, Bob
+I ought to be ashamed, and I am." He paused. "But there's no use
+jumping all over myself if I haven't," he resumed, shifting to a
+more sprightly tone. "I've said I was going to take a spurt soon and
+I mean it. I'll begin next week."
+
+"Why not start to-day?"
+
+There was a rap at the door.
+
+"Why not?" echoed Van, moving toward the door with evident relief.
+"Don't you see I can't? Somebody's always breaking in on my work.
+Here's somebody this very minute."
+
+He flung open the door.
+
+"Mail. A parcels-post package for you, Bob. I'll bet it's eats. Your
+mother's a corker at sending you things; I wish my mother sent me
+something now and then."
+
+"Well, it's a little different with you. Your family live so far out
+west they can't very well mail grub to you; but Mater is right here
+in New York, and of course as she's near by she'd be no sort of a
+mother if she didn't send me something beside this prison fare. Come
+on and see what it is this time."
+
+Bob loosened the string from the big box and began unwinding the
+wrappings.
+
+"Plum-cake!" he cried. "A dandy great loaf! And here's olives, and
+preserved ginger, and sweet chocolate. She's put in salted almonds,
+too; and look--here's a tin box of Hannah's molasses cookies, the
+kind I used to like when I was a kid. Isn't my mother a peach?"
+
+"She sure is; and she must think a lot of you," said Van slowly. "I
+wish my mother'd ever--"
+
+"Maybe if you pitched in a little harder here she'd feel--"
+
+"Oh, cut out the preaching, Bobbie," was the impatient retort. "I've
+had enough for one day."
+
+Bob did not speak, but tore open the letter that had come with the
+bundle.
+
+"Oh, listen to this, Van," he shouted excitedly. "Mother says they
+have decided to open the New Hampshire house for Easter. They're
+going up for my spring vacation and take in the sugaring off. What
+a lark! And listen to this. She writes: 'You'd better arrange to bring
+your roommate home with you for the holiday unless he has other
+plans.'"
+
+"Oh, I say!"
+
+"Could you go, Van?"
+
+Bob eyed his chum eagerly.
+
+"I don't see why I couldn't. I'm not going home to Colorado. It's
+too far. I was thinking of going to Boston with Ted Talbot, but I'd
+a good sight rather go batting with you, Bobbie, old man. It was
+fine of your mother to ask me. Where is the place?"
+
+"Our farm? It's in Allenville, New Hampshire, near Mount Monadnock.
+It used to be my grandfather's home, and after he died and we all
+moved to New York Father fixed it over and kept it so we could go
+there summers. I've never been up in the spring, though. It will be
+no end of fun."
+
+"I hope you do not call this weather spring," put in Van,
+sarcastically, pointing to the snow-buried hills outside.
+
+"Well, it is the middle of March, and it ought to be spring, if it
+isn't," answered Bob. "Just think! Only a week more of cramming;
+then the exams, and we're off. I'm awfully glad you can go."
+
+"You speak pretty cheerfully of the exams. I don't suppose you dread
+them much." Van lapsed into a moody silence, kicking the crumpled
+wrapping-paper into the fireplace. "You don't need to worry, Bob.
+But look at me. I'll be lucky if I squeak through at all. Of course
+I've never really flunked, but I've been so on the ragged edge of
+going under so many times that it's no fun."
+
+"Cheer up! You'll get through. Why, man alive, you've got to. Now
+come on and get at this Latin and afterward we'll pitch into the
+plum-cake."
+
+"What do you say we pitch into the cake first?"
+
+"No, sir. Not a bite of cake will you get until you have done your
+Caesar. Come on, Van, like a good kid, and have it over; then we'll
+eat and talk about Allenville."
+
+Once more Bob opened the book.
+
+"Here we are! You've got to do it, Van, and to-morrow you'll be glad
+that you did. Stop fooling with that paper and bring your chair
+round this side of the desk. Begin here: _Cum Caesar esset_--"
+
+Persistently Bob followed each line of the lesson down the page,
+translating and explaining as he went, and ungraciously Van Blake
+listened.
+
+The little brass clock on the mantelpiece ticked noisily, and the
+late afternoon sun that streamed in through the windows lighted into
+scarlet the crimson wall-paper and threw into prominence the posters
+tacked upon it. It was a cozy room with its deep rattan chairs and
+pillow-strewn couch. Snow-shoes, fencing foils, boxing-gloves, and
+tennis racquets littered the corners, and on every side a general
+air of boyish untidiness prevailed.
+
+Although the apartment was not, perhaps, as luxurious as a college
+room, it was nevertheless entirely comfortable, for the Colversham
+School boasted among its members not only boys of moderate means but
+the sons of some of the richest families in the country. It aimed to
+be a democratic institution, and in so far as this was possible it
+was; the school, however, was richly endowed and therefore its every
+appointment from its perfectly rolled tennis courts to its instructors
+and the Gothic architecture of its buildings was of the best.
+
+Van Cortlandt Blake, whose father was a western manufacturer, had by
+pure chance stumbled upon Bob Carlton the day the two had alighted
+from the train and stood helpless among the new boys on the station
+platform, awaiting the motor-car which was to meet them and carry
+them up to the school. Before the five mile ride was finished and
+the automobile had turned into the avenue of Colversham the boys had
+agreed to room together. Bob came from New York City. He was younger
+than Van, slender, dark, and very much in earnest; he might even
+have passed for a grind had it not been for his sense of humor and
+his love for skating and tennis. As it was he proved to be a master
+at hockey, as the school team soon discovered, and before he had
+been a week at Colversham his classmates also found that he was most
+loyal in his friendships and a lad of unusual generosity.
+
+Van Blake was of an entirely different type. Big, husky, happy-go-lucky--a
+poor student but a right jolly companion; a fellow who could pitch
+into any kind of sport and play an uncommonly good game at almost anything.
+More than that, he could rattle off ragtime untiringly and his nimble
+fingers could catch up on the piano any tune he heard whistled. What
+wonder he speedily became the idol of Colversham? He was a born leader,
+tactfully marshaling at will the boys who were his own age, and
+good-naturedly bullying those who were younger.
+
+To the school authorities he presented a problem. His influence was
+strong and, they felt, not always good; yet there was not a teacher
+on the premises who did not like him. Intellectually they were
+forced to own that he was demoralizing. He was, moreover, a
+disturber of the social order. But his pranks were, after all, pure
+mischief and never malicious or underhanded. With a boy like Bob
+Carlton as a roommate and drag anchor the principal argued he could
+not go far astray.
+
+And so the first year had passed without mishap, and already the
+second was nearing its close. The school board congratulated itself.
+Had the faculty known that for most of his scholarship, poor as it
+often was, Van Blake was indebted to the sheer will power of Bob
+Carlton they might have felt less sanguine. Day after day Bob had
+patiently tutored his big chum in order that he might contrive to
+scrape through his lessons. It was Bob who did the work and Van who
+serenely accepted the fruits of it--accepted it but too frequently
+with scant thanks and even with grumbling. Bob, however, doggedly
+kept at his self-imposed task. To-day's Latin translation was but an
+illustration of the daily program; Bob did the pioneering and Van
+came upon the field when the path was cleared of difficulties. And
+yet it was a glance of genuine affection that Bob cast at his friend
+stretched so comfortably in the big Morris chair with a pillow at
+his back.
+
+"There, you lazy villain, I think you'll do!" he declared at last.
+"Don't forget about the hostages in the second line; you seem pretty
+shaky on that. I guess, though, you'll pull through alive."
+
+"Bobbie, you're my guiding angel," returned the elder boy yawning.
+"When I make my pile and die rich I'm going to leave you all my
+money."
+
+"Great Hat! Hear him. Leave me your money! What do you suppose I'm
+going to be doing while you're rolling up your millions? I intend to
+be rich myself, thank you," retorted Bob, throwing down his book.
+"Now for the plum-cake! You deserve about half the loaf, old man,
+but I shan't give it to you, for it would make you sick as a dog,
+and then I'd have you to take care of. Oh, I say, listen a minute!
+Isn't that the crowd coming from the gym? Open the window and
+whistle to them. Tell 'em to pile up here for a feed. And get your
+muscle to work on this olive bottle, Van. I can't get the cork out."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A NARROW ESCAPE
+
+
+The dreaded examinations came and went and, as Van Blake expressed
+it, were passed with honor by Bobbie and with dishonor by himself.
+After the last one was over it was with a breath of relief that the
+two lads tossed pajamas and fresh linen into their suit-cases;
+collected snow-shoes and sweaters; and set out on their New
+Hampshire visit.
+
+It had been a late spring and therefore although the buds were
+swelling and a few pussy-willows venturing from their houses the
+country was still in the grip of winter; great drifts buried
+roadside and valley and continued to obstruct those highways where
+travel was infrequent.
+
+"There certainly is nothing very summerish about this New England
+weather of yours, Bob," remarked Van, as, on alighting from the
+train at Allenville, he buttoned closer his raccoon coat and stepped
+into the waiting sleigh which had come to meet them.
+
+"The State did not realize you were coming, old man; otherwise they
+would have had some weather especially prepared for your benefit,"
+Bob replied, springing into the sleigh beside his chum. "My, but
+this is a jolly old pung! Hear it creak. I say," he leaned forward
+to address the driver, "where did my father get this heirloom,
+David?"
+
+"Law, Mr. Bob, this ain't your father's," David drawled. "He ain't
+got anything but wheeled vehicles in the barn, and not one of 'em
+will be a mite of use till April. I borrowed this turnout of the
+McMasters', who live a piece down the road; the foreman, you know.
+It was either this or a straight sledge, and we happened to be using
+the sledges collecting sap."
+
+"Are you sugaring off already?" questioned Bob with evident
+disappointment. "I understood Father to say we'd get here in time to
+be in on that."
+
+"Bless your soul, Mr. Bob, you'll see all you want of it," was
+David's quick answer. "There's gallons of sap that hasn't been
+boiled down yet. It's a great year for maple-sugar, a great year."
+
+"Are some years better than others?" Van inquired.
+
+"Yes, indeed. What you want to make the sap run is a good cold snap,
+followed by a thaw. That's just what we've been having. It's a prime
+combination."
+
+He jerked the reins impatiently.
+
+"Get up there, Admiral! He's the very worst horse to stop that ever
+was made. You see in summer he drags a hay-cart, and he has to keep
+halting for the hay to be piled on; then in the fall we use him for
+working on the road, and he has to wait while we pick up stones and
+spread gravel; in the spring he makes the rounds of the sugar
+orchard every morning and stands round on three legs while we empty
+the sap buckets into the cask on the sledge. Poor soul, he never
+seems to get going that he ain't hauled up. He's so used to it now
+that he'd rather stop than go, I reckon."
+
+David's prophecy appeared to be quite true, for the Admiral proved
+to be so loath to proceed that every few paces he would hesitate,
+turn his head, and seem to be inquiring where the hay, stones, or
+sap buckets were to-day. It was only David's repeated urging which
+kept him moving at all. In consequence it was dark before the boys
+caught sight of the "Pine Ridge" lights gleaming through the tangle
+of hemlock boughs that screened the drive, and saw the door of the
+hospitable old farmhouse swing open.
+
+"Well, I'll wager you're pretty hungry," a cheery voice called.
+
+"Hungry, Mother! We're starved--hollow down to our shoe-strings!"
+Swinging himself out upon the steps Bob bent and kissed his mother.
+"Mother, this is my roommate, Van Blake," he added.
+
+"I'm very glad to see you, Van," Mrs. Carlton said, putting both her
+hands into those of the big fellow who smiled down at her. "How
+strange it is that although you and Bob are such friends and he is
+continually talking and writing of you that you and I should never
+have met!"
+
+"I don't just know how it's happened, Mrs. Carlton," Van answered.
+"It seems as if the times you've been at the school to visit I've
+either been away or shut up in the infirmary with chicken-pox or
+something. I'm great at catching diseases, you know--I get
+everything that's going. Father says he thinks I can't bear to let
+anything get by me."
+
+He laughed boyishly.
+
+"Speaking of fathers, where's Dad, Mater?"
+
+"He stopped to put another log on the fire. Come in and see what a
+blaze we have ready for you."
+
+The two boys followed her into the hall, while David staggered at
+the rear of the procession with the luggage.
+
+Mr. Carlton came forward.
+
+"This is Van Blake, Father," Bob said, proudly introducing his chum.
+
+"I'm glad to see you, young man," Mr. Carlton responded. "Bob's
+friends will always find a welcome from us."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+Mr. Carlton reflected a moment then asked abruptly:
+
+"I don't suppose you happen to be a connection of the Colorado
+Blakes."
+
+"I come from Colorado," replied Van quickly.
+
+"You're not one of the sugar Blakes; not Asa Blake's son."
+
+"Yes," cried Van. "Mr. Asa Blake is my father, and he is in the beet
+sugar business. Do you know him?"
+
+"I believe I've met him," Mr. Carlton admitted hurriedly, stooping
+to push the glowing back-log a little further forward.
+
+"Why, Father--"
+
+Bob was interrupted.
+
+"Come, boys," said Mrs. Carlton bustling in. "I guess you've warmed
+your fingers by this time. Bob, take Van up-stairs and tumble out of
+those fur coats as fast as ever you can so to be ready for dinner."
+
+The lads needed no second bidding. They were up-stairs and back in
+the dining-room in a twinkling, and so eagerly did they chatter of
+their plans for the morrow that hungry though they were they almost
+forgot to eat.
+
+"There are so many things to do that it is hard to decide where to
+begin," declared Bob. "Of course we want some coasting and some
+snow-shoeing; and we must climb Monadnock. Van says he hasn't seen
+a real mountain since he came East. Then we want to be on hand for
+the maple-sugar making. Why, ten days won't be half long enough to
+do everything we ought to do."
+
+His mother laughed.
+
+"You must have a good sleigh ride, too," she put in.
+
+"I draw the line on a sleigh ride if we have to go with that horse
+that brought us up from the station," announced Bob.
+
+"Me, too!" Van echoed.
+
+"It would take you the entire ten days to get anywhere and back if
+you went sleighing with the Admiral," said Mr. Carlton.
+
+Every one smiled.
+
+"I'd advise your seizing upon the first clear day for your Monadnock
+tramp," Mr. Carlton continued. "You'd better make sure of good
+weather when you get it. It won't make so much difference with your
+other plans; but for the mountain trip you must have a good day."
+
+"I do want Van to get the view from the top if he makes the climb,"
+Bob answered.
+
+So the chat went merrily on.
+
+Yet despite the gaiety of the evening and Mr. Carlton's evident
+interest in the boys' holiday schemes Bob more than once caught his
+father furtively studying Van's profile. Obviously something either
+puzzled or annoyed him. There was, however, no want of cordiality in
+his hearty goodnight or in the zest with which he advocated that if
+the next morning proved to be unclouded the two lads better make
+certain of their mountain excursion. He even helped lay out the walk
+and offered many helpful suggestions. Bob's uneasiness lest his
+father should not like his chum vanished, and when he dropped into
+bed the last vague misgiving took flight, and he fell into a slumber
+so profound that morning came only too soon.
+
+It was David who, entering softly to start the fire in the bedroom
+fireplace, awakened Bob.
+
+He sat up and rubbed his eyes sleepily.
+
+"What sort of a day is it, David?" he questioned in a whisper that
+he might not arouse Van, who was lying motionless beside him.
+
+"It's a grand day, Mr. Bob. There ain't a cobweb in the sky."
+
+David tiptoed out and Bob nestled down once more beneath the
+blankets. It was fun to lie there watching the logs blaze up and see
+your breath rise on the chilly air; it was fun, too, to know that no
+gong would sound as it did at school and compel you to rush madly
+into your clothes lest you be late for breakfast and chapel, and
+receive a black mark in consequence. No, for ten delicious days
+there was to be no such thing as hurry. Bob lay very still
+luxuriating in the thought. Then he glanced at Van, who was still
+immovable, his arm beneath his cheek. His friend's obliviousness to
+the world was irresistible. Bob raised himself carefully; caught up
+his pillow; took accurate aim; and let it fly.
+
+It struck Van in the head, routing further possibility of sleep.
+
+"Can't you let a fellow alone?" he snapped.
+
+"Wake up, you old mummy!" shouted Bob. "A great mountain climber you
+are, sleeping here all day. Have you forgotten you're going up
+Monadnock to-day?"
+
+"Hang Monadnock! I was sound asleep when you lammed that pillow at
+me, you heathen. What's the good of waking me up at this unearthly
+hour?" yawned Van.
+
+"It's seven o'clock."
+
+"Seven o'clock!" Van straightened up and stared. "Why, man alive, I
+haven't been asleep fifteen minutes."
+
+"You've been lying like a log for nine mortal hours," chuckled Bob.
+
+"Great Scott! Some sleep, isn't it? That's better than I do at
+Colversham."
+
+"Rat_her!_"
+
+"Well, I need sleep. I'm worn out with over-study."
+
+"You are, like--"
+
+"I am. I'm an intellectual wreck," moaned Van. "It's the Latin."
+
+Bob burst into a shout, which was cut short by a rap at the door.
