the blocks and are ready for the next operation. This room being so uncomfortably warm, the thermometer standing at nearly 80°, we are quite willing to quit it and seek another. is every where noticeable in it. We see the bonnet, during the simple operation of pressing, passing through three different hands, the tip, head, and front being pressed by different persons. So thoroughly, indeed, are these three processes separated that the "tip man" could no more perform the labor of those coming after him than the printer's imp could fill with dignity the editorial chair. In each operation the bonnet is placed upon a special wooden block, and pressed by means of a peculiar machine. The machines are similar, however, in The next in order is the Press Room. On entering this we find that we have, figuratively speaking, jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire, for if the Blocking Room was hot, this is hotter. Coats and vests are discarded as burdensome, and, it being a fair day, every window is thrown open. If we investigate the cause of this heat we shall find that it proceeds principally from the hot flats used by the many work-asmuch as they all consist of a kind of turnmen here engaged in pressing bonnets. "But where are the bonnets?" the reader exclaims, as he examines the partial view of one of the Press Rooms given above. In answer to this very natural question it may be well to notice here that the establishment which we are visiting, manufactures, in its triple set of apartments, not only bonnets but both ladies' and gentlemen's hats. Save that a different shaped block is used in each case, these three forms of headcovering are made in very similar manners. To such an extent, indeed, is this true that we have not hesitated to present engravings of rooms in the hat departments, when we could thus more conveniently and better illustrate our subject than by prohibiting our artist's camera from entering any apartments save those devoted to bonnets. In the Press Room we are called upon to particularly observe the minute division of labor which is made a specialty by the proprietors of this establishment, and which table, upon which the block is placed, and which moves under a flat of several pounds weight. This flat is pressed down upon the bonnet by the application of the foot to a lever, connecting by a rod with the top of the machine. This is the usual manner; heavy hand flats, with handles at each end, are sometimes substituted, however, and the bonnets pressed upon blocks which allow of but little turning. With surprising rapidity the experienced presser places the bonnet upon the block of his machine, lays the damp cloth over it to prevent scorching, stands upon one foot, brings his flat to bear with the other, with one hand gives a few revolutions to the turn-table, with the other guides the flat as it smooths the bonnet, and then, with his portion of the work performed upon it, passes it on to undergo the next operation. Opening out of the Press Room, and se] arated from it by iron doors, is a yet hotter locality, the Heating Room, containing large fur naces in which numerous cubical pieces of iron are transformed into the red-hot cores used in the hollow pressing-flats. We will follow the bonnet, now smooth and shining, to the Wiring Hall. This is the pleasantest room we have yet visited, not only from its situation, but also on account of its occupants. Heretofore, in our journey through the factory, we have met only with men, but in the Wiring Hall we are to find the other sex. Even before reaching it we know this to be the case; for through the halls leading to it we hear the music of female voices, and as we draw nearer recognize the patriotic strains of "Hail Columbia." Yes, the "girls" (as the female operatives are always called) are really singing! Let none of our precise crusty old manufacturers be horrified at the idea, and assert that the work can not be half done when the mind is diverted from it by such "carryings on." Let any one of them examine the workmanship and see if it is not quite as good in quality as that which comes from the drudges under his supervision-those rightly-called "poor factory girls," who are by him debarred from thinking of any thing from morning till night save the toilsome labor in which they are engaged. Having found, as he certainly will, that light-heartedness and good work are not mortal enemies, let him relax the oppressive rules which have previously crushed out the vivacious spirit of his operatives, and hereafter act upon the principle that the knight of St. Crispin who whistles will make the best shoe. But this is no place for moralizing. The In "girls" are seated in couples at peculiar worktables, upon which are stands for bonnets, and in which are drawers for wire, thread, etc. this room the thread-covered wire is sewn, as a stiffening, around the edge of the bonnet; the paper lining, to prevent the goods