Making Toothpicks

The inquisitivo man alighted from the oars in the city of Lewiston, Me., and stood on the station platform in an attitude of indecisión, for he was at a loss to say in which direction it would be most desira ble to turn. "I can earn a dollar a day packing toothpicks, and that is better than working in the cotton factories," he heard a little giil say to a companion, and instautly the inquisitive man had found au occnpation. "Packing toothpicks! Of all things, I prefer to see a toothpick factory, and it is fortúnate I blundered on board that train," he said to himself. Then, with the air of one bent on most urgent business, the inquisitive man set out in search of the toothpick factory. It was nok so imposing a structure as he had expected to see, but there was so inuch b'.istle and semblance of industry everywhere around the establishment that his disappointment as to the general appearance of the building was soon forgotten. Inclosing the strueture, as if to prevent its escape, were long rows of small logs and short rows of big logs, each one exuctly four feet in length, from all of which the bark had been neatly and entirely removed. "It's birch and maple, of course. We don't use any other kind," a small boy said in auswer to the inquisitivo mau's question. "I reckon you're a stranger 'round theso parts?" "I do not u tuember ever having been here beforc. ' ' "Then i guess you never have, because you vrcaldn't be likely to forget a toothpick iuctory if you'd everseen one. We make 6,000,000 picks a day, and that's quite a pile. Anyhow, you'd think so if you had to count 'eru before getting a bite to eat. Want to see the machine?" "Can you show it to me?" "That's what I'm here for." "I ehould think that it would be more profitable to work in the factory than to idle your time away answering the questious of ignoraut people like myself . ' ' "That's where you make a big mistaké, mister. It's a rnighty mean man who won't pay me for showing him 'round, and I piek up fair wages when there's a good erop of visitors. Come along, and I'll show you the toothpick business. Here in this yard the stock is sawed into pitees 6J inches long." And the small boy pointed to the inclosure in which a dozen or more circular saws were buzzing and humming as they quickly divided the logs into the required lengths. All pieces not clear and straight grained were thrown, aside, and the remainder was being packed into barrels so made that wide crevices appeared between the staves. "Yes, that's all right," the small boy said, answering the inquisitive man's look of inquiry. "The stock is being packed for the steaming room. When the barrels are full, they'll be taken there and left about three hours, when the blocks will be alinost as soft as leather. Charging the wood with steam drives out all the sap, and it is then ready for splitting. Come this way and you can see how that part of the work is done." The small boy led the visitor to a room in the main building, where was what is known as a "veneer machine," a piece of mechanism not unlike a lathe, which was rapidly converting the wood into pliable bands, hardly thicker than ordinary cardboard. The keen knives cut the 634 iuca blocks so readily and smoothly tbat tho general appearance of the work was much as if a roll of cream colored ribbon was being unwound and thrown carelessly on the floor. Two boys were gathering up the damp material and winding it on huge spools. "They're getting it ready for the big machine," the guide said as he cbewed a fragment of the wooden ribbon. "Every one of the spools holds about 100 feet of the veneer, and the rest of the work is done so quickly that you won't have much of a chance to see the operation. ' ' The "big machine" was so intricate that the inquisitive man realized that he could not describe it intelligently, even though he should spend inany hours studying its construction. He saw at one end of a long, narrow structure, filled with wheels and knives, arms on which the spools of veneer were hung and observed that men pushed the ends of the wooden ribbon through uarrow slots, where it was seized by little steel flngers. He knew that somewhere inside the machine the material was being cut, trimmed and smoothed into flat picks with chisellike ends, for directly opposite to where the veneer was being fed to the iron workman a long spout shot out toothpicks in bewildering numbers. It was a perfect cloud of tiny bits of wood, which would soon have buried the machine itself but for the fact that boys were gathering the harvest into wooden boxes with wire bottoms capable of holding a peck or more. "That's all there is to the making," the guide said as the inquisitive man raised his eyes. "Of course they're soft now, as the veneer was, but these boys will take them into the dryiug room, and af ter they've had hot air forced through them by the steam blower for 20 minutes or half au hour they'll be stiff and brittle, so that you can break a dozen or so a day and in that way help to make trade good. "-James Otis in Philadelphiü Times. Curtaina were employed for bedsteads in the eleventh century. They wro afterward transferred to windows.