+
+"Time to get up, boys," called the cheery voice of Mr. Carlton.
+"Step lively, please. Here's a can of hot water."
+
+The boys wasted no more time in fooling.
+
+They bathed, dressed, and almost before they knew it were at the
+table partaking of a hearty breakfast which was capped by heaps of
+golden brown pancakes rendered even more golden by the sea of maple-syrup
+in which they floated.
+
+"I'll never be able to climb anything after this meal," Van gasped
+as he left the table and was thrusting his arms into his sweater.
+
+Bob grinned.
+
+"Don't expect us back before late afternoon, Father," he called over
+his shoulder. "We've a long slow climb ahead of us because of the
+snow. Probably we shall find it drifted in lots of places. Then we
+shall want some time at the top of the mountain, you know. Besides,
+we're going to stop and cook chops, and that will delay us. So don't
+worry if we don't turn up much before dinner time."
+
+"You're sure you know the trail, Bob?" his mother called as the
+trampers went down the steps.
+
+"Why, Mother dear, what a question! Know the trail? Haven't I
+climbed that mountain so many times that I could go up it backwards
+and with my eyes shut?"
+
+"I guess that's true, Mother," agreed Mr. Carlton reassuringly.
+
+"Good-bye, then," said Bob's mother. "Have a fine day and don't
+freeze your noses."
+
+The boys waved, and with a scuff of their snow-shoes were off.
+
+The climb was indeed a stiff one. At first the trail led through
+low, flat woods, fragrant with hemlock and balsam; here it was
+sheltered and warm. But soon the real ascent began.
+
+"We follow the bed of this brook almost to the top," explained Bob
+who was leading the way. "We come into it here, you see. In summer
+it is a narrow path clearly marked by rough stones; you wouldn't
+believe how different it looks now all covered with snow. It doesn't
+seem like the same place. I didn't realize what a difference the
+snow would make in everything. But, anyway, we can't miss the way
+with these great boulders along the sides of the path; and even if
+we did the trees are blazed."
+
+They pushed on for some time.
+
+Then the strap of Van's snow-shoe broke.
+
+"Oh, thunder! Got a knife, Bob?" he called. "This darn thing's
+busted. I'll have to haul to for repairs."
+
+Bob stopped impatiently.
+
+"Why didn't you look at it before you started?" he said.
+
+"Never thought of it, Old Preparedness," was the good-natured reply.
+"No matter, I have some string and I think I can fix it."
+
+It took some time, however, to make the fastening to the shoe and
+moccasin secure, and in the meantime the sun went behind a cloud.
+
+"I guess Father wasn't a very good weather prophet," remarked Bob,
+glancing at the sky. "It seems to be clouding up."
+
+"Don't fret. What do we care?" was Van's easy answer. "We're not
+really after the view. I don't give a hurrah for what we see when we
+get to the top; what I want is the fun of doing it."
+
+They shuffled on.
+
+"I'll be glad when this luncheon is inside instead of outside of me,
+won't you?" puffed Bob. "It's almighty heavy to carry."
+
+"It isn't the lunch I mind. It's all these infernal clothes," was
+Van's retort. "I don't see what on earth I wore so many things for."
+
+"You'll want them by and by."
+
+"I bet I won't!" protested Van. "I'm going to tie my red sweater to
+this tree and leave it here; I can't be bothered with so much
+stuff."
+
+"You'll be cold when you get to the top."
+
+"No, I won't. And anyway I'd rather be too cold then than too hot
+now. One's no better than the other."
+
+Deaf to Bob's counsel Van resolutely wound the offending sweater
+about a great white birch tree that stood at a fork of the path.
+
+"You'll be sorry," was Bob's parting thrust as they plodded on.
+
+The trail was now steep and so narrow that frequently Bob had to
+stop and search for the blazing on the trees.
+
+"Of course I know my way, all right," he insisted. "Still, it is
+mighty different in winter from what it is at other seasons of the
+year, I'll admit that. Remember, I've never climbed this hill when
+the snow was on the ground. However, when we once get to the top the
+coming down will be a cinch, because we can follow our own tracks."
+
+It was nearly two o'clock before the boys reached the top of the
+mountain. Over the landscape hung a mass of heavy gray clouds
+beneath which the sun was hidden; the wind was cutting as a knife,
+and while Van sought the shelter of an old shack Bob roamed about,
+delighting in the familiar scene.
+
+"Why don't you come over here and look at the view?" he called to
+his companion. "It is fairly clear in spite of the clouds."
+
+Van shivered.
+
+"Oh, I don't want to. I don't care a hang for the view--I told you
+that before. I'm just hungry. Let's get a fire going and cook the
+chops. What do you say?"
+
+"You're cold. I said you would be."
+
+"I'm not. I'm starved, though. Where can we get some wood?"
+
+Bob glanced about.
+
+"There seems to be plenty of undergrowth down in that hollow. Take
+my knife and cut away some of it. There's a piece of an old stump,
+too, that ought to burn well if it isn't too wet."
+
+"That thing would never burn; but the brush will. Sling me the knife
+and I'll cut an armful. Let's build it in that little rocky shelter.
+Thanks to my camping training I'm right at home on this job."
+
+Van's boast was no idle one. Soon the fire was crackling merrily and
+the chops and bacon were sizzling in the frying-pan. Bob unpacked
+the sandwiches and the thermos bottle of hot chocolate.
+
+It was a regal luncheon.
+
+How good everything tasted!
+
+"I believe I was cold," Van admitted, rubbing his hands over the
+dying embers of the blaze. "But I'm warm as toast now. Is there any
+more grub left to eat?"
+
+"Not a crumb--why? Are you still hungry?" queried Bob who was
+packing up the camping kit.
+
+Van chuckled.
+
+"Well, not exactly. I only thought we ought not to waste anything."
+
+Bob glanced up and laughed; then his face grew sober.
+
+"I say, there's a snowflake!" he cried. "And another! Jove, Van,
+it's begun to snow!"
+
+"We better be getting down, I suppose," drawled Van.
+
+"Just that, old man; fast as we can, too. Come on."
+
+"What's your hurry? It will be a lark."
+
+"It will be no lark if it snows much--I'll tell you that," replied
+Bob seriously. "Besides, the folks will worry. Come ahead."
+
+They turned back down the trail.
+
+The snowfall increased.
+
+"You can hardly see our tracks already," Bob called over his
+shoulder. "And this wind is fierce. I had no idea it would snow. It
+is awfully wet and sticky snow, too; see how it clings to the
+trees."
+
+They sped on.
+
+The descent was far easier than the climb, and they could go
+quickly.
+
+"I don't remember that big rock," exclaimed Van suddenly, pointing
+to a huge boulder that fronted them. "Isn't it a whacker! Odd that
+I didn't notice it when we came up. Could we have passed it and not
+seen it?"
+
+[Illustration: "I DON'T REMEMBER THAT BIG ROCK"]
+
+"I suppose we must have," Bob answered. "I don't remember it,
+though. Everything looks queer and different in the storm. It's a
+regular squall. How quickly it came!"
+
+"Can you still see our tracks?"
+
+"No. But of course we're right; I couldn't miss my way after coming
+over this path so many times."
+
+"Can you see the blazes on the trees?"
+
+"No, silly. How could I when they are all plastered over thick with
+snow?" was Bob's scornful retort. He was silent for a moment. "But
+don't you worry," he declared. "I am certain we came this way--at
+least I _think_ we did."
+
+His tone, however, was less convincing.
+
+They went on.
+
+"We don't seem to be coming out anywhere, do we?" Van finally asked.
+
+"No."
+
+"Didn't we pass a little clearing somewhere on the way up?"
+
+"Yes, there was one."
+
+"Have we passed it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then it's ahead of us."
+
+"It ought to be. I say, suppose we stop a minute and brush the snow
+off these trees so to make sure we really are on the trail."
+
+"A bully idea!"
+
+The boys put down their packs and reconnoitred.
+
+"There don't seem to be any marks on these trees," Van asserted
+after an interval of search.
+
+"But there must be."
+
+"Find them then--if you can."
+
+Bob nervously scrutinized several gnarled trunks.
+
+"You're right, Van," he owned at last. "We're off the trail; missed
+it somehow. We'd better go back; we can't be far wrong. Or better
+yet, you wait here while I hunt."
+
+Bob was very grave.
+
+"You bet I'm not going to be left here to be buried in snow like the
+Babes in the Wood," protested Van gaily. "No sir-ee! I don't stay
+here. I'll help hunt for the path too. Now don't go getting nervous,
+Bobbie, old chap. Two of us can't very well get lost on this
+mountain. We'll separate enough to keep within hallooing distance,
+and we'll tie a handkerchief on this tree so we can get back to it
+again if we want to. We know we're part way down, anyway. That's
+certain."
+
+"I don't feel so sure," was Bob's answer. "We ought to have turned
+back when it began to cloud up; but I never dreamed of snow. The
+family will be having a blue fit about us."
+
+"Cheer up! We'll get down all right, only it may take us a little
+longer," Van asserted.
+
+They branched into a side path.
+
+The snow swirled about them in blinding sheets, and their footing
+became heavy and slippery.
+
+Wandering on, they scanned the trees.
+
+Not a mark appeared.
+
+Both boys were chilled now, and their spirits drooped.
+
+The possibility of being lost on the mountain began to definitely
+form itself in their minds.
+
+"I'm mighty sorry I got you into this scrape, Van," Bob said after
+a long pause. "I was too cock-sure of myself. That comes of thinking
+you know it all."
+
+"Pooh! It wasn't your fault, Bob. I'd give a cent, though, to know
+where we are. Do you suppose we've been making any progress all this
+time, or just going round in a circle?"
+
+"Search me. I'll bet we've walked miles," groaned Bob. "I've got to
+rest if we never find the trail."
+
+He spoke wearily.
+
+"You're not going to sit down, Bob," Van retorted sharply. "Brace
+up. You've got to keep moving."
+
+"But I can't. I'm tired and--and--sleepy."
+
+His voice trailed off into a yawn.
+
+"I don't care." Van wheeled on his friend fiercely and striding up
+to him shook him violently by the shoulders. "Now pull yourself
+together!" he commanded. "Where's your nerve? Brace up or I'll
+rattle the daylights out of you."
+
+"I can't go another step."
+
+"You've got to. Start on ahead. Don't crawl that way--walk! Faster!
+Faster than that, do you hear? I'm just behind you, and I shall step
+on your heels if you lag. Keep it up. Go on."
+
+Panting, Bob obeyed.
+
+Suddenly he gave a cry.
+
+"What's the matter?" demanded Van.
+
+"There! There on the tree!" He pointed before him with trembling
+hand. "Your sweater!"
+
+Van pushed past him.
+
+"Sure as fate! My sweater! Blamed if it isn't."
+
+They both laughed weakly.
+
+"Then we've found the trail!" Bob almost sobbed the words.
+
+"We sure have! And hark, don't you hear voices? It's David, as I'm
+alive; and your father!"
+
+Aid had indeed come.
+
+"Father!" Bob shouted the word and then laughed again--this time a
+bit hysterically.
+
+"The rescuing party's right here!" called Mr. Carlton.
+
+He said it lightly, but as he came up and joined them Van saw that
+his face was drawn and his eyes suspiciously bright.
+
+"David has the sledge just at the foot of the hill," he remarked,
+appearing not to notice the boy's fatigue. "I guess you'd just as
+soon ride the rest of the way."
+
+He slipped an arm around Bob.
+
+"It's not much farther, son. Move right along as fast as you can.
+Hurry, boy. Your mother's pretty worried. Thank goodness we found
+you in time."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+SUGARING OFF
+
+
+The next morning, incredible as it seemed, Bob and Van were none the
+worse for their mountain trip, and Mr. Carlton, who had worried no
+little about them, and who was still feeling the effects of his
+hours of anxiety, remarked somewhat wrathfully:
+
+"You two fellows come to the surface like a pair of corks! Any one
+would think that being lost on a mountain was an every-day
+occurrence with you. That is the difference between sixteen and
+forty-six, I suppose. My poor old nerves rebel at being jolted in
+such casual fashion."
+
+Bob smiled.
+
+"We're fit as two fighting cocks to-day, Father," he declared. "In
+fact, this very minute we're going out to help David collect sap.
+They are going to boil a lot of it down to-day."
+
+"I imagined as much when I saw the smoke rising from the sugar-house
+chimney. Well, you seem to have your morning's work mapped out. Just
+don't get lost again, for I have no mind to go scouring the country
+a second time to find you."
+
+"We'll take good care, Mr. Carlton," Van replied, giving a final tug
+at his long rubber boots.
+
+"You may not lose yourself, Van," Bob chuckled, "but I am morally
+certain you'll lose your boots. You will just walk off and leave
+them in some snow-drift or mud puddle and never miss them. They are
+big enough for an elephant. Where did you get them, anyway?"
+
+"They're an old pair David lent me; your father said I'd better wear
+them."
+
+"He's dead right, too. The snow is still deep in spots, and it is
+thawing everywhere. It is not the boots I'm quarreling with; it's
+their size. I guess, though, you can get on somehow. We want to cut
+across the road and make for that hill over to the right. That's
+where the sugar-house is; it stands in the middle of an orchard of
+maples which were planted by my grandfather. Of course we have other
+maple trees scattered about the farm and David taps those, too; but
+most of our sugar comes from this orchard."
+
+"Did your grandfather make maple-sugar to sell?"
+
+"Goodness, no! He made it to use. White sugar, you must understand,
+was not so common in the olden days as it is now. Very little of it
+was grown in our country; and so, as it had to be brought from the
+East Indies, Spain, and South America, it was pretty expensive.
+Grandfather told me once that when he was a boy people used brown
+sugar or maple-sugar to sweeten their food, and sometimes they even
+used cheap molasses. White sugar was looked upon as a great luxury."
+
+"I don't think I ever realized that before," said Van thoughtfully.
+
+"Why, even my father remembers when, as a little shaver, he used to
+have white sugar spread on his bread for a treat."
+
+"Seems queer, doesn't it?" Van mused.
+
+"Yes. But it isn't so queer when you consider that all the sugar-cane
+now growing in America first had to be brought to the West Indies
+from Spain, the Canary Islands, or Madeira and then transplanted
+along the Mississippi delta. Dad says that originally sugar-cane came
+from Africa or India and that doubtless it was the Crusaders who
+introduced it into Europe."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that people never knew about sugar until
+then?" inquired Van incredulously, halting in the middle of the
+road.
+
+"The Chinese were practically the only people who did, and they did
+not use it at all as we do; they just sweetened things with the thin
+sap."
+
+Van regarded his chum steadily for a moment.
+
+"Say," he demanded at last, "how did you come to know so much,
+Bobbie?"
+
+"What? Oh, about sugar? I don't know much. I just happen to remember
+a few scraps Father has told me from time to time. He's in the sugar
+business, you know."
+
+"Really? No, I didn't know. You never said anything about it. Cane-sugar?"
+
+"Yes." Bob watched Van curiously.
+
+"That's odd."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh, because my father is in the sugar business too. Don't you
+recall my telling your father so? Yes, my dad makes beet sugar."
+
+"Then that's how my father happened to know your father!" exclaimed
+Bob quickly. "I suppose they're business friends. I've been
+wondering why Father kept watching you. Probably he sees in you some
+resemblance to your father. Do you look like him?"
+
+"I hardly know. Some people think I do. My mother says so," was
+Van's indifferent response. "But say, tell me more about sugar.
+You'd think with my father right in the business I'd know something
+about it; but I don't. Do they get sugar from anything beside beets,
+and sugar-cane, and maple sap?"
+
+"Oh, my, yes. There's sugar in ever so many other things: in grapes,
+and milk, and the date palm, and in maize; but it is from the beet
+and cane that the most sugar can be extracted."
+
+Van nodded.
+
+"You're quite a lecturer, Bobbie," he said. "Wait until I get back
+home and astonish my father with all this knowledge. I'll make his
+eyes stick out."
+
+Van broke into hearty laughter at the thought. Then, as he started
+to walk on he gave a shout of dismay.
+
+"Hold onto me, Bob," he cried. "I can't move. While I've been
+standing here listening to your words of wisdom I've been sinking
+deeper and deeper into your old yellow mud until now I can't stir.
+I can't--upon my word. My feet are in perfectly solid. You can laugh
+if you want to, but you've just got to pull me out, that's all.
+Help! Help! To the rescue. I shall disappear in another minute.
+David will never see his rubber boots again."
+
+"Of course you can get your feet out," was Bob's scornful retort.
+
+"Cross my heart I can't. Honest, Bobbie," protested Van. "I've got
+into a quicksand or a quagmire or something. Look at me. I'm up to
+my knees now, and if you don't hurry you'll see nothing of me but my
+collar. I saved your life yesterday; you might do the same for me
+to-day."
+
+But Bob was too convulsed with amusement to offer aid; instead he
+stood on a large rock at the roadside and laughed immoderately.
+
+"Pull! Pull!" he cried to Van. "Why don't you pull?"
+
+"I am pulling," Van answered. "But it does no good. I can't budge my
+feet. I never saw such mud in all my life. It must be yards deep. It
+sucks my boots right off. You'll have to help me."