from sticking together when packed, is stitched into the crown; and a fancy ticket for price marks, with "Superfine" at the top and the wirer's number at the bottom, is placed upon one side. During these processes, which are rapidly gone through with, the bonnet gets much out of shape, and has to be sent to another room for the purpose of receiving the final touch. Here, in the Shaping Room, it is placed upon a block, by a pinch here and a pull there has its symmetry restored to it, and is finally complete. We now proceed to the Packing Room. Here it might be supposed that considerable assorting would be required before the price could be fixed to the goods, and they be made ready for sale and for shipment; but such is far from the truth. During the various processes of manufacture, from the braid to the bonnet, one grade of goods has been kept entirely distinct from the other; and as the completed bonnets come by hundreds and thousands into the Packing Room, "Lot 999" is just as distinct from "Lot 1000" as if one had been made in Boston, the other in New York. Every thing, in fact, with regard to the manufacture of the goods has been so systematized, through subdivisions of labor and through systems of accounts, that not only can the final cost of any class of goods be readily determined, but the cost of each individual bonnet can at once be ascertained to the fraction of a cent in any department where it may be found. But little else is required then in the Packing Room FIRST AMERICAN STRAW BONNET. than to show customers the goods, slip the bonnets into boxes from the large pile always in readiness, and send them off. While in the Packing Room the sight-seeing reader could not but have been tempted to ask where so many boxes came from. Should he walk a short distance across the Common he would find, nearly buried in logs and boards, an old church, one in which the writer, many years ago, listened with childish impatience to long sermons, ate carraway, and slept. Having been more than doubled in size this old church is now a box manufactory, or, in the town parlance, the "steam-mill." The congregation daily attending here consists of about thirty persons. Through the agency of these about a million feet of lumber are annually converted into forty thousand cases, and from seventy-five to a hundred tons of straw board meet with a change into bandboxes, all for the use of this single straw bonnet factory. Such is a part of the results that have grown out of little Betsey Metcalf's First American Straw Bonnet. LAND beyond the setting sun! HEREAFTER. O realm more fair than poet's dream! How clear thy silvery streamlets run, How bright thy golden glories gleam! Earth holds no counterpart of thine. The dark-browed Orient, jewel-crowned, Pales as she bows before thy shrine, Shrouded in mystery so profound. The dazzling North, the stately West, Whose rivers flow from mount to sea; Thou blest Hereafter! Mortal tongue The flowery paths for which we yearn. Thy skies of cloudless azure beam. We know thy happy valleys lie In green repose, supremely blest; We know against thy sapphire sky Thy mountain peaks sublimely rest. And sometimes even now we catch Faint gleamings from thy far-off shore, And still with eager eyes we watch For one sweet sign or token more. For oh, the deeply loved are there! Nor shunned thy solemn mysteries. The aspirations, strong of wing, Aiming at heights we could not reach; The songs we tried in vain to sing; The thoughts too vast for human speech; Thou hast them all, Hereafter! Thou Shalt keep them safely till that hour When, with God's seal on heart and brow, We claim them in immortal power! MRS. GISBORNE'S WAY. Nancy was putting the patches on the tablecloth, and while her mother was grilling over THE wintry sunbeams fell one morning in a the stove; and, warming on this anthropophag filled the kitchen, a whole flight of them dipping directly into the frying-pan, where, in sizzling enjoyment, swam the roundest and richest of delectable dough-nuts. Mrs. Gisborne stepped and dropped the painted curtain. "I sha'n't have the sun putting out my fire!" she said. And this, in fact, was the motto according to which she had governed herself through life, and every body else as well. Any higher luminary had always sung second to her own interior lights of hard sense and practical policy. A trait, however, that, so far as this world is concerned, did not impair her usefulness. It had been the severest trial of Mrs. Gisborne's experience that her daughter Kate inherited just enough of her own stamina to be quite as willful, after her peculiar fashion; and that, instead of being the careful housewife that some of her neighbors boasted in their daughters, she spun more street-yarn than her ancestors had ever footed in the course of their united lives, attended ismatic lectures on the nights of evening meeting, forsook that safe oldfashioned receptacle of wisdom the almanac for