+
+"Not I! I know too well what would happen. It would be like
+Kipling's story of the Elephant's Child. Don't you remember, when
+the crocodile let go the nose of the little elephant how he suddenly
+sat down _plop_. I've no notion of being pulled into this mud
+hole when your rubber boots come to the surface. You'll have to get
+yourself out."
+
+"You old heathen! It is not a straight game to fit me out with a
+pair of hip rubber boots miles too large for me and then sit and
+howl when you see me losing my life in them. Well, you needn't come
+into the mire if you don't want to, but you can at least be
+gentleman enough to pass me the end of that pole that is lying
+beside you," said Van.
+
+"I'll do that."
+
+Bob picked up a long branch from the ground.
+
+"Here!" he cried. "Catch hold of this and pull."
+
+The two boys tugged at opposite ends of the stick.
+
+Then suddenly and quite without warning something happened.
+
+The dead wood parted and Bob hurtled backward off the rock where he
+had been standing and landed in a snow-drift; while Van, much to his
+astonishment, sat down with abruptness in the wettest of the mud.
+
+Two more chagrined boys could nowhere have been found.
+
+Bob was the first to get to his feet. Shaking the snow out of his
+hair and collar he called:
+
+"Get up, you--unless you want to be swallowed up for life. My eye,
+but you're a sight! If your mother could only see you now. Well,
+your feet are out, if you did have to get in all over to do it. Now
+step lively if you don't want to get stuck again. You are a peach,
+I must say!"
+
+Van took the banter good-naturedly.
+
+"That's what one might call being buried alive," he answered. "Lucky
+it wasn't you! I'm tall and could keep my head out; but the mire
+would long since have closed over an abbreviated person like
+yourself and you would have been seen no more."
+
+Bob winced. He was sensitive about his height.
+
+Clambering up on the rock beside his chum Van scooped up a handful
+of clean snow and with it washed his hands and face.
+
+"There!" he said at length. "I'm just as tidy as if it had not
+happened."
+
+"I can't exactly agree with you," replied Bob, "but I guess you'll
+have to do. Come on now. Goodness only knows where David and the
+sledge have got to by this time."
+
+They hurried up the hill.
+
+"There's David!" Van said, as they reached the crest of the rise.
+
+It was David sure enough; and standing beside him in his customary
+motionless attitude was the Admiral harnessed into a great sledge
+surmounted by a barrel into which David was pouring the sap as fast
+as he gathered it. At the moment the man was busy detaching one of
+the sap buckets from the trunk of a giant maple.
+
+The boys joined him.
+
+"What are you doing, Dave?" asked Van curiously.
+
+"Doing! Ain't you got eyes, young man? I certainly ain't writing a
+book or taking a wireless message," he answered without turning his
+head.
+
+"But straight, I mean it. What are you doing? You know this business
+is new to me," explained Van.
+
+"Haven't you ever seen maple-sugar made?" David's tone was full of
+surprise.
+
+"Never."
+
+"Well, bless my soul! Where was you raised?"
+
+"In Colorado."
+
+"Humph! That accounts for it. If you'd been brought up in the East
+you'd have known."
+
+"But I was raised in the East, David, and I've never seen maple-sugar
+made," piped Bob, instantly overthrowing the old farmer's philosophy.
+
+"You ain't never--you ain't seen maple-syrup or maple-sugar made,
+Mr. Bob?" queried David aghast.
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, what are we coming to?"
+
+The farmhand surveyed the boys disdainfully.
+
+"What you been doing with yourself all your days?" he gasped at
+last.
+
+"I've been going to school."
+
+"And they ain't taught you to make maple-sugar?  That's about all
+schooling is worth nowadays," he affirmed. "Now I warn't never
+inside a schoolhouse in my life, but I've known from the time I was
+knee-high to a grasshopper how to make maple-sugar. I made pounds of
+it before I was half the age of you two. The boys of this generation
+don't know nothin'!"
+
+He sniffed contemptuously.
+
+"Well, you may as well learn before you're a minute older," he
+continued. "Listen, now. Do you see the little hole in this maple?"
+He pointed up at the gray trunk above his head. "We make a little
+hole like that in every tree as soon as the sap begins to run in the
+early spring. Then we drive into the hole this small piece of hollow
+wood--it is like a trough, you see; and the sap runs through it
+into the buckets we hang beneath. All day and all night it drips in
+and each morning we go round and empty every pail into the cask we
+carry on the sledge. The sap, as you see, is thin, because only part
+of it is sugar; the rest is water. What we have to do is to boil
+down the liquid until the part that is water goes off in vapor and
+only the syrup is left. If we're after maple-syrup we let it cool
+when it gets thick and later bottle it; but if we want sugar we must
+boil the syrup still more until little crystals form in it."
+
+"How can you tell when it has been boiled enough?" questioned Van.
+
+"Oh, we've made it enough times to know," David replied. "Some folks
+stick a thermometer into it and figger how hot it will have to be;
+they say that's the best way. Others try the syrup in cold water or
+on snow like you would candy. Generally speaking, I can tell by the
+feel of it, and by the way it drips from the spoon. Sometimes,
+though, when I'm in doubt I try it on snow myself. If it gets kinder
+soft and waxy you can be sure it is getting done. If I was you
+instead of tracking round emptying buckets I'd go in the sugar-house
+and see 'em boiling the syrup. They started yesterday, and as I
+calculate it the mess ought to be pretty well along by now."
+
+"Bully idea, David! What do you say, Van?" asked Bob. "Shall we
+trail David or shall we go in and see the sugar made?"
+
+"Sugar! Sugar! Me for the sugar!" Van cried.
+
+"Sugar it is then!"
+
+Into the sugar-house they went.
+
+The small room was hot and steamy, and in the middle of it in a
+zinc-lined tank the foaming sap was boiling furiously. Beside it
+stood McMasters, Mr. Carlton's foreman, a thermometer in his hand.
+
+"Good-morning, Mr. Bob," he said. "So you are coming to cast an eye
+on the maple-sugar! Last week we made syrup and bottled it. Not a
+bad day's work, eh?"
+
+With no little pride he pointed to a row of neat bottles
+symmetrically arranged on a shelf. "We'll seal them to-morrow or
+next day and get the labels on, and then they will be ready to sell.
+But to-day it's sugar, so we have to keep the sap at a higher
+temperature."
+
+As he spoke he paused to test the bubbling liquid in the kettle.
+
+"If you lads want a treat take one of those wooden plates over there
+and fill it with snow; I'll spoon some of this hot sap over it, and
+you will have a feast for a king."
+
+The boys needed no urging. They took the plates, hurried out, and
+soon returned with them; over the heap of snow the foreman poured
+several heaping spoonfuls of hot syrup which, to their surprise,
+cooled in an incredibly short time and stiffened into a sticky mass
+that looked like candy.
+
+"Now get one of those wooden skewers from the shelf and use it as a
+fork," McMasters said.
+
+The boys caught the idea at once.
+
+They gathered the candied syrup up on the end of the sticks and
+thrust it into their mouths.
+
+"Why, it is just like toffy!" Van exclaimed.
+
+"It is a sight fresher than anything you could buy at the store,"
+observed the foreman.
+
+"I believe I've got to have some more, Mac," Bob said. "Somehow it
+melts away before you know you're eating it."
+
+He refilled his plate with fresh snow and held it out for a second
+helping of syrup.
+
+McMasters filled it good-naturedly.
+
+But when the plates were extended the fourth and fifth time the
+Scotchman demurred.
+
+"It is no stuff to make a meal of, Mr. Bob," protested he. "And at
+ten o'clock in the morning, too. I'll give you no more. It is too
+sweet. Next you know the two of you will be spending your vacation
+in bed and wondering what's the matter with you. Why, we'd have no
+sugar at all if you should stay here eating at this rate. If it's candy
+you're wantin', ask the cook to boil some maple-syrup until it is
+thick like molasses candy; then turn it out of the pan and when it
+is almost cool pull it until it turns white. You'll find it better
+than any candy you can buy. Try it."
+
+"We certainly will, Mac, and thanks for the suggestion," Bob
+replied.
+
+"And while you're at it you might hunt up some butternuts and stir
+them in; I'll recommend the result and will wager you'll think it as
+good as anything you ever ate."
+
+Once more he took the temperature of the steaming sap.
+
+"We're going to put some of the sugar in those tin pails and sell
+it," he continued. "Each pail holds ten pounds. And some we shall
+pour into those small tin moulds and make little scalloped cakes for
+our own use. I reckon you can have some of them to take back to
+college when you go. We'll certainly have a plenty to spare you
+some, for your father will make a handsome thing out of his sugar
+this year. I wouldn't wonder but you're being educated on maple-sugar
+money. You better make your bow of thanks to the trees as you go
+through the orchard," he added whimsically.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE REFINERY
+
+
+Vacation with its country sports came to an end only too quickly,
+and leaving the New Hampshire hills behind the Carlton family,
+together with Van Blake, set out for New York where the boys were to
+make a weekend visit before returning to Colversham.
+
+"I wish while we're in New York we could go through your refinery,
+Dad," Bob remarked to his father.
+
+Mr. Carlton glanced at him in surprise.
+
+"What set you thinking of that, Bob?" he asked. "You never were
+interested in sugar making before."
+
+"I know it, Father." Bob flushed guiltily. "I ought to have been.
+But since we have seen maple-sugar made Van and I thought it would
+be fun to see the process that white sugar has to go through before
+it is ready for the market."
+
+"Van thought so, did he?" queried Mr. Carlton.
+
+"Why, yes, he thought so. I believe, though, it was I who suggested
+it."
+
+"Humph!" murmured Mr. Carlton. He mused a moment. "I suppose it
+would do no harm," he said at last, half to himself.
+
+"Harm!"
+
+"No, no! Of course not," interrupted Mr. Carlton hurriedly. "The
+process is an open secret anyway, except perhaps--Oh, I guess it
+would be all right."
+
+Bob regarded his father with a puzzled stare.
+
+"I will arrange for you and Van to go through the works right away,"
+continued Mr. Carlton. "It simply will be necessary for me to
+telephone the superintendent and tell him you are coming so he will
+have some one on hand to explain things to you. This was your
+scheme, you say?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Why?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing," was Mr. Carlton's enigmatic reply.
+
+He was as good as his word, for despite his peculiar reluctance in
+the matter he lost no time in perfecting the plan, and the next
+morning after the party reached New York he informed the boys that
+the motor-car would be at the door at nine o'clock to take them to
+the refinery.
+
+Bob and Van, to whom New York was more or less of an old story,
+hailed this announcement with pleasure and promptly stowed
+themselves away in the big limousine which was to whirl them to Long
+Island where the works were located. All the way out Van was
+singularly silent, and appeared to be turning something over in his
+mind; once he started to speak, but checked himself abruptly.
+
+Bob watched him uneasily.
+
+"I believe you've lost your enthusiasm about sugar," said he at
+last, "and did not really want to come."
+
+"What a notion! Of course I wanted to come."
+
+"But you seem so glum, old man."
+
+"Glum! Nonsense! I never was in better spirits in my life."
+
+With a sudden shifting of the subject Van pointed to a stack of
+chimneys cleaving the sky and observed:
+
+"I wonder if those belong to your father's plant?"
+
+"I fancy they do," was Bob's quick answer. "Dad said we'd see a
+bunch of tall chimneys, and that the refinery was of yellow brick."
+
+"Then this is the place," Van declared, drumming on the window glass
+with forced gaiety.
+
+He did not, however, leap from the car with the spring of
+anticipation that Bob did, and noticing his spiritless step his
+friend once more remarked upon it.
+
+"You seem bored to death to have to drag yourself through here,
+Van," said he. "What's the matter? You know if you do not want to
+come you don't have to."
+
+"I do want to."
+
+"But somehow you seem so-so--"
+
+"So _what?_"
+
+"Why, you seem to hang back as if you could hardly put one foot
+before the other," answered Bob. "Don't you feel well?"
+
+"Prime! There's nothing the matter with me. What put that idea into
+your head?"
+
+"Chiefly you yourself."
+
+"Well, cut it out. I don't see what you're fussing about me for. I'm
+just as anxious to see how sugar is made as you are."
+
+Still Bob was unconvinced. He could not have explained why, but he
+felt certain that Van's enthusiasm was feigned. For a second he
+paused undecidedly on the pavement before the door of the great
+factory; then shrugging his shoulders he entered, followed closely
+by his chum.
+
+It was evident that they were expected, for a clerk rose from his
+desk and came forward to greet them.
+
+"Mr. Hennessey, the superintendent, said I was to bring you to his
+office when you arrived," he said.
+
+"Thank you."
+
+"You are Mr. Carlton's son, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I thought you must be. Mr. Hennessey himself is going to take you
+through the works."
+
+The clerk led the way to the door of a private office, where he
+knocked.
+
+"Mr. Carlton and his friend are here," he announced to the boy who
+opened the door. "Tell Mr. Hennessey right away."
+
+The boys had not a moment to wait before a large man with a genial
+face and outstretched hand came forward.
+
+"I'm glad to see you, Mr. Carlton," he said. "I'm Hennessey, the
+superintendent. Possibly you may have heard your father speak of me;
+I have been helping him make sugar for twenty years."
+
+Bob smiled up into the eyes of the big man looking down at him.
+
+"Indeed Dad has spoken of you, Mr. Hennessey," he said, returning
+the hearty hand-shake. "He depends on you a lot. He says he always
+feels sure that when you're on the job everything will be all
+right."
+
+Mr. Hennessey flushed with pleasure.
+
+"I merely try to run your father's place as if it were my own," was
+the modest rejoinder.
+
+"That's just it--that's why Father feels he can go to the North Pole
+if he wants to and not worry while he's gone," nodded Bob. "I think
+it is mighty good of you to bother with my chum and me. Can't you
+send some one to take us through the refinery? There is not the
+slightest need for you to go with us yourself."
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't think of turning you over to some one else. You see
+I am interested in your sugar education; I can't allow the boss's
+son to get a wrong start in the business," laughed Mr. Hennessey.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm not starting in the business," protested Bob,
+shaking his head deprecatingly. "I'm only trying to learn a little
+something about Dad's job, so I can be a bit more intelligent about
+it."
+
+"You're going to investigate the way your father earns his money,
+eh?" chuckled the superintendent. "Well, I'll tell you right now you
+need do no blushing for your father's business methods; he makes his
+fortune as cleanly and honestly as any man could make it."
+
+"I'll take a chance on Dad," was the laconic response.
+
+"You can do so with safety."
+
+There was a pause and turning Bob introduced Van Blake.
+
+Then after the two boys had been provided with duck coats so that
+none of the sticky liquid that sometimes dripped from the machinery
+should spot their clothing the three set out for the basement of the
+factory, where the incoming cargoes of sugar were unloaded. Here
+great bags or casks of raw sugar were being opened, and their
+contents emptied into wooden troughs preparatory to cleansing and
+refining.
+
+Both lads regarded with surprise the material that was being tipped
+out into the bins.
+
+"Why, it looks like nothing but coarse, muddy snow!" ejaculated Van.
+"Do you really mean to tell us that you can make that brown stuff
+white, Mr. Hennessey?"
+
+"That's what we're here for," answered Mr. Hennessey, obviously
+enjoying his amazement. "All raw sugar comes to us this way. You
+see, it is about the color of maple or brown sugar, but it is not
+nearly so pure, for it has a great deal of dirt mixed with it when
+we first get it."
+
+"Where does it come from?" inquired Bob.
+
+"Largely from the plantations of Cuba and Porto Rico. Toward the end
+of the year we also get raw sugar from Java, and by the time this is
+refined and ready for the market the new crop from the West Indies
+comes along. In addition to this we get consignments from the
+Philippine Islands, the Hawaiian Islands, South America, Formosa,
+and Egypt. I suppose it is quite unnecessary to tell you young men
+anything of how the cane is grown; of course you know all that."
+
+"I don't believe we do, except in a general way," Bob admitted
+honestly. "I am ashamed to be so green about a thing at which Dad
+has been working for years. I don't know why I never asked about it
+before. I guess I never was interested. I simply took it for
+granted."
+
+"That's the way with most of us," was the superintendent's kindly
+answer. "We accept many things in the world without actually knowing
+much about them, and it is not until something brings our ignorance
+before us that we take the pains to focus our attention and learn
+about them. So do not be ashamed that you do not know about sugar
+raising; I didn't when I was your age. Suppose, then, I give you a
+little idea of what happens before this raw sugar can come to us."
+
+"I wish you would," exclaimed both boys in a breath.
+
+"Probably in your school geographies you have seen pictures of
+sugar-cane and know that it is a tall perennial not unlike our
+Indian corn in appearance; it has broad, flat leaves that sometimes
+measure as many as three feet in length, and often the stalk itself
+is twenty feet high. This stalk is jointed like a bamboo pole, the
+joints being about three inches apart near the roots and increasing
+in distance the higher one gets from the ground."
+
+"How do they plant it?" Bob asked.
+
+"It can be planted from seed, but this method takes much time and
+patience; the usual way is to plant it from cuttings, or slips. The
+first growth from these cuttings is called plant cane; after these
+are taken off the roots send out ratoons or shoots from which the
+crop of one or two years, and sometimes longer, is taken. If the
+soil is not rich and moist replanting is more frequently necessary
+and in places like Louisiana, where there is annual frost, planting
+must be done each year. When the cane is ripe it is cut and brought
+from the field to a central sugar mill, where heavy iron rollers
+crush from it all the juice. This liquid drips through into troughs
+from which it is carried to evaporators where the water portion of
+the sap is eliminated and the juice left; you would be surprised if
+you were to see this liquid. It looks like nothing so much as the
+soapy, bluish-gray dish-water that is left in the pan after the
+dishes have been washed."
+
+"A tempting picture!" Van exclaimed.
+
+"I know it. Sugar isn't very attractive during its process of
+preparation," agreed Mr. Hennessey. "The sweet liquid left after the
+water has been extracted is then poured into vacuum pans to be
+boiled until the crystals form in it, after which it is put into
+whirling machines, called centrifugal machines, that separate the
+dry sugar from the syrup with which it is mixed. This syrup is later
+boiled into molasses. The sugar is then dried and packed in these
+burlap sacks such as you see here, or in hogsheads, and shipped to
+refineries to be cleansed and whitened."
+
+"Isn't any of the sugar refined in the places where it grows?"
+queried Bob.
+
+"Practically none. Large refining plants are too expensive to be
+erected everywhere; it therefore seems better that they should be
+built in our large cities, where the shipping facilities are good
+not only for receiving sugar in its raw state but for distributing
+it after it has been refined and is ready for sale. Here, too,
+machinery can more easily be bought and the business handled with
+less difficulty."
+
+"You spoke of a central sugar mill," began Bob.
+
+"Yes. Each plantation does not have a mill of its own or, indeed,
+need one. Frequently a planter will raise too small a crop to pay
+him to operate a mill; so a mill is constructed in the center of a
+sugar district, and to this growers may carry their wares and be
+paid in bulk. It saves much trouble and expense. It also encourages
+small growers who could not afford to build mills and might in
+consequence abandon sugar raising. The leaves are all stripped off
+before the cane is shipped so that nothing but the stalks are sent.
+As the largest portion of sugar is in the part of the cane nearest
+the ground it is cut as close to the root as possible. After the
+juice has been crushed from the stalks by putting them several times
+through the rollers the cane, or _begass_, as it is called, is
+so dry that it can be used as fuel for running the mill machinery."
+
+"How clever!"
+
+"Clever and economical as well," agreed Mr. Hennessey. "Moreover, it
+does away with a waste product that otherwise would accumulate."
+
+Bob nodded.
+
+"Raw sugar has usually been shipped to the northern refineries by
+water, as that mode of transportation is cheaper; but during the
+Great War ships have been so scarce that in 1916 a large consignment
+of Hawaiian sugar was for the first time sent overland across the
+American continent by train; this of course made the freight rates
+higher, and if such a condition were to continue the price of sugar
+would of necessity have to be advanced."
+
+"I never thought of such things affecting us," murmured Van.
+
+"We live in a network of interdependence," Mr. Hennessey replied.
+"Scarcely anything can be done in any land that does not affect us.
+Commercial conditions react upon us all, for there is not one of us
+who is not indebted to the four corners of the globe for what he
+eats, wears, and uses. Therefore, you see, world prosperity and
+comfort can be at their height only when there is world peace under
+which all nations are friends, maintaining cordial trade relation
+with one another."
+
+"What political party do you belong to, Mr. Hennessey?" asked Bob,
+glancing into the superintendent's earnest face.
+
+"I do not know just what label you would put on me," the big man
+replied evasively. "But this I do know: first, last, and all the
+time I am for a universe where each country shall work for the good
+of the whole."
+
+He spoke slowly and with impressiveness; then breaking off abruptly
+he led the way up a winding iron staircase and the boys, still
+pondering his words, followed him silently and thoughtfully.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+VAN SPRINGS A SURPRISE
+
+
+The room into which they emerged was at the top of the factory, and
+it was here in great vats that the dry sugar was melted.
+
+"We often melt down as many as two million pounds of raw sugar a
+day," said Mr. Hennessey. "The United States, you know, is the
+greatest sugar consuming nation in the world. No other country
+devours so much of it. One reason is because here even the poorer
+classes have money enough so they can afford sugar for household
+use; in many countries this is not the case. Only the well-to-do
+take sugar in tea or coffee and have it for common use. Our
+Americans also eat quantities of candy. At the present time children
+eat three times as many sweets as did their parents, and the amount
+is constantly increasing. Doctors tell us sugar is one of the fuels
+necessary to the human system; it generates both heat and energy.
+Possibly it is because our people work so hard and are driven at
+such high nervous tension that they demand so much of this sort of
+food."
+
+"I never knew before that candy was good for us," ejaculated Bob in
+surprise.
+
+"Oh, bless you, yes! But you must take it in moderation if you wish
+to benefit from it and escape illness. Used intelligently sugar is
+an excellent food, but of course you must prescribe it for yourself
+in the proper proportions," laughed Mr. Hennessey. "We all
+constantly take more or less sugar into our systems through the
+ordinary foods we eat. But here in America over and above this each
+individual annually averages about eighty pounds of sugar. You will
+agree that that is a good deal."
+
+"I should think so! Why, that is a tremendous amount!" Van declared.
+
+"It seems so when you see it in figures, doesn't it?" returned the
+superintendent. "Next to the United States in sugar consumption
+comes England, the reason for this being that the English
+manufacture such vast amounts of jam for the market. England is a
+great fruit growing country, you must remember. The damp, moderate
+climate results in wonderful strawberries, gooseberries, plums, and
+other small fruits. With these products cheap, fine, and plenty, the
+English have taken up fruit canning as one of their industries, and
+they turn out some of the best jams and marmalades that are made."
+
+The boys listened intently.
+
+"The Germans and the French are much more frugal than we Americans,"
+went on Mr. Hennessey. "Sugar is not so common in their countries.
+Often when in Germany you will notice people in the restaurants and
+cafés who carry away in their pockets the loaf sugar which has been
+allotted them and which they have not had occasion to use. It is a
+common occurrence, and considered quite proper, although it looks
+strange to us. Doubtless, too, if you have traveled abroad you have
+discovered how few candy shops there are. Foreigners regard the
+wholesale fashion in which we devour sweets with wonder and often
+with disgust. They consider it a form of self-indulgence, and indeed
+I myself think we are at times a bit immoderate."
+
+"My father says we are an immoderate people," Van put in.
+
+"I am afraid he is right," nodded Mr. Hennessey. "We seem to proceed
+on the principle that if a thing is good we must have a great deal
+of it. However, the vice--if vice it be--is good for the sugar
+business."
+
+He paused a moment and stood looking down into the great foaming
+vats before him.
+
+"You can't see the steam coils that are melting this raw sugar," he
+remarked. "They go round the inside of the tanks. But after the
+liquid is drawn off you can see them. When first melted the sugar is
+far from pure; you would be astonished at the amount of dirt mixed
+with it. Many of these impurities boil up to the surface and over
+and over again we skim them off. But even after that we have to wash
+the sugar by various processes. After it has been separated,
+clarified, and filtered it comes out a clear white liquid, and is
+ready for the vacuum pans, where the water is evaporated and the
+sugar crystallized."
+
+"How do you get the liquid clear?" asked Bob.
+
+"After it has been skimmed as carefully as possible we first settle
+it through the agency of chemicals," answered Mr. Hennessey. "We use
+milk of lime as a foundation, but we put other things with it. Our
+exact formula is a secret, but since you are in the family I guess
+there would be no objection to my telling you that we use---"
+
+"Don't tell us! Don't tell us!" cried Van suddenly. "I don't want to
+know. I'd rather not. I mustn't listen."
+
+Covering his ears the boy turned away.
+
+His companions regarded him with amazement.
+
+"Don't tell me, Mr. Hennessey," he pleaded. "Don't tell me anything
+that is secret. I can't listen. It wouldn't be right."
+
+It was evident both to the superintendent and to Bob that his
+distress was real, and although neither of them understood it Mr.
+Hennessey cut short his explanation.
+
+Try as they would the strange interruption left a jarring note
+behind it, and to ease the tenseness the older man stepped forward
+and, taking from a rack near by one of several glass tubes filled
+with yellow liquid, held it up to the light.
+
+"You see much must still be done to this stuff before it comes out
+white," he said. "We squeeze the liquid through a series of filter
+bags and also send it through other filters filled with black bone
+coal."
+
+"What is black bone coal?" Bob demanded.
+
+"Bone coal is a product made by burning and pulverizing the large
+bones left at the abbatoirs until a coarse-grained black powder not
+unlike emery sand is made; if this is not allowed to become too fine
+with using it is an excellent sugar filter. In fact, strangely
+enough, nothing has ever been found to take its place, and it has
+become a necessary but expensive agency employed in every sugar
+refinery. Quantities of it are used; in our refinery alone we have
+about a hundred bone coal filters and each one holds thirty tons of
+black bone coal. That will give you some idea how much of it is
+needed. We get nothing back on it, either, for in the process of
+using it becomes finer, and after that it is good for nothing
+unless, perhaps, to be made into cheap shoe-dressing. Unlike many of
+the other industries sugar refining has no by-products; by that I
+mean nothing on which the manufacturer may recover money. On the
+contrary in the leather business, for example, almost every scrap of
+material can either be utilized or sold for cash; odds and ends of
+the hides go into glue stock, small bits of leather are made into
+heel-taps or hardware fittings. But in refining cane-sugar there is
+nothing to be turned back into money to reimburse the manufacturer
+for his outlay. What isn't sugar is dead loss."
+
+The three now moved on and saw how the heated juice traveled by
+means of pipes from one vat to another, and how it constantly became
+thicker and clearer.
+
+"One of the greatest dangers to successful sugar making is
+fermentation," observed Mr. Hennessey. "Sugar must continually be
+stirred by revolving paddles to keep it from fermenting; we also are
+obliged to take the greatest care that our vats and all other
+receptacles are clean, and that the plant is immaculate. Frequently
+we wash down all the walls with a solution of lime in order that the
+entire interior of the refinery may be quite fresh."
+
+"I didn't dream it was so much work to make white sugar," ventured
+Bob, a little awed. "Our maple-sugar making was much simpler."
+
+"I'll venture to say it was," agreed Mr. Hennessey. "In the first
+place, you did not make such a quantity of it; then you did not try
+to get it white. Furthermore, you were content to take it in cakes.
+Making cane-sugar is, however, easy enough if one is careful and
+knows the exact way to do it. There is plenty of opportunity to
+spoil it--I'll admit that; but it is seldom that a batch of our
+sugar goes back on us. We have fine chemists who watch every step of
+the process and who constantly test samples of the liquid at every
+stage into which it passes until it comes out water-white."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then follows crystallization, and this too requires skilled workmen
+and extreme care. The water is evaporated and the sugar crystallized
+in the vacuum pans, the size crystal depending upon the temperature
+at which the liquid is boiled. It takes a lower temperature to form
+a small crystal and a higher one to form a large crystal. An expert
+who takes the temperature of the boiling sugar regulates what we
+call fine-grain or coarse-grain sugar by regulating the size of the
+crystals. By drawing off some of the liquid and examining it on a
+glass slide by electric light he can tell the precise moment at
+which the crystals are the right size. Each size has a name by which
+it is known in the trade: Diamond A; Fine Granulated; Coarse
+Granulated; Crystal Domino; Confectioners' A and so on."
+
+They were walking as Mr. Hennessey talked. "After the sugar has been
+crystallized in the pans it passes into a mixer, where it is stirred
+and kept from caking until it is put into the centrifugal machines,
+which actually spin off the crystals. These machines are lined with
+gauze, and as they whirl at tremendous velocity they force out
+through this gauze the liquid part of the sugar and leave the sugar
+crystals inside the machine. When these are quite dry the bottom of
+the receptacle opens, and the granular sugar is dropped through into
+a large bin."
+
+"But I should think it would stick together," objected Van.
+
+"That's an intelligent objection, my boy," declared Mr. Hennessey,
+much pleased at Van's grasp of the subject. "It would stick if it
+were not dried off by a degree of heat just right to keep the
+particles separate and not allow them to cake. After this any dust
+or dirt adhering to the sugar is blown off by an air blast. The
+product is then ready to be pressed into moulds or cut; boxed in
+small packages of varying weights; or put into bags or barrels."
+
+Mr. Hennessey led the way to another floor of the refinery.
+
+[Illustration: "I SHOULD THINK IT WOULD STICK TOGETHER."]
+
+Here were automatic machines upon which empty boxes traveled along
+until they reached a device that filled each one with the exact
+number of pounds to be contained in it, the package afterward passed
+to women who sealed it tightly and gave it the final touch before it
+was shipped. Other women were packing loaf or domino sugar, while
+down-stairs in a cooper shop men moved about constructing with great
+rapidity the barrels that were to carry larger quantities of sugar
+to the wholesale and retail stores.
+
+"I guess by this time you've had all the sugar-making you want for
+one day," declared the superintendent. "I'm afraid I've given you
+quite a stiff lesson. You see I am so interested in it myself that
+I forget to have mercy on my listeners."
+
+He smiled down at the boys.
+
+"I'm sure we have had a fine morning with you, Mr. Hennessey, and we
+certainly have learned a lot," Bob said, putting out his hand. "I
+can't swear, though, that we could make white sugar even now."
+
+"Faith, I'd be sorry if I thought I could teach any one the whole
+process in three hours. It would make my twenty years of study and
+hard work brand me as pretty stupid," chuckled the big
+superintendent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A FAMILY TANGLE
+
+
+It was not until the boys were in the motor-car and returning home
+that Bob ventured to mention to Van his strange behavior of the
+morning.
+
+"What on earth was the matter with you, Van?" he asked.
+
+Van stirred uneasily.
+
+"Bobbie," he said, "I'm going to tell you something. I've been
+wondering whether I'd better or not, and at last I've decided to. I
+didn't want to go to your father's refinery to-day or, in fact, at
+all. You've all been very kind to me, although it was not until I
+got a letter from my father this morning that I realized how kind."
+
+He paused.
+
+"Has your dad told you anything about my people?" he asked abruptly.
+"Of course he knows, but he may have thought best to keep it to
+himself; at any rate it has not prevented him from giving me as
+cordial a welcome to your home as he would if--"
+
+"If what?"
+
+"Well, if I weren't the person I am."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, he's trusted me and treated me as if he really liked me; and
+yet under the circumstances you can't expect him actually to mean
+it."
+
+"Mean what? What are you talking about?"
+
+"Hasn't he spoken to you about my father?"
+
+"Of course not; why should he?"
+
+"Then you haven't heard anything?"
+
+"Not a word. I don't understand what you are driving at at all," Bob
+declared, somewhat irritated. "Out with it. What's the matter?"
+
+Van hesitated as if uncertain how to begin.
+
+"That's mighty white of your father," he murmured, breaking the
+pause. "You see, it is this way. When I wrote home that I was going
+to New Hampshire to visit my roommate the family wrote me to go
+ahead. I recall now that I didn't mention your last name; in fact I
+guess I haven't in any of my letters. When I did happen to write
+(which wasn't often) I've always spoken of you as _Bob_. So
+when I got to Allenville I dropped a line to Father to say I'd
+arrived safely and in the note I put something about Mr. Carlton.
+Father lit on it right away; he wished to know who these Carltons
+were. I replied they were Mr. and Mrs. Carlton, of course--the
+parents of my roommate. Upon that I got another letter from home in
+which Father inquired if your father was in the sugar business, and
+said that years ago he used to have a partner named James Carlton,
+who started in the sugar trade with him and with whom he later
+quarreled. He supposed this could not be the same person, but he
+just wondered if by any chance it was."
+
+Van stopped.
+
+"Was that all he said?"
+
+"No, but I don't like to tell you the rest, Bobbie."
+
+"Fire away--unless it is something about Dad," Bob replied. "If it
+is I shan't listen, or at least I shan't believe it."
+
+"It isn't exactly against your father. I do not understand it very
+well myself. My father just said that if your father was Mr. James
+Carlton and he was in the sugar business he felt that because of
+family misunderstandings it would be better if I did not visit here
+again. He was very sorry I had done it this time, but of course that
+could not be helped now."
+
+"You don't mean to say he wants you to break off your friendship
+with me?" Bob gasped tremulously.
+
+"No, he didn't seem to be opposed to you; he just was hot at your
+dad. He added that he didn't believe your family could have known
+who I was when they asked me here, and I am afraid that's true,
+Bobbie."
+
+"Why, of course they knew! Haven't I spoken of you over and over
+again?" Bob protested indignantly.
+
+Van shook his head.
+
+"They knew I was your chum all right, Bob; but so far as details
+were concerned your family did not know much more about me than mine
+knew about you. Don't you recall how, when I arrived at Allenville,
+your father asked if I was one of the _Sugar Blakes_--Asa
+Blake's son?"