nauseous novels, and on no condition whatever would consent to frying dough-nuts. On this last point Kate was fortified, all modern ideas as well as many ancient prejudices coming to her support against the porcine root of the matter; and, armed with axioms, she reasoned that the devils once driven into the herd of swine had found such abode so congenial that they had ever since made it their resting-place. In point of truth, though, neither of the two elder ladies of the family of three were particularly fond of the edible in question: it was the veneration for good old generations that still laid them a sacrifice on the altar of discord; perhaps also a leniency toward the new, for it was to be remarked that, abstemious as were the two first-mentioned persons, these dough-nuts always disappeared in a rather precipitate manner. Aunt Nancy used to say it was done by mesmerism, that being a ghost she had never laid; but Kate said it was the old miracle over again, at which her mother, shocked by her profanity, ventured a little of her own, and declared that though not of the sort Kate affirmed, nevertheless there doubtless was deviltry in it. Just now, being the sore subject, these dough-nuts, simmering so unconsciously in their round-faced, puffy good-nature, brought up all the ills of life to Mrs. Gisborne's ken again, and while her fire should brighten she sank upon a seat near the window opened for the smoke's escape, and, vigorously as she complained to herself, wiped her warm, rosy face with a corner of her apron. Here was she balked of her way. Mrs. Gisborne meant to have her way if it took her life. There was Kate at this moment probably in the Castle of the Pyrences, a hundred feet underground with the Lady Victoria, she thought, while her Aunt VOL. XXIX.-No. 173.-QQ girls, and she had half a score, each one of them rubbing, scrubbing, scouring, choring, in a perpetual gala of business, and any one of them a capital look-out for whatever man should fancy her. And thereat the crowning grievance exalted itself. There was Kate, instead of contenting herself in her station, and taking up with a wholesome mechanic, as her mother had done before her, a man who loved her like his life-there she was with all her silly head turned by the attentions of Simon Symonds, and with the idea of being a lawyer's lady. Kate indeed might become a fine personage in time if she attained her ends; but so far above her beginnings that her mother would have to scrape her feet too carefully at her door ever to take any comfort in her house. No, that was not to be. Mrs. Gisborne shook her head afresh, and meant more than ever to have her own way in a matter so important to her own happiness as that. That her way, to all appearance, was not Kate's way, made small matter; for her way was Reed Dunroy-somebody she could crack her jests with when she chose, and, as she assured Aunt Nancy, not a bit of a gentleman! Meanwhile, whatever steps Mrs. Gisborne meant to take in order to have her way, or Kate hers, or Reed Dunroy his, Providence, which appears to forget our spiders'-webs in the great orbit-work of the universe, made them all unnecessary, and laid the corner-stone of their structure with the key of another's arch. Yet with all Mrs. Gisborne's grumble, Kate was hardly the wretch that the mother's momentary exasperation made her appear. She was opposed on principle to dough-nuts-but put before her in the flesh, how could ravenous young blood resist the savory morsels? If Aunt Nancy patched the table-cloth, Kate had ironed it; and if her mother mended the fire, Kate had brought in the coal. It was Kate herself who made the tins so that the sun could see his own face therein, made the floors white as the even drift, and every Monday before sunrise had her strong arms in the washing-tub— "Round glittering arms, plunged elbow-deep in suds, Like wild swans hid in lilies all a-shake." The trouble was-and there was Kate's error she made no stir about it all: she ought to have brushed about like a turbine-wheel or a Mudge girl. Then, too, the lectures were attended not so much from a strong-minded motive as for a place of rendezvous and a good time; and if drops of wisdom would creep in the girl was not to be blamed. And as for the two lovers, Nature had made her a coquette, her mother had made her ambitious, and if the one's ambition ran in a different channel from the other's, that was owing to the age. Which of the two suits she preferred perhaps she had not asked herself seriously; or, if she knew, had silenced the inner voice that told her. If she had sat down to consider it, it is possible that the open, manly face and sparkling eyes of Reed Dunroy would have made her heart tremble just enough for her to shut her hand over it; yet, on the other side, there would have been Mr. Symonds's position and learning. She could see Mr. Symonds's wife, in her mind's eye, going into the Lyceum, and Colonel This and Doctor That rising to give her a chair, to bring her a seat, to murmur a greeting; but Reed Dunroy's wife would slip into one of the lower rows, and nobody would turn his head; to be sure she would snuggle up close to Reed, and he would put his arm over the back of the settee, and they would laugh or listen as they chose. In which of the two plays she preferred to play her part she would not have liked to decide; both had their enticements. Mr. Symonds, to be sure, was not a very fine figure of a man; but then who wanted beauty in a lord of creation? Were not Reed Dunroy's good looks nearly as factitious a circumstance as Simon Symonds's learning was? Had they any more to do with the soul beneath them than the other had? Something would have answered yes, if Kate had not half wished to be deaf upon that side. If her mother had not pressed Reed's suit with too much avidity, after all was said, perhaps it would have needed no pressing. If Mr. Symonds had not pressed his own with too much avidity, it might not have occurred to Kate to throw out her line in play to find herself likely to be caught at last by her own bait. As it was, she hesitated, and the woman who hesitates being lost, according to the adage, it is safe to presume then that Kate was-lost, that is, to one of the lovers; but to which one of them it was not easy to say, especially while she herself was so unconscious of her fate. If she summed up decidedly her conclusions concerning it at all, she thought she was going finally to Reed Dunroy, and had hankerings after wealth and station with Mr. Symonds. A careful observer, who prided himself upon knowing all about such matters, might think differently, and be sure she was going to Mr. Symonds, to have hankerings after homely comfort with Reed Dunroy. Meanwhile Mrs. Gisborne sat on her yellow chair and wiped her face with the corner of her apron. And while she thus condoled with herself a hand entered the open window, rolled up the painted curtain, tied its two tassels together, and then reposed with its mate on the frosty sill outside, while out of the keen, crisp weather its owner smiled in upon the heated kitchen and the florid matron. "Why, Reed, you rascal, how you frightened me!" cried she. "Rather had the start of you, eh?" said a round, cheery voice. "Jumped up as if you were on a spring." "Now you quit your jokes!" "Swap 'em for nuts?" "You'll never be a man of dignity, Reed." "Little out there. Just been sworn in special policeman." "What's that for?" "Dollar and a half a night." "Pshaw! I mean what occasion is there just now ?" "None in particular. Since the army got demoralized it's kind of spread." "What has?" "And as I always was in mischief, you know-" "You don't like to get your hand out!" The last speaker was a new arrival, standing on the lowest step of the flight of stairs that opened down into the kitchen, leaning with both hands upon a broom, and wearing on her hair a gay bandana kerchief with the knot tied in two wings, like the petasus of Mercury, over her forehead, the better to protect the bright locks beneath from dust. Beneath this unique array a pair of golden-hazel eyes, large and luminous, lit up two pink cheeks, flushed at this moment (either from the cold of upper regions or because so many people are looking at her) from apple-blossom tint to damask rose, broken into dimples by the mischievous red lips, whose curves in turn were broken into smiles over the prettiest pearls of tiny teeth that ever guarded a saucy tongue. It was no wonder that at sight of the vivid picture in the dark frame-work of the stairway, for a second Reed Dunroy's eyes fell with just the least visible tremor. Then he looked up again bold as lover need be, and twice too much at ease. It was ridiculous that such an atom as this should make a stout man shake. "Oh, how cold it is!" shivered she. "Just think of my sweeping the chambers such a day as this! Did you ever hear an icicle chatter? I'm blue all through!" "Which is a new name for rose-color," remarked Reed. "Oh, is that you? Why don't you come in, Reed, and shut the window? This breeze is straight from the North Pole by way of Spitzbergen." "Was just asking after you, Kate." "Oh! I thought you came for the nuts." "So I did. Nuts to me." "What's that?" asked Mrs. Gisborne, as Kate did not choose to do so. "There's going to be a sleighing party over the river to-night, and a supper and dance at the Brooks'." "Yes, I know," replied Kate. "I hope there'll be a thaw first before night." "So do I, by George!" interluded Reed, with meaning. "For I promised Mr. Symonds to go with him," said the damsel, in conclusion. "Well," said Reed, coolly, "I thought I'd see whether you were going or not, because if nobody'd asked you I'd take you myself!" "I'm obliged to you. Mother, I should think you'd offer Reed your nuts. Any body that's so very polite!" "Mercy on us! they're not fit to eat-they'd burn his mouth." |