+
+"Yes, I do remember that now, but--"
+
+"That, you will recollect, was after I was landed at Allenville and
+your guest. Your father didn't know until that moment who I was, and
+when he found out he was too decent to say anything, or make it
+evident he didn't want me in the house. What could he do?"
+
+"But--but--"
+
+Bob broke off from sheer inability to continue. He was much too
+bewildered.
+
+"Your father sensed the awkwardness of the situation at once. Here
+you had gone to school and as ill luck would have it you had picked
+from out the entire bunch of boys the son of his worst enemy for a
+chum. Neither your father nor mine realized the truth until you
+innocently carted me home with you for a holiday visit. When your
+father found out the fact he was too polite to turn me out-of-doors;
+he just acted the gentleman and made the best of a bad dilemma,"
+explained Van with appalling convincingness. "He even had the
+goodness to save my life the day we got lost on one of your New
+Hampshire mountains. He didn't tell you any of this because he
+didn't want to spoil your pleasure; but I am certain that if he had
+known who I was before I came he would not have allowed you to ask
+me into your home."
+
+"Nonsense! You are way off. Why, he's been as interested in having
+you with us as I have; at least he has acted so."
+
+"_Acted_ is just the word," Van cut in. "He has acted, all
+right. I guess you'll find he's been acting all the time. Honor
+bright, hasn't he said anything to you about me?"
+
+"No, not one word." Then suddenly Bob flushed; the memory of his
+father's strange conversation about the boy's visit to the refinery
+rushed over him. "Dad did say one thing which I did not understand
+at the time," he confessed reluctantly. "Perhaps, though, he did not
+mean anything by it."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+Bob struggled to evade the issue.
+
+"Oh, it was nothing much."
+
+"Come, Bobbie, you and I are friends," interrupted Van, "and we want
+to keep on being friends no matter how our fathers feel toward one
+another. If they have quarreled it is a great pity, but at least we
+needn't. The only way to straighten out this tangle is to be honest
+with each other and get at the truth; then, and not until then shall
+we know where we stand."
+
+"You're a brick, Van!"
+
+"Come ahead then--let's have it. What was it your father said?"
+
+"He merely asked whether it was your plan or mine to visit the
+refinery, and when I told him I suggested it he inquired all over
+again if I was sure you did not mention it first," Bob returned in
+very low tone. The words seemed wrung from him, and he colored as he
+repeated them.
+
+"Was that all?"
+
+"Not quite. After I had convinced him that the trip was my own idea
+he said: '_Well, well--it can do no harm; the process is an open
+secret, anyway._'"
+
+"You see I was right in my guess as to his feelings, Bobbie."
+
+"Maybe."
+
+"Of course I was; this proves it."
+
+"I'm afraid so," whispered Bob miserably.
+
+"Now all this may explain to you why I was so queer when we were at
+the refinery this morning," Van continued, once more reverting to
+the subject. "Do you understand it any better?"
+
+"I can see you didn't want Mr. Hennessey to tell you much about his
+processes."
+
+"You bet I didn't. I was in an awful hole. I got that letter from my
+father just before we left the house, and I was all upset over it.
+I didn't know what to do. It was bad enough to be visiting you without
+being shown all through your father's business plant as if I were an
+honored guest. It didn't seem as if I ought to go at all. If your
+father knew who I was he certainly couldn't want me to; and if he
+didn't it was worse yet. At first I thought the only honorable thing
+was to go straight to him and have it out; but I found I hadn't the
+nerve. Then I thought I'd ride with you to the factory and not go
+in. What I dreaded was that we might run into something that I
+should have no right to see, and that was precisely what happened."
+
+"So that was the reason you stopped Mr. Hennessey when he started to
+tell us the chemical formula?"
+
+"Yes. He said it was a secret, and it seemed to me it would be wrong
+for me to listen. If I didn't know what that formula was I certainly
+couldn't tell it, and ignorance might help me out of an awkward
+position if any one should try to persuade me to."
+
+"You are a trump, old man."
+
+"It was only the square thing toward your father; he has been
+straight with me and I want to show him that I can be a gentleman,
+too."
+
+The boys were silent for an interval; then Bob said:
+
+"Now about this snarl, Van--what are we going to do? Certainly we
+fellows are not going to let this feud of our fathers affect us."
+
+"Not by a jugful!" retorted Van with spirit. "The thing for us to do
+is to go right on being friends as if nothing had happened. It will
+make it all the easier that your father knows just who I am, and my
+father knows exactly who you are; it is franker and more in the open
+to have it so. If worse comes to worse we can talk the whole thing
+out with our families, and tell them how we feel. I am sure both
+your father and mine are too big to spoil a friendship like ours
+because of some fuss they had years and years ago. No, sir! I'm
+going to hold on to you, Bobbie, and," he added shyly, "I'm going to
+hold on to your father, too, if he'll let me, for I like him."
+
+"I'm glad you like Dad," Bob said, flushing with pleasure. "I do
+myself."
+
+"My dad isn't so bad, either," Van ventured with a dry little smile.
+"Some time you shall see for yourself."
+
+"I hope so."
+
+"Then it is agreed that we'll stick together, no matter what
+happens," said Van solemnly.
+
+"Sure thing!"
+
+"Promise."
+
+"You may bank on me," was Bob's earnest answer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+MR. CARLTON MAKES A WAGER AND WINS
+
+
+As the boys sat at dinner that evening Mr. Carlton inquired about
+their trip to the refinery, and with a humorous twinkle in his eye
+added:
+
+"I do not suppose you would care to put in another day on factory
+visiting, would you?"
+
+"What do you mean, Dad?" asked Bob.
+
+"I was wondering whether you would like to see where some of our
+sugar goes," was his father's answer. "Would you be interested to
+take a tour through the Eureka Candy Factory to-morrow and learn how
+candy is made?"
+
+"I should," responded Bob promptly.
+
+"And you, Van?" demanded Mr. Carlton with a kindly smile.
+
+"I'd like it of all things," said Van, returning the smile frankly.
+
+"Very well. You shall spend to-morrow at the Eureka Company's
+factory. They are big customers of ours and when I telephoned them
+today they told me they would be glad to have you come, and promised
+to show you all about."
+
+"Are you sure they would want me to come, Mr. Carlton?" asked Van,
+looking squarely into the eyes of the older man.
+
+"Why not? You're a chum of Bob's, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes. But, you see, that isn't all."
+
+With one searching glance Mr. Carlton scanned the lad's face.
+
+"No, Van," he replied with quiet emphasis, "that is not all. You are
+more than Bob's chum--you are a friend of mine, too."
+
+The boy flushed.
+
+"I'd like to think so, Mr. Carlton."
+
+"I want you to know so, Van. I happened to see Mr. Hennessey," he
+went on in a lower tone, "and he related to me that incident at the
+factory. Of course he did not understand it, but I did--instantly.
+I appreciated your sense of honor, my boy."
+
+"I wanted to be square."
+
+"You were a gentleman in the very best sense of the word."
+
+A great gladness glowed in Van's eyes, for terse as was the phrase
+it bore to him the very recognition he had coveted from Bob's
+father. Mr. Carlton, however, did not enlarge upon the subject, but
+casting it swiftly into the background asked:
+
+"Are you sure you both would rather spend your last morning in New
+York going through a candy factory than doing anything else?
+Factories are tiresome places, you must remember."
+
+"But a candy factory could never be tiresome!" asserted Bob.
+
+His father laughed.
+
+"There are just as many miles in a candy factory as any other," he
+replied. "Any of the men who work there would tell you that, I
+fancy."
+
+"But they are such nice miles!" argued Bob. "Don't you say we go,
+Van?"
+
+"I sure do. I want to see how they dip chocolates," Van answered.
+
+"It's all aboard to-morrow morning, then," Mr. Carlton said as he
+lit his after-dinner cigar.
+
+"There's one thing, Dad, that it's only fair to warn you about,"
+called Bob, turning on the lowest step of the stairway to address
+his father. "Our expedition may cost you something. You see they
+probably won't let us eat any candy at the factory; we'll just have
+to walk round with our eyes open and our hands crammed into our
+pockets to keep from swiping it. All the time we'll be getting up a
+tremendous candy appetite, and the minute we get outside we'll just
+have to make a bee-line for the first candy shop in sight and get
+filled up. So you must be prepared to cash in for refreshments."
+
+The corners of Mr. Carlton's mouth twisted into an enigmatic smile.
+
+"I'll agree to pay for as much candy as you care to eat," he said,
+accepting the challenge without objection.
+
+Bob stared at him.
+
+"Do you mean it?"
+
+"Certainly. Why do you question it?"
+
+"But"--faltered Bob in amazement, "you never promised anything like
+that before."
+
+"I may never promise it again, so make the most of it," was the dry
+retort.
+
+Although Bob did not reply he by no means forgot the unprecedented
+offer, and that the memory of it might be equally fresh in his
+father's mind he spoke of it once again when the three parted the
+next morning.
+
+"Well, Dad, we're off for the Bonbon World," he called as he passed
+the library door where his father sat looking over the morning's
+mail. "Remember you are going to O.K. any candy bills we run up."
+
+"I'm backing you for all you can eat," nodded Mr. Carlton.
+
+"Dad sure is game!" Bob declared as he and Van stepped into the
+waiting motor-car and began their ride to the factory. "He'll play
+it out, too. He never goes back on his word."
+
+"I'm afraid he'll be in for something then," grinned Van.
+
+Both boys were more than ever convinced of the truth of this remark
+when they entered the factory and were greeted by the mingled aroma
+of chocolate, wintergreen and molasses.
+
+"I could eat ten pounds of chocolates this minute!" exclaimed Van.
+
+"Go easy. Remember, we've got to wait until we have made the entire
+tour of this factory before we can have so much as a single caramel.
+You mustn't go getting up your appetite so soon."
+
+"But smell it, Bobbie! Why, the whole place is one mellifluous
+smudge. What do you say we chuck Colversham and get a job here?
+Think of having pounds of candy--tons of it--around all the time!
+Wouldn't it be a snap!"
+
+Van was cut short in his rhapsody by the approach of a pleasant
+faced lad of about his own age who was dressed from head to foot in
+white and wore a little white cap, across the front of which was
+printed in gold letters the word _Eureka_.
+
+"Are you Mr. Carlton?" he inquired of Van.
+
+"I'm not, but my chum is."
+
+"We were expecting you," the boy answered, turning to Bob. "I am to
+show you and your friend through the works. Will you kindly step
+this way?"
+
+Tagging at the heels of their white-robed guide Bob and Van made
+their way through a large storeroom stacked to the ceiling with
+fancy boxes of various sizes, shapes, and colors.
+
+"Give up Colversham, Bob, and maybe you could come here and wear a
+white suit every day and personally conduct visitors through the
+works; perhaps they'd even pay you in bonbons," whispered Van.
+
+"He must be about our age," returned Bob. "I wonder what they pay
+him."
+
+"I'd lots rather have had a man take us round," said Van softly. "Do
+you suppose this fellow knows anything?"
+
+All the way up in the elevator the two visitors watched the white-suited
+boy curiously and when they alighted in the large, sun-flooded room
+at the top of the factory they were still speculating as to his age
+and how much he earned, and marveling that so young a representative
+should have been selected to explain to them the candy industry.
+
+The room they entered was high and airy and at the further end of
+it, moving amid steam that rose from a score of copper kettles, a
+great many men in spotless white were hurrying about.
+
+"It is here that we start our candy making," said the boy who was
+showing Bob about. "Into those copper kettles we put our mixture of
+confectioners' sugar--confectioners' A, we call it--and corn syrup;
+this combination forms the basis of almost every variety of candy
+made. The kettles, as you will see, are heated by gas, which gives
+a steady flame, and at the side of each one we have a thermometer by
+which we can tell the exact temperature of the mixture. There is
+also a glass disc set in the side of every kettle to enable us to
+watch the boiling. The sugar and corn syrup are melted together and
+cooked at the temperature which after repeated experiments has
+proved the most successful for our purpose--one that will neither
+burn nor stick, or make the cooled fondant too thin to keep its
+shape."
+
+The boy spoke in the slow, measured tones of one who had told the
+tale many times before and was quite accustomed to his task.
+
+Bob glanced at Van.
+
+Their respect for the lad was rising.
+
+"How much does one of these kettles hold?" Bob asked.
+
+"About six hundred pounds."
+
+"And you fill all of them every day?" demanded Van in astonishment.
+
+"Several times over," was the answer. "It takes a lot of this ground
+material for the different kinds; some of it has other ingredients
+mixed with it later, and some is beaten, flavored, and colored for
+the fillings of chocolates."
+
+"But who on earth eats so much candy?" ejaculated Bob.
+
+"I don't know," responded the boy wearily. "I'm sure I don't."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I don't believe I'd touch a piece of candy for a hundred dollars,"
+he continued. "I am sick of the sight of it. Candy from morning to
+night--candy, candy, candy! Candy everywhere! Nothing but candy."
+
+Bob and Van eyed him unbelievingly.
+
+Could a boy be human and feel that way?
+
+"Everybody here gets into the same state of mind," the lad went on.
+"When the green hands come they are crazy about the stuff for about
+a couple of days; then it is all over. You couldn't hire them to
+eat. Every few weeks the different employees are allowed to buy two
+pounds for themselves at the wholesale price, but you would be
+surprised to see how few of them do it. If they get it you can be
+pretty certain that it is to give away, for they'd never eat it
+themselves."
+
+His two listeners stared incredulously.
+
+Their guide led them across the room.
+
+"So," said he, reverting once more to the kettles and the
+thermometer, "our candy is not made by guesswork, you see. Sugar
+costs too much to risk having such a large batch as a kettleful
+spoiled. We boil it by the thermometer, and when it is at just the
+right point we take it off and put it into these coolers, where it
+thickens and is reduced to a workable temperature. That which is to
+be used as filling is then shifted into these big cylindrical cans
+that have inside them a series of revolving fingers and here the
+candy is beaten until quite smooth; whatever flavoring or coloring
+matter is needed is beaten into it."
+
+As the machinery whirled the boys stood watching the beaters.
+
+"Some of this beaten sugar will be colored pink, flavored with rose
+or wintergreen, and used for the centers of chocolate; some will
+have maple flavoring, some vanilla, some lemon. Nuts will be stirred
+into some of the rest of it. There is an almost endless number of
+ways in which it may be varied. Come over here and see them
+preparing the centers and getting them ready to cover with
+chocolate."
+
+It was an interesting process.
+
+Shallow wooden trays filled with dry corn-starch passed beneath a
+machine which left in them rows of empty holes the size of the heart
+of a chocolate cream. The trays then moved on until they stopped
+just under a nozzle, which ran exactly the right amount of liquid
+filling into each hole. The dryness of the corn-starch prevented the
+mixture from flowing together. As soon as every hole in the tray was
+filled with fondant it was set away to cool and an empty tray
+substituted. When the little centers were hard enough they were
+taken out of the corn-starch moulds, and after being put upon
+traveling strips of fine wire netting, melted chocolate was poured
+over them. The wire frames sped along like miniature moving
+sidewalks, their contents drying and cooling on the way. In the
+meantime the superfluous chocolate dripped through the netting into
+a trough beneath and was collected to be melted over again. On went
+the finished chocolates until they reached the packing-room, where
+girls removed them from the frames, sorted them, and put them into
+boxes.
+
+"These are not what is known as hand-dipped or fork-dipped
+chocolates," explained the boy. "Those are higher priced, because
+they require individual attention, and the material put into them is
+more expensive. To make those the girls take the centers and
+submerge each one in melted chocolate with a dipping-fork, finishing
+the pieces with a certain little twist or decoration on top; it
+requires no small amount of skill to make this top-knot, which not
+only serves to render the candy more attractive but to distinguish
+one variety of filling from another. Each kind has its own
+particular decoration. After some practice any of us might, I
+suppose, learn to make the twist on a chocolate once; but to make
+that precise thing each time and never vary it would be quite a
+different matter. It is important the pattern should be uniform,
+since both the dippers and the packers must know what is inside; in
+addition those who sell the candy must know. It is no easy task.
+After the chocolates are finished _Eureka_ is stamped on the
+bottom of every piece and they are ready to be sold."
+
+"I don't see what prevents your candy from sticking to everything,"
+observed Van thoughtfully.
+
+[Illustration: "IT IS NO EASY TASK"]
+
+"Blasts of cool air that come through those overhead pipes. We can
+turn on the current whenever we wish. Whenever the girls who are
+packing candy find that it is becoming soft they turn on a current
+of cold air to chill and harden it; we often use these cool blasts,
+too, when handling candies in the process of making. Such kinds as
+butter-scotch, hoarhound, and the pretty twisted varieties stick
+together very easily. If they are allowed to become lumpy or marred
+they are useless for the trade and have to be melted over."
+
+"What are those men over there doing?" inquired Bob, pointing to a
+group of workmen who were stirring a seething mixture of nuts and
+molasses.
+
+"Some of them are making peanut brittle, some caramels; and in the
+last kettle I believe they are boiling hoarhound candy. See! The
+last man is ready to empty his upon the table. Suppose we go over
+and watch him."
+
+They reached the spot just in time to see the kettle lifted and the
+hot candy poured out upon the metal top of the table, where it
+spread itself like a small, irregular pond. At once the workman in
+charge took up a steel bar not unlike a metal yardstick and began
+pressing down the mass to a uniform thickness. This done he ran the
+bar deftly beneath and turned the vast piece over just as one would
+flop over some gigantic griddle-cake. He continued to change it from
+side to side, pressing it down in any spot where it was too thick,
+but never once touching it with his hands. He then cut off a long
+narrow strip and fed it into a machine at his elbow, the boys
+regarding him expectantly. Suddenly, to their great surprise, the
+formless ribbon of candy that had gone into the machine began to
+come forth at the other end in prettily marked discs, each with the
+firm name stamped upon it.
+
+"Hoarhound tablets, you see," observed the boy. "The Italian who is
+making peanut brittle has flattened his on the table in the same
+fashion and marked it into bars which later will be cut and wrapped
+in paraffine paper."
+
+"I never realized so much candy was manufactured in one day,"
+exclaimed Bob as they went down in the elevator.
+
+"Oh, this isn't much," returned the boy. "We are running light just
+now. You should come a few weeks before Christmas if you want to see
+things hum here."
+
+"I guess that would be a good time for visitors to keep out,"
+returned Bob as they smilingly bade good-bye to their guide and
+started home in the motor-car.
+
+As the automobile glided into Fifth Avenue Van said:
+
+"Look, Bobbie, there's a candy shop! I suppose all that stuff in the
+window was made in exactly the same way as those things we saw to-day,
+don't you?"
+
+But Bob did not turn his head.
+
+Instead he replied:
+
+"Don't say candy to me. I do not want to lay eyes on another piece
+of it for a week!"
+
+"Nor I!" Van echoed. "Do you wonder that boy at the factory feels as
+he does? I guess your father can keep his money so far as we are
+concerned. He'll have no candy bills from us."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the meantime Mr. Carlton waited for the tremendous bonbon bill
+that had threatened to reduce his bank account, and when it was not
+forthcoming he nodded his head and chuckled quietly to himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+VAN MUTINIES
+
+
+Another day passed and Bob and Van were once more back at Colversham
+greeting the boys and vainly endeavoring to settle down to the work
+of the last term.
+
+"It seems as if the stretch from April to June is about the hardest
+pull of the whole year," yawned Van, looking up for the twentieth
+time from his Latin lesson and gazing out into the sunny campus.
+"Studying is bad enough at best, but when the trout brooks begin to
+run and the canoeing is good it is a deadly proposition to be cooped
+up in this room hammering away for the finals."
+
+"It always seems worse after a vacation," agreed Bob, tilting back
+in his chair. "You'll get back into the harness, though, in a day or
+two; you know you always yap just about so much when you first get
+back to school."
+
+"I don't yap, as you call it, any worse than most fellows do. I hate
+being tied up like a pup on a leash. It seems as if I'd just have to
+get out and play ball--and if you were a human being you'd want to,
+too," growled Van.
+
+"Hang it all, don't you suppose I want to?" Bob retorted. "What do
+you think I'm made of, anyway?"
+
+"I don't know, Bobbie. Sometimes you're so resigned I begin to fear
+you are a mummy," was Van's laughing retort. "Now, I'm not like
+that. It is one big grind for me to study. The minute spring comes
+it seems as if I never could translate another line of Cicero as
+long as I lived, and I don't care a hurray what X equals. What will
+it matter a hundred years hence whether we plug away here at this
+stuff, or get out and play ball?"
+
+"I guess you'd find it would matter to you right now without waiting
+for the end of a century," was the laconic answer. "But speaking of
+ball, what wouldn't you give to see the first League game of the
+season in town, Saturday? That will be some playing!"
+
+"I clean forgot the season opened this week," exclaimed Van. "Since
+I got back here I've been all mixed up on dates. I thought it was
+next week. Are you sure it's Saturday?"
+
+Bob nodded.
+
+"Positive."
+
+"It'll be a cracker-jack game," mused Van. "I'd give something to be
+there. You don't suppose we could get off at noon and go, do you?"
+
+"Not on your life! Right now, after vacation? What do you take this
+school faculty for--an entertainment committee? You seem to forget
+we'd have to cut algebra, and English, and gym."
+
+"I shouldn't care."
+
+"I should. I'm working this trip, and can't afford to miss
+recitations," was Bob's sharp reply. "As for you, you can afford to
+miss them even less than I can--you know that. Put it out of your
+head. When you can't do a thing there is no use thinking about it
+and wishing you could."
+
+"I see no earthly harm in talking about it."
+
+"I do. It just keeps you stirred up."
+
+"Then what did you mention it for in the beginning?"
+
+"I don't know. I wish to goodness I hadn't," Bob declared.
+
+"Well, in spite of your opinions I repeat I'd give a fiver to see
+that game Saturday."
+
+"You can't, so cut it out and let me finish this theme. Every time
+I've started to write you've broken in and driven every blooming
+idea out of my head. Now quit it. You better pitch into your own
+work for to-morrow. Dig out all the Cicero you can, and later I'll
+help you with the rest."
+
+With finality Bob wheeled his chair around and proceeded to submerge
+himself in his task.
+
+But not so Van. He took up his book, to be sure, but over the top of
+it his eyes roved to the world outside, and fixed themselves
+dreamily on the line of hills that peeped above the tips of the red
+maples budding in the school campus. He was far away from Colversham
+and its round of duties. In imagination he moved with a gay, eager
+crowd through the gateway leading into the great city ball ground.
+He could hear the game called; watch the first swirl of the ball as
+it curved from the pitcher's hand; catch the sharp click of the bat
+against it; and join in the roar of applause as the swift-footed
+runner sped to second base.
+
+Everybody would be at that opening game!
+
+Not to go when it was within trolley distance was absurd.
+
+What was algebra, English, or a little wall-scaling compared to such
+an opportunity?
+
+And, anyway, who would be the wiser?
+
+There must be ways of getting off so nobody, not even Bob, would
+know.
+
+If only Bob could be persuaded to cut school!
+
+But it was never any use to urge Bob when he spoke in that horribly
+positive tone. You might just as well try to move a lighthouse.
+
+Van glanced furtively at his chum who, unconscious of his scrutiny,
+was writing steadily down a long page of foolscap. The sight had a
+steadying effect. Van again took up his book and scowled once more
+at that same old line at the top of the page. But all the time
+between his eyes and his Latin lesson swayed that alluring throng of
+pleasure seekers. Impatiently he tried to banish them, but stern as
+was his attempt their laughter still sounded in his ears. Against
+his will he was back at the ball game, and this time he was on his
+feet shouting wildly with the other fans as Carruth, the star
+batter, made a soaring hit and stole two bases on it. In that
+instant of unreined enthusiasm Van Blake decided that come what
+might he would go to the game on Saturday--go even though his whole
+term's work went for naught.
+
+The resolve made he tried to stifle his conscience by falling upon
+his Latin with unwonted zeal, and so ardently did he wrestle with it
+that when, an hour later, Bob pushed aside his papers and offered to
+help him with the lesson he was able to greet his chum with a
+translation so far beyond his customary efforts that Bob patted him
+on the head with paternal pride, exclaiming:
+
+"Bully for you, old man! That's about the best work I ever knew of
+your doing. The middle of it is a little queer, but we'll fix that
+up all right. Who says you're not a Cicero?"
+
+"Bobbie, if I thought for one moment that there was any danger of my
+becoming a Cicero or any other Latin worthy I'd go drown myself!"
+Van cried, startled at the mere thought. "I'm not so worse, though,
+am I? I'd no idea I could reel it off like that."
+
+"Of course you can do it. Why, Van, you could do all kinds of things
+if you'd only go at them. The trouble with you is that you always
+study with one eye out the window. If you'd only get down to your
+job with all your might you'd not only get your lessons better but
+you'd learn them in half the time."
+
+"I 'spect that's so," drawled Van lazily. "I ought to duff right in
+on all fours. I acknowledge it. But it is not so easy to make your
+mind go where you send it."
+
+He broke off, shifting the subject to athletics, and was in the
+highest spirits the rest of the day; but underneath all his fun and
+banter the question constantly arose in his inner consciousness: How
+could he elude his roommate's watchfulness and on the coming
+Saturday escape to the great game?
+
+Strangely enough Fortune seemed to smile upon his plot, for Friday
+morning Bob was taken to the infirmary with a sore throat, which,
+although slight, isolated him from the rest of the boys. No longer
+was he at Van's elbow to watch, warn, or censure.
+
+The coast was entirely clear.
+
+Van formulated his plans.
+
+Directly after luncheon on Saturday he would start for the city,
+hugging the edge of the campus and afterward cutting across the
+adjoining estate to meet the car line where it forked into the main
+road. Many another boy had done the same and not been caught; why
+not he? It was, to be sure, against the rules to leave the school
+grounds without permission, but one must take a chance now and then.
+Did not half the spice of life lay in risks?
+
+Accordingly after the noonday meal was finished and the boys had
+scattered to recitations or the dormitories Van sauntered idly out
+past the tennis-courts; across the field skirting the golf course
+and then with one sudden plunge was behind the gymnasium and running
+like a deer for the thicket that separated Colversham from the
+Sawyer estate. He knew the lay of the land perfectly, for this short
+cut was a favorite thoroughfare of the boys, in spite of the posted
+protest of _No Trespassing_.
+
+Creeping cautiously through the shelter of the orchard he contrived
+to escape observation and reach the highway in safety; at this quiet
+noon hour the road was entirely deserted save for the presence of
+one small boy who was jogging on ahead, a dinner pail upon his arm.
+He was a slender little fellow of six or seven years who whistled
+shrilly as he went and kicked up clouds of dust with his bare feet.
+As Van watched the sway of his shoulders and the unhampered tread of
+his unshod feet he could not but recall the days when he, too, had
+gloried in going barefoot. He smiled at the memory which now seemed
+so absurd.
+
+A slight sound behind him broke in upon his reverie.
+
+Bounding the turn just at his back swept a big scarlet touring-car
+driven by a solitary man. It was coming at tremendous speed and no
+horn had given warning of its noiseless approach. Van had but an
+instant to step out of its path when on it shot, bearing down on the
+unconscious boy ahead. The little chap was walking in the middle of
+the road and whistling so loudly that no hint of the oncoming danger
+reached him. The man in the motor saw the child and sounding his
+horn, swerved to the left; but it was too late. The speeding car
+caught the lad, struck him, and tossed him to the roadside rushing
+on in its mad flight faster, if anything, than before.
+
+In vain did Van call after it.
+
+His protest was useless.
+
+The great red vehicle whirled forward, a speck in the sunshine, and
+was lost to view.
+
+Terror-stricken Van darted to the child's side and bent over him.
+
+His eyes were closed and an ugly gash in his forehead was bleeding
+profusely.
+
+[Illustration: NO HORN HAD GIVEN WARNING]
+
+Binding a handkerchief round the little fellow's head the older boy
+lifted him in his arms and retracing his steps ran with him down the
+road, across the Sawyer lawn, and up the steps of the Colversham
+infirmary.
+
+A young orderly who was lounging at the door came forward and on
+seeing the child's face spoke quickly to a physician who was passing
+through the hall. Together they took the little boy from Van's arms
+and carried him to a cot in an adjoining room, anxiously plying Van
+with questions as they went.
+
+Briefly Van related the story.
+
+"Such men should be hung! Prison is too good for them!" snapped the
+doctor angrily.
+
+He passed his hand with infinite tenderness over the tiny, still
+form on the bed.
+
+"Is he much hurt, sir?" questioned Van eagerly.
+
+"I can't tell yet. He is hurt enough so that he doesn't come to his
+senses, poor little chap! Here, Jackson, ring for a couple of
+nurses. We'll get the child up-stairs."
+
+Van tagged behind them more because he was anxious to hear of the
+lad's condition than because he could be of any real use.
+
+As the sad procession left the elevator, emerging into the corridor
+on the second floor, a tall man who was coming down the stairway
+confronted them.
+
+It was Dr. Maitland, the principal of the school!
+
+"What's this?" he asked, advancing with swift stride.
+
+The doctor hurriedly explained the circumstances.
+
+"A motor accident on the Claybrook Road, you say? Well, well! Poor
+little chap! Who brought him in?"
+
+"This lad--one of the schoolboys. You showed good judgment, Blake,
+and it was a mighty fortunate thing that you were there," observed
+the surgeon, passing on.
+
+"The Claybrook Road?" repeated the puzzled principal. "You were on
+the Claybrook Road, Blake? And what were you doing there at this
+time of day?"
+
+With throbbing heart Van suddenly came to himself.
+
+Up to that instant no thought of his own peculiar plight had crossed
+his mind. Now the reality of his dilemma rushed upon him with
+pitiless force.
+
+"May I ask," repeated the principal in measured tone, "what were you
+doing on the Claybrook Road at this hour, Blake?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+VAN'S GREAT DEED
+
+
+Dr Maitland, who was a man of unswerving justice, was influenced in
+his judgments neither by pity nor explanations, and thus it came
+about that when Van had answered his questions, putting before him
+the facts about his runaway, the principal sent the boy to his own
+room to there await sentence Van was in the lowest of spirits. What
+would the penalty of his insurrection be? He knew Dr. Maitland far
+too well to expect mercy, nor did he wish it. He was too proud for
+that. He had disobeyed the rules of the school, and he must now bear
+the punishment, be it what it would. The thought of holding back the
+facts had never entered his mind. Indolent he sometimes was even to
+laziness but never within his memory had he been dishonest. So he
+had fearlessly told the truth, and despite the calamity it
+threatened he found himself the happier for telling it. Whether it
+would mean expulsion from Colversham he did not know; probably it
+would.
+
+To think of leaving Colversham, the place he loved so much! And in
+disgrace, too. What would the other boys say? And his father?
+
+Van shrank at the thought of telling his father.
+
+Mr. Blake was a severe man who, like Dr. Maitland, would not gloss
+over the affair either by tolerance or sympathy. He would be angry,
+and he would have the right to be. Van admitted that. As he looked
+back on his school days he realized for the first time how indulgent
+his father had been; he had denied his son no reasonable wish,
+simply asking in return that the boy express his gratitude by
+studiousness and obedience. Van flushed as with vividness it came to
+his consciousness that he had repaid his father's goodness with
+neither of these things. He had studied just as little as was
+possible, and in place of appreciation he had rendered nothing but
+disgrace.
+
+His self-esteem was at a very low ebb when Bob, dismissed from the
+infirmary, returned to his old quarters. Van was seldom depressed--so
+seldom, in fact, that the sight aroused in his chum nothing but an
+anxiety lest he be ill. Surely nothing but sickness could cause Van
+Blake to lie on a couch, his face buried in pillows!
+
+"What's the matter, old fellow?" called Bob the instant he was
+inside the door. "Are you used up?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"I say, what's the trouble?" Bob repeated, hurrying to his side.
+
+It took much questioning before the story could be drawn from the
+boy's reluctant lips.
+
+"When Bob had at last heard it he was silent.
+
+"Can't you say something?" queried Van peevishly.
+
+"I hardly know what to say," Bob answered with slow gentleness. "I'm
+so sorry--so sorry and upset. I can't for the life of me understand
+how you came to do such a thing. Did you expect to get away with it?
+You must have known you would be missed at recitations and tracked
+down."
+
+"That's right--rub it in!"
+
+"I'm not rubbing it in; I'm only trying to understand it."
+
+"There's nothing to understand. I just was crazy to go to that ball
+game and I started. I should have gone, too, if it hadn't been for
+the kid getting hurt."
+
+"It was bully of you to bring him back, anyway," Bob said. "Of
+course you knew it was all up with you when you did it."
+
+"I didn't think about it at all. I wasn't thinking of anything but
+that poor little chap who was mowed down by the brute in that car.
+If I hadn't happened to hear the motor it might have been me
+instead. I wish it had been," he declared gloomily.
+
+"No you don't. Great Scott, cheer up, Van! The country hasn't gone
+to the dogs yet. I must admit you are in a mess; but it doesn't
+begin to be the mess it would have been if you had gone to the game,
+had a bang-up time, and come home a sneak who had stolen his fun. At
+least you have done the square thing and 'fessed up, and now you'll
+be man enough to take what's coming to you. What do you suppose
+Maitland will do?"
+
+"I can guess pretty well--pack me off home. He is stiff as a ramrod
+on obedience to the school rules," sighed Van, "and he's right, too.
+It is perfectly fair. I knew it when I went."
+
+"I can't see, just for one afternoon of sport, how you--" Bob broke
+off. "If I'd only been here you never would have gone."
+
+"Maybe not," admitted Van. Then he added in the same breath: "No, I
+shouldn't have gone if you had been here, Bobbie. Somehow you're my
+good angel. I wrote Father so the other day."
+
+"Stuff!"
+
+"It's true. You are such a brick! I thought you'd blow my head off
+when you'd heard what I'd done."
+
+"Well, I am mad enough to do it," was the tart reply. "For you to go
+and do a thing like that just for a ball game! It wasn't worth it.
+Think of your being pitched out of Colversham for a measly game of
+baseball. And you didn't get there, either!"
+
+Van kicked the pillows impatiently.
+
+"Don't light into me, Bobbie," he moaned. "Don't I feel bad enough
+as it is?"
+
+"I don't know whether you do or not; you ought to."
+
+"I do, Bob. I'm dead sorry."
+
+"If you'd stay sorry it might do some good," returned Bob. A sudden
+thought seemed to strike him. He did not speak for a few moments;
+then he said half aloud: "Who knows--it might help."
+
+"What might help?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+Bob got up and sauntered to the door.
+
+"Will you stay right here like a decent chap and not get into any
+more mischief until I get back?"
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Nowhere much--just across the campus for a little while. I'll be
+back soon. Will you wait here exactly where you are?"
+
+"Yes, but--"
+
+"Honor bright?"
+
+"Sure!"
+
+"All right. Don't quit this room until I come. So long!"
+
+Bob was gone.
+
+Van lay very still after the door had closed, and to keep him
+company in his solitude back swarmed all those dreary thoughts that
+Bob's cheery presence had for the time being banished; with a rush
+they came to jeer, taunt, and terrify.
+
+The _little while_ lengthened into an hour and on into a second
+one.
+
+The room became intolerable.
+
+Then upon the stone floor of the corridor outside sounded Bob's
+foot.
+
+"Still here, Van?" he cried, coming in with elastic step and banging
+the door after him.
+
+His face was wreathed in smiles.
+
+"What's happened to you that you look like that?" questioned Van,
+sitting up among the pillows.
+
+"Like what?"
+
+"Why, as if somebody had sent you a Christmas-tree or made you
+president of a railroad?"
+
+Bob laughed.
+
+"I've been to see the Head," he said.
+
+"Humph! I never knew of his causing any one such overwhelming
+delight," observed Van a little spitefully.
+
+"Hush up, old man; don't run down the Doctor," Bob said. "You may
+have more cause to be grateful to him than you know."
+
+"You don't mean--" Van's voice trembled. "Did you go to see him
+about me?"
+
+Bob nodded.
+
+"Bob! How did you dare?"
+
+"I dare do anything that becomes a man; who dares do more is none,"
+quoted Bob merrily. "I don't believe, though, I'd have dared go for
+myself," he answered. "It is different when you are doing it for
+some one else. Now sit up and listen and I'll tell you all about it.
+The Doctor was mighty white about you; but in spite of all he stuck
+to the fact that you'd disobeyed the rules; he kept going back to
+that every time I tried to switch him off. We squabbled over you a
+solid hour, and the upshot of it was this: you are to stay at
+Colversham--"
+
+"Hurrah!"
+
+Van hurled a pillow into the air.
+
+"Shut up and hear the rest of it. You are to stay here because I
+promised upon my word of honor that you would keep straight and
+study."
+
+"I'll do it."
+
+"That isn't all."
+
+Bob hesitated.
+
+It was a wrench for him to deliver the remainder of the message.
+
+"Yes, you are to stay," he repeated as if to gain time. "But of
+course you can't expect to slip through with no punishment at all."
+
+"No, indeed!"
+
+Still Van spoke with jaunty hopefulness.
+
+"The Doctor thinks it is only fair that you should be pretty
+severely reminded of what you've done."
+
+"That's all right. I'm not afraid. Fire ahead! What's he going to do
+with me?"
+
+"He thinks--he says--he feels it is best--"
+
+"Oh, come on, come on--out with it!"
+
+"He has forbidden you to take any part in the school athletics this
+spring," was the reluctant whisper.
+
+Van did not speak.
+
+"I'm mighty sorry, old fellow," declared Bob, "but it was the best
+I could do."
+
+Still Van made no reply.
+
+With troubled gaze Bob regarded his chum.
+
+"I'd far rather Maitland had knocked me out," he ventured at last.
+
+Stooping, he put his hand on Van's shoulder.
+
+Van roused himself and looked up into his friend's face with one of
+his quick smiles.
+
+"It's all right, Bob," he said. "Don't you fuss about me any more.
+You were a trump to get me off as well as you did. I'll take my
+medicine without whimpering. I ought to bless my stars that my
+banishment from athletics is only temporary. Suppose I had been
+smashed up so I could never play another game like that little kid,
+Tim McGrew," he shuddered. "It was just sheer luck that saved me.
+Why, do you suppose, he should have been the one to be crippled and
+I go scot free?" he observed meditatively.
+
+"I don't know. Maybe because there is something in the world that
+only you can do. My father believes that."
+
+"Do you?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"It would be strange, wouldn't it, to feel you were let off just to
+do something?" mused Van. "You'd be wondering all the time what it
+was. Of course it would be something big."
+
+"You could never tell what it was," Bob replied, falling in with his
+friend's mood. "I suppose the only way to make sure would be to do
+whatever came to you the best way you could do it. You never could
+be sure that what you were doing was not the great thing."
+
+"Not studying and stuff like that."
+
+"It might be; or at least studying might lead to it."
+
+"I don't believe it."
+
+"It wouldn't hurt you to try it."
+
+"No, I suppose not." Then with characteristic caprice Van shifted
+the subject. "But seriously, Bobbie, there is something I am going
+to do. You'll howl, I guess, and maybe you'll be disappointed, too.
+It's about that sick kid, Tim McGrew. The surgeon says the little beggar
+will never walk again. I feel pretty sore about it; I suppose
+because I was there," explained Van uneasily. "I've about decided to
+chip in the money Father was going to send me for a canoe and get a
+wheel chair for him. His folks are poor, and can't get one, and the
+doctor says--"
+
+"You're a--"
+
+"Oh, shut up, can't you, Bobbie? It's only because I'm so cut up
+about the accident. Remember, it might have been me instead of him.
+You won't mind much if we don't have the canoe, will you?"
+
+"No," was the low answer.
+
+Neither of the boys spoke for some time.
+
+Then Bob whispered:
+
+"Have you thought, Van, that maybe the thing you are to do is
+something for that little lame boy, Tim McGrew?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+HOW VAN BORE HIS PUNISHMENT
+
+
+The spring term passed much faster than either Bob or Van dreamed it
+would and despite the absence of athletics Van Blake found plenty to
+do to fill the gap left by this customary activity.
+
+In the first place there was his studying. Had not Bob assumed an
+obligation that must be lived up to and that was quite as binding as
+if it existed on paper instead of in a mere invisible point of
+honor? He was very grateful to Bob and had given bond that he would
+live up to the pledge his chum had made for him. Now he must fulfil
+his promise, Van argued. So although the call of the springtime was
+strong and difficult to resist he had been faithful to his work,
+"plugging away," as he expressed it, with all his strength. To his
+surprise the task, so irksome at first, became interesting. It was
+a novel experience to enter a classroom and instead of moving in a
+mental haze possess a clear idea of what was going on. Twice he was
+able to furnish the correct answers to Latin questions on which
+every one else had failed, and what a thrill of satisfaction
+accompanied the performance!
+
+The attitude of his teachers changed, too. Formerly they had been
+polite; now they became even cordial, demonstrating by an
+unsuspected friendliness that they were after all ordinary human
+beings and rather likable ones at that. They were moreover amazingly
+sympathetic and met every endeavor of Van's with generous aid.
+Perhaps schools were not the prison-houses he had formerly thought
+them!
+
+There had, of course, been no chance to conceal from the boys the
+reason of his banishment from the ball field and tennis-courts; such
+a story as the motor accident travels with insidious speed. Before
+a day had passed from one end of Colversham to the other everybody
+knew that Van Blake had disobeyed the school rules and had in
+consequence forfeited his place in out-of-door sports. Van, however,
+was a great favorite and the manly way in which he accepted his
+penalty provoked nothing but admiration and respect from his
+classmates. He frankly admitted his mistake, owning that while his
+sentence was severe it was perfectly just; nor would he permit a
+word of criticism of Dr. Maitland's decree to be voiced in his
+hearing.
+
+"Maitland is all right!" was his hearty endorsement, and that remark
+was the only encouragement his pals received when they came to
+condone with him.
+
+Gradually the affair dropped out of sight. Van went among the boys,
+cheerily giving advice as to the make-up of the school teams and
+even coaching the fellow who was to serve as his successor as
+pitcher on the nine.
+
+Nevertheless there still remained quite a margin of leisure, and it
+was during this lonely interval when every one else was training for
+the coming games that he would stray off by himself and visit little
+Tim McGrew. Between the two a peculiar friendship sprang up. On
+Van's part it arose from forlornness mingled with a half formulated
+belief that he must do something to express his thankfulness that he
+himself had escaped from the fate that had overtaken the child. On
+the small lad's side it had its root in gratitude and hero-worship.
+In Tim's eyes Van Blake was an all-powerful person. Was it not he
+who had picked him up and carried him to the hospital? And had not
+this same big schoolboy bought the beautiful wheel-chair that
+enabled one to travel about the house and yard almost as readily as
+if on foot? In addition to all this was it not Van who came often to
+the house, never forgetting to bring in his pocket some toy or
+picture-book? Small things they often were--these gifts that meant
+so much to the child--often things of very slight money value; but
+to the invalid whose long, tedious days of convalescence were
+stretches of monotony the tiny presents seemed treasures from an
+enchanted land.
+
+Tim was now at home in the shabby cottage on the outskirts of
+Colversham where he lived with his mother and four sisters. Poor as
+the place was it was spotlessly neat and Tim's family were
+spotlessly tidy too. Mrs. McGrew, who supported her household by
+doing washing for some of the families in the town, might have had
+a permanent and much more lucrative position elsewhere had it not been
+for leaving her five little ones; as it was, she clung to her
+children, struggling to meet her living expenses as best she could.
+It had been a sore grief to her when Tim, her only boy and the baby
+of the home, had become crippled. Perhaps she sensed more clearly
+than did the lad the full seriousness of the calamity. As for Tim,
+he accepted it in childish fashion, hopefully ignoring the problems
+of the future.
+
+To Van Blake Mrs. McGrew was all gratitude. Of all her children her
+boy was her favorite.
+
+"But for you, sir, little Timmie might have been left at the
+roadside to die," she would exclaim over and over. "We'll never
+forget it--never--neither I nor the children!"
+
+It was thus that Van became the hero of the McGrew household, and
+the warmth and genuineness of the welcome he unfailingly received
+there aroused in him an answering friendliness. Many a time when he
+saw things either new or interesting he would find himself
+instinctively saying:
+
+"I must tell Tim about that," or "I must take that to Tim."
+
+But with his enthronement as the sovereign of Tim's universe there
+came to Van a very disquieting experience. Tim thought his big
+friend knew everything, and in consequence whenever he became
+puzzled about facts that were being read to him or that he heard he
+would instantly appeal to Van, whom he was sure could right every
+sort of dilemma that might arise. But too often the unlucky Van was
+forced to blush and falter that he would have to look it up; and
+when he did so he frequently learned something himself. For Tim
+never forgot. No sooner would Van be inside the gate than the shrill
+little voice would pipe: "And did you find out how far away Mars is,
+Mr. Blake?"
+
+Poor Van, it kept him scrambling to satisfy Tim McGrew's
+intellectual curiosity, yet there was a tang in the game that
+rendered it very interesting. He found, too, ample reward in seeing
+the wee invalid's face brighten when the query was answered.
+
+So the spring sped on.
+
+In the meantime Van had heard only irregularly from his parents. In
+a long letter to his father he had sent all the facts of his
+disgrace at school and had added that he was truly sorry; the reply
+he received had been terse and rather stern but not unkind. Mr.
+Blake expressed much regret for his son's conduct and closed his
+epistle with the caustic comment that he should look for a proof of
+Van's desire to make good. That was all. Van knew that Dr. Maitland
+had also written; but what he did not know was that with the
+fearlessness so characteristic of him Bob Carlton had taken the time
+and trouble to pen a long note to Colorado as a plea for his chum.
+It was a remarkable composition from a boy so young--a letter full
+of affection and earnestness and voicing a surprising insight into
+his friend's character and disposition. Mr. Blake read it over three
+times, and when he finished sat in a reverie with it still between
+his fingers. The tone of it was so like the man he had known long
+ago, that friend from whom a misunderstanding that now seemed
+pitiably trivial had separated him. It had been his fault; Mr. Blake
+could see that now. He had been both hasty and unjust. Over him
+surged a great wave of regret. Well, it was too late to mend the
+matter at this late day. One chance was, however, left him--to make
+up to the son for the injustice done the father.
+
+It therefore came about that at the close of the school term Bob
+Carlton was overjoyed to receive from Van's parents an invitation to
+come west with their boy and pass the summer holidays. Such a
+miracle seemed too good to be a reality, and the lads' instant fear
+was that the Carltons would be unwilling to spare Bob from home for
+such a long time. To their surprise, however, Mr. Carlton welcomed
+the plan with enthusiasm. A trip to Colorado would be a wonderful
+opportunity, the educational value of which could scarcely be
+estimated, he argued. Underneath this most excellent reason there
+also existed on Mr. Carlton's part a desire to show his former
+partner that he cherished no ill will for the past. Who knew but the
+boy might even be a messenger of peace?
+
+So one June morning, after bidding good-bye to Colversham and to Tim
+McGrew, the two lads set forth on their western journey. They were
+in high spirits. Both had passed the examinations with honors, and
+as Van thought of his achievement again and again he wondered if it
+could be true that he was one of that light-hearted band who were
+starting off on their summer vacation with no conditions to work
+off.
+
+The solitary cloud on the horizon was the grief of little Tim at
+having his friend go. But Van promised there should be letters--lots
+of them--and post-cards, too, all along the route; the parting would
+not be for long anyway.
+
+These were some of the thoughts that surged through Van's mind as he
+and Bob settled themselves into their places on the train and began
+the attempt to fathom the reams of directions Mr. Blake had sent
+them; pages and pages there were of what to do and what not to do on
+the long trip, the letter closing with the single sentence:
+
+"I am trusting you to make this journey alone because I believe your
+chum, Bob Carlton, has a level head."
+
+"If your own head is not level, Bobbie, it is at least an honor to
+be associated with a head that is," remarked Van humorously. "I
+guess that is about all the recommendation you need from Dad, old
+boy. I wonder how he happened to take such a fancy to you without
+ever having met you."
+
+"I wonder," echoed Bob quietly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE BOYS MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE
+
+
+To Bob every mile of the western journey was a step into Wonderland;
+novel sights, novel ideas confronted him on every hand and viewed
+through the medium of his enthusiasm things that had become
+threadbare to Van became, as if by magic, suddenly new. The
+greatness of the country was a marvel of which Bob had never before
+had any adequate conception. Then there were the cities, alive with
+varying industries, and teeming with their strangely mixed American
+population. Above all was the amazing natural beauty of scenery
+hitherto undreamed of. Hour after hour Bob sat spellbound at the
+window of the observation-car, never tiring of watching the shifting
+landscape as it whirled past. His interest and intelligence caught
+the notice of a gentleman who occupied the section opposite the
+boys, and soon the three formed one of those pleasant acquaintances
+so frequently made in traveling.
+
+Mr. Powers (for that was the stranger's name) was on his way back to
+his farm in Utah, and very eager was he to reach home.
+
+"So many things on the place need my attention that the journey you
+are delighting in seems very long to me," he remarked to Bob one
+morning as they came from the dining-car.
+
+"Is your farm a large one, Mr. Powers?" questioned Bob.
+
+Mr. Powers smiled.
+
+"It is larger than you would want to build a fence around," he
+returned humorously.
+
+"I suppose you have all sorts of cows and pigs and horses on it, and
+raise every kind of fruit and vegetable that ever was invented," put
+in Van mischievously.
+
+Mr. Powers shook his head and looked not a little amused.
+
+"No. We have only enough stock for our own use--nothing fancy. I do
+not go in for show farming. I raise only one thing on my land, and
+I'm going to see if you are clever enough to guess what it is."
+
+"Alfalfa!" cried Bob instantly.
+
+"No. How did you happen to think of that?"
+
+"Oh, I've read that lots of western farmers raised it."
+
+"True enough. It wasn't a bad guess, but it was not the right one,"
+said the stranger. "Now suppose we hear from your chum."
+
+"Corn."
+
+"Still wrong; but you are getting warmer."
+
+"Wheat."
+
+"Wheat is not as good a random shot as corn."
+
+"It must be a vegetable," declared Bob thoughtfully. "Let me see.
+Not potatoes?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Of course it couldn't be peas, or beans, or squash, because you
+said once you had hundreds of acres, and you would never raise any
+of those things in such large quantities," argued Van. "Spinach,
+tomatoes--"
+
+"I have it!" cried Bob. "You should have guessed it the first thing,
+Van."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Can't you think? With your father right in the business you ought
+to."
+
+"Beets," exclaimed Van.
+
+"Beets it is!" agreed Mr. Powers. "So your father is interested in
+beets too, is he? You don't chance to be the son of Mr. Asa Blake,
+do you?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"That is a coincidence," observed Mr. Powers much interested. "I
+sell all my crops to him. I expect then, young man, you know all
+there is to be known about growing beets."
+
+"On the contrary, I don't know a thing," Van confessed laughing.
+"Dad has never talked to me much about his business. He is too busy
+to talk to anybody," he added a little dubiously.
+
+"It is usually the doctor's children who never get any medicine,"
+chuckled Mr. Powers. "Now, I could do better than that for you. I
+could tell you considerable about beets if you urged me to."
+
+"I wish you would," answered the boys promptly.
+
+"There, you see, you urge me at once--you insist upon hearing! What
+can I do? There is no escape for me but to comply with your request.
+Of course I was not expecting to be called upon to speak to-day and
+therefore I must crave the indulgence of the audience if I am but
+poorly prepared," began Mr. Powers with mock gravity.
+
+"In the first place you must remember that while sugar-cane can only
+be cultivated in a hot, moist climate, beets grow best in the
+temperate zone. In the United States there is a belt of beet-sugar
+land two hundred miles wide that runs irregularly across the country
+from southern New England to the Pacific coast. Sugar-beets can, of
+course, be grown elsewhere, but it is in this particular region that
+they thrive best. If even a small proportion of this area were to be
+planted with beets we could get enough sugar from them to enable us
+to ship it to foreign markets instead of yearly importing a large
+amount of it. The trouble is that we Americans are so rich in land
+that we waste it and fail to get from it a tenth part of what we
+might. If you doubt that travel in Europe and see what is done with
+land on the other side; or, better yet, watch what some Italian in
+this country will get from a bit of land no bigger than your pocket
+handkerchief."
+
+Mr. Powers stopped a minute and looked out of the window.
+
+"The great objection our people make to growing beets is that they
+injure the soil so that nothing else planted afterward will
+flourish. Now to an extent this is true. Beets do run out the soil
+if they are raised year after year on the same land. If our farmers
+were not so slow to get a new idea they would raise beets in
+rotation as is done in Europe."
+
+"What do you mean by rotation?" demanded Bob.
+
+"A rotating crop is one that produces a sequence of different kinds
+of harvests," explained Mr. Powers. "By that I mean harvests of
+entirely varying nature. Abroad they have learned that a hoed crop,
+when planted annually, destroys the productivity of the earth;
+therefore foreigners plant beets one year in three or five and
+cereals, turnips, or something else in between times. Formerly they
+used to let the land lie fallow a year to rest it, but now they have
+worked out a scheme by which they get a crop every year. It was
+Napoleon, that Frenchman of wonderful brain, who first discovered
+the value of beets for making sugar, and thought out the plan for
+raising them in rotation with other varieties of crops. He commanded
+that ninety thousand acres of beets be planted in different parts of
+France, and he established in connection with this decree a great
+fund of money from which bonuses were to be paid to persons who
+built factories to manufacture beet-sugar. He went even further,
+furnishing free instruction to all who wished to learn the industry.
+In consequence at the end of a couple of years there were in France
+over three hundred small sugar factories; little by little this
+number has increased until now the sugar product of the French
+nation is enormous."
+
+Fascinated by the story Bob and Van listened attentively.
+
+"Didn't other countries steal the idea of the rotating crop?"
+inquired Van.
+
+"Not at first. Germany tried to make her farmers believe in the new
+notion, but failed," answered Mr. Powers. "Later, however, as an
+inducement, the German government helped beet-sugar factories pay
+such good prices for beets that the farmers became anxious to raise
+them; at the same time a high duty was placed on imported sugar, and
+the result was that the German people were forced to manufacture
+their own. At the present time about one-half of the sugar used by
+all the world is made in foreign factories. I myself run my beet
+farm on the rotation principle, and find that the hoed root crops
+seem to stimulate the others; but I can't convince my neighbors of
+it."
+
+"Does beet-sugar taste any different from cane?" inquired Bob.
+
+"Not a whit; you couldn't tell the difference," was Mr. Powers'
+answer.
+
+"I suppose sugar-beets are just like those in our gardens," ventured
+Van.
+
+"No, they're not; they are, however, not unlike them. They differ in
+having more juice and in usually being white," replied Mr. Powers.
+"The ground has first to be plowed and harrowed, and is afterward
+laid off in eighteen-inch rows because beets, you know, are planted
+from seed. When the crop comes up trouble begins, for it has to be
+thinned until each plant has a good area in which to grow; the beets
+must also be carefully weeded and the soil round them loosened if
+they are to thrive."
+
+"How long is it before they are ready for sugar making?" inquired
+Bob.
+
+"Practically five months; it depends somewhat on the season. When
+they are ripe they are dug up, the tops are removed, and they are
+floated down small canals where washing machines with revolving
+brushes remove from them every atom of dirt."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"If they are to be made directly into syrup and do not have to be
+shipped in bulk they go into slicers which cut them into V-shaped
+pieces about the length and thickness of a slate pencil, these
+pieces being called cossettes. The sliced beet-root is next put into
+warm water tanks in order that the sugar contained in it may be
+drawn out. Built in a circle, these tanks are connected, and as the
+beets move from one vat to another more and more sugar is taken from
+them until they reach the last vat when the beet pulp is of no
+further use except to be used as fodder for live stock. The juice
+remains in the tanks, and in color it is--"
+
+"Red!" cried Van, thoughtlessly interrupting.
+
+"No, son, not red. It is black as ink."
+
+"Black!" exclaimed the boys in a chorus.
+
+"Black as your shoe."
+
+"But--but I don't see how they--" Van stopped, bewildered.
+
+"They bleach it by injecting fumes of sulphur gas into the tanks;
+lime is also used to--"
+
+"To clear it after the dirt has come to the top," put in the boys in
+a breath.
+
+"Exactly so," laughed Mr. Powers. "I observe you are now at the home
+plate."
+
+[Illustration: "THESE TANKS ARE CONNECTED"]
+
+"We saw it done at the sugar-cane refinery," explained Bob.
+
+"I see," nodded Mr. Powers. "Well, the principle of making beet-sugar
+is the same as cane-sugar. By the use of chemical solutions the juice
+is cleared until it is perfectly white."
+
+Bob nudged Van with his elbow and the lads smiled understandingly.
+There was no danger of their forgetting Mr. Hennessey and his secret
+chemical formula.
+
+"The remainder of the process is also similar to that used in
+refining cane-sugar. The syrup passes from tank to tank, constantly
+thickening, and the molasses is extracted in the same fashion by
+being thrown off in the centrifugal machines when the sugar
+crystallizes. Molasses is often boiled two and three times to make
+second and third grade molasses for the trade, and you must remember
+in this connection that the names _New Orleans_ and _Porto
+Rico_ do not necessarily indicate where the product was made, but
+rather its quality, these varieties being of the finest grade."
+
+Mr. Powers rose and drew out a cigar.
+
+"I think I'm quite a lecturer, don't you?" he said. "I imagine your
+father, Van, could have told you this story much better than I have
+if you could have captured him for two hours on a train when he had
+nothing else to do. As it is I have had to fill his place, and I
+want you to inform him with my compliments that I am surprised to
+discover how completely he has neglected his son's education."
+
+With a mischievous twinkle in his eye Mr. Powers passed into the
+smoking-car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE DAWN OF A NEW YEAR
+
+
+On their arrival at Denver Van and Bob were met by Mr. Blake, and a
+delay in the train admitted of a passing greeting between Mr. Powers
+and Van's father; afterward the heavy express that had safely
+brought the travelers to their journey's end thundered on its way
+and the boys were left on the platform. Mr. Blake regarded each of
+them keenly for a moment before speaking; then he extended his hand
+to Bob, saying:
+
+"The highest compliment I can pay you, young man, is to tell you you
+are like your father. Mrs. Blake and I are very grateful to you for
+what you've done for our son."
+
+"I'm afraid--" protested Bob.
+
+Mr. Blake cut him short.
+
+"There, there, we won't discuss it," said he. "I simply wish you to
+know that both of us have appreciated your friendship for Van. He is
+a scatter-brained young dog, but he is all we have, and we believe
+in time he is going to make good. Eh, son?" Despite the words he
+smiled down at the lad kindly.
+
+"I hope so, Father."
+
+"With a wise friend at your elbow it will be your own fault if you
+do not," his father declared.
+
+Summoning a porter to carry the luggage the trio followed him to the
+train which was to take them to the small town outside of Denver,
+where the Blakes resided.
+
+Here they found Van's mother--very beautiful and very young, it
+seemed to Bob; a woman of soft voice and pretty southern manner who
+seemed always to appear in a different gown and many floating scarfs
+and ribbons. Bob felt at a glance that she would not be the sort of
+person to pack boxes of goodies and send to her boy; she would
+always be too busy to do that. That she was, nevertheless, genuinely
+fond of Van there could be not the smallest doubt, and she welcomed
+both boys to the great stone house with true Virginian hospitality.
+
+To describe that western sojourn would be a book in itself.
+
+Bob wrote home to his parents volumes about his good times, and
+still left half the wonders of his Colorado visit untold. There was
+the trip up Pike's Peak; a two days' jaunt to a gold mine; a
+horseback ride to a large beet farm in an adjoining town; three
+weeks of real mountain camping, the joy of which was enhanced by the
+capture of a good sized bear. In addition to all this there were
+several fishing trips, and toward the close of the holiday a tour to
+the Grand Canyon.
+
+It was a never-to-be-forgotten vacation crowded with experiences
+novel and delightful.
+
+"I wonder, Van, how you can ever be content to leave all this behind
+and come East to school," remarked Bob to his chum when toward the
+last of September they once more boarded the train and turned their
+faces toward Colversham.
+
+"Oh, you see, Dad was born in the East, and he wanted me to have an
+eastern education," explained Van. "He laughs at himself for the
+idea though, and says it is only a sentimental notion, as he is
+convinced a western school would do exactly as well. He has lived
+out here twenty years now, and yet he still has a tender spot in his
+heart for New England. It is in his blood, he declares, and he can't
+get it out. Notwithstanding his love for the East, however, Mother
+and I say that wild horses couldn't drag him back there to live."
+
+"I suppose you wouldn't want to come East, either," Bob said.
+
+"Not on your life! Give me lots of hustle and plenty of room!"
+replied Van emphatically. "But I like the East and the eastern
+people, and I'll be almighty tickled to get back to Colversham and
+the fellows--to say nothing of Tim McGrew."
+
+"You'll take up football again this fall, of course," said Bob.
+"We'll both duff right in with the practice squad as soon as the
+boys get out; it seems to me there is no earthly reason why each of
+us shouldn't land somewhere on the eleven this year."
+
+Weeks afterward Bob thought with a grim smile of the remark.
+
+How different that fall term proved to be from anything he had
+expected!
+
+Colversham was reached without disaster and back into the chaos of
+trunks, suit-cases, and swarming arrivals came the western
+travelers. From morning until night a stream of boys crossed and
+recrossed the campus and the air was merry with such characteristic
+greetings as:
+
+"Ah, there, Blakie! How is the old scout?"
+
+"Snappy work, Bob Carlton! I say, you look pretty kippie. Where did
+you swipe the yellow shoes?"
+
+"Just wearing them temporarily until I can step into yours as stroke
+of the crew!" called back Bob good-naturedly.
+
+A shout went up from the boys who had heard the sally.
+
+For nearly a week the school grounds were a-hum with voices. Then
+things began to settle down into the regular yearly routine. In
+spite of the stiff program ahead Van managed to spend some part of
+each day, if only a few moments of it, with Tim McGrew. How much
+there was to tell! Three months had worked marvels in the little
+fellow and it was a pleasure to see how his strength was returning.
+
+"The doctor thinks there's a chance I may walk yet, Mr. Blake!"
+exclaimed the child. "He doesn't promise it, mind; he just says
+maybe things won't turn out as bad as we thought at first. I heard
+him tell Ma that perhaps later if I was to be operated on maybe I'd
+pull through and surprise everybody. Think of it! Think what it
+means to know there is even a chance. Wouldn't it be wonderful if I
+should walk again some time?"
+
+Catching the glow in the wistful face Van's own beamed.
+
+"You'll have us all fooled yet, Tim," he cried, "and be prancing
+round here like a young Kentucky colt--see if you don't."
+
+The lads chuckled together.
+
+Van was bubbling over with high spirits when he left Tim that
+afternoon and there was nothing to herald the approach of the
+calamity that fell like a thunderbolt upon him. It was late at night
+when the illness developed that so alarmed Bob Carlton that it sent
+him rushing to the telephone to call up the head master. From that
+moment on things moved with appalling rapidity. Van was carried from
+the dormitory to the school hospital and at the doctor's advice Mr.
+Carlton was summoned from New York by telephone. Within an
+incredibly few hours both he and his wife arrived by motor, and
+their first act was to wire Van's father.
+
+The boy was very ill, so ill that in an operation lay the one
+slender chance of saving his life. The case could brook no delay.
+There was not sufficient time to consult Van's father, or learn from
+him his preferences as to what should be done. To Mr. Carlton fell
+the entire responsibility of taking command of the perilous
+situation. He it was who secured the famous surgeon from New York;
+who sent for nurses and doctors; who made the decision that meant
+life or death to the boy who lay suffering on the cot in that silent
+room.
+
+How leaden were the hours while the lad's existence trembled in the
+balance!
+
+Mr. Carlton paced the floor of the tiny office, his hands clinched
+behind him and his lips tightly set. If Van did not survive his
+would be the word that had sent him to his end. Should the worst
+befall how should he ever greet that desperate father who was even
+now hurrying eastward with all the speed that money could purchase?
+What should he say? What could he say, Mr. Carlton asked himself. To
+lose his own child would be a grief overwhelming enough; but to have
+given the order that hurried another man's only boy into eternity--that
+would be a tragedy that nothing could ever make right.
+
+"I have done the best I knew," muttered Mr. Carlton over and over to
+himself. "I have done toward his son precisely as I would have done
+toward my own. Had I it all to decide over again I could do nothing
+different."
+
+Yet try as he would to comfort himself the hours before he could
+have tidings from the operating room dragged with torturing
+slowness. Bob, crouched in a chair in the corner of the room, dared
+not speak to his father. Never had he seen him so unnerved. There
+was no need to question the seriousness of the moment; it brooded in
+the tenseness of the atmosphere, in the speed with which his heart
+beat, in the drawn face of the man who never ceased his measured
+tread up and down the narrow room.
+
+And when the strain of the operation was actually over there was no
+lessening of anxiety, because for days following the battle for life
+had still to be waged. Would human strength hold through the combat?
+That was the question that filled the weary hours of the day and the
+sleepless watches of the night.
+
+Mr. Carlton, ordinarily so bound up in business affairs that he
+never could leave town, now gave not a thought to them. Instead he
+took up his abode in the dormitory with Bob that he might be close
+at hand, and here he eagerly checked off the successive hours that
+brought nearer that man who was racing against Fate across the vast
+breadth of the country.
+
+How would they meet, these two who had been so long divided by a
+gulf of years and bitterness? Would his former friend feel that the
+decisions he had made were wise, or would he heap reproaches upon
+him for putting in jeopardy a life over which he had no jurisdiction?
+With dread Mr. Carlton strove to put the thought of the coming
+interview out of his mind.
+
+"I have done as well as I knew," he reiterated. "Would that it had
+been my own boy instead of his!"
+
+Over and over he planned to himself what he would say at that
+crucial meeting. He would explain as nearly as he could the precise
+conditions that he felt justified him in assuming the immense
+financial responsibilities he had heaped up for his former friend.
+If the lad lived it would be worth it all; but if he did not it
+would all have gone for naught. Would not any father rather have had
+his child alive, invalid though he was, than to have lost him
+altogether?
+
+The meeting when it came was quite different from anything Mr.
+Carlton had outlined. It was after midnight when the special arrived
+at the dim little station, and even before the train came to a stop
+its solitary passenger sprang impatiently to the platform.
+
+There was no need for James Carlton to make certain who it was;
+every line of the form was familiar. He strode to the traveler's
+side.
+
+The hands of the two men shot out and met in a firm clasp.
+
+"The boy?"
+
+"He is alive, Asa."
+
+"God bless you, Jim!"
+
+Van Blake faced the great crisis, fought his way courageously
+through it, and won.
+
+Slowly he retraced his steps up the path to health again, and as
+soon as he was able to be moved he and his father and mother
+together with the Carltons went to Allenville and opened the old
+farmhouse for Christmas.
+
+What a Christmas it was!
+
+What a day of rejoicing and thanksgiving among young and old!
+
+Tim McGrew and all his family were brought down for a holiday, and
+there was a royal tree decked with candles and loaded with gifts;
+there was a pudding which could nowhere have been matched; a
+southern plum-pudding made by Van's mother; there were carols sung
+as only those to whom they meant much could sing them; and there was
+joy and peace in every heart.
+
+"Next summer it must be Colorado for you all, Jim," cried Asa Blake
+as he stood with his hand on the shoulder of his old partner. "We'll
+make this New Year the happiest of our lives. Tim shall go too; and
+if money can buy surgical skill he shall make the journey hither on
+his own two feet. Here's to the new year, Jim!"
+
+"The new year, Asa, and may God bless us every one!" echoed Mr.
+Carlton, softly.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of Sugar, by Sara Ware Bassett
+
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