UNCLE TOM CURTIS arrived in New York toward the end of the children's visit, good-byes were said to Miss Cartright and to Uncle Bob, and within the space of a day Jean and Giusippe were amid new surroundings. Here was quite a different type of city from Boston—a city with many beautiful buildings, fine residences, and a of great factories which black smoke up into the blue of the sky. Here, too, were Giusippe's aunt and uncle with a welcome for him; and here, furthermore, was the new position which the boy had so eagerly in the glass works. The place given Giusippe, however, did not prove to be the one his uncle had secured for him after all; for during the journey from New York Uncle Tom Curtis had had an opportunity to study the young Italian, and the result of this better acquaintance turned out to be exactly what Uncle Bob Cabot had predicted; Uncle Tom became tremendously interested in the Venetian, and before they arrived at Pittsburgh had to put him in quite a different part of the works from that which he had at first intended.
"Your nephew has splendid stuff in him," explained Mr. Curtis to Giusippe's uncle. "I mean to start him further up the ladder than most of the boys who come here. We will give him every chance to rise and we'll see what use he makes of the opportunity. He is a very interesting lad."
Accordingly, while Jean struggled with French, , drawing, history, and literature at the new school in which Uncle Tom had entered her and while she and Fräulein Decker had many a combat with German, Giusippe began wrestling with the problems of plate glass making.
The factory was an immense one, covering a vast area in the manufacturing district of the city; it was a long way from the section where Jean lived, and as the boy and girl had become great chums they at first missed each other very much. Soon, however, the rush of work filled in the gaps of loneliness. Each was far too busy to the other, and since Uncle Tom invented all sorts of attractive plans whereby they could be together on Saturday afternoons and Sundays the weeks flew swiftly along. There were motor trips, visits to the museums and churches of the city, and long walks with to escape from the which him in.
Uncle Tom's home was much more formal than Uncle Bob's. It stood, one of a row of tall gray stone houses, fronting a broad avenue on which there was a great deal of driving. It had a large library and a still larger dining-room in which Jean playfully protested she knew she should get lost. But stately as the was it was not so big and formidable after all if once you got upstairs; on the second floor were Uncle Tom's rooms and a dainty little bedroom, study, and bath for Jean. On the floor above a room was set apart for Giusippe, so that he might stay at the house whenever he chose. Saturday nights and Sundays he always spent at Uncle Tom's; the rest of the time he lived with his uncle and aunt.
To Giusippe it was good to be once more with his and talk in his native language; and yet such a had a few months in the United States made in him that he found that he was less and less anxious to remain an Italian and more and more eager to become an American. His uncle, who had made but a poor success of life in Venice, and who had secured in his foster country prosperity and happiness, declared there was no land like it. He missed, it is true, the warm, rich beauty of his birthplace beyond the seas, and many a time talked of it to his wife and Giusippe; but the of the great American city gripped him with its . It presented endless opportunity—the chance to learn, to possess, to win out.
"If you have brains and use them, if you are not afraid of hard work, there is no limit to what a man may do and become over here," he told Giusippe. "That is why I like it, and why I never shall go back to Italy. Just you jump in, youngster, and don't you worry but you'll bring up somewhere in the end."
There was no need to urge a lad of Giusippe's make-up to "jump in"; on the contrary it might, perhaps, have been wiser advice to caution him not to take his new work too hard. He early and late, never sparing himself, never thinking of . he was a boy, and to this power was linked the determination to make good. Before he had been a month in the glass house he was recognized by all the men as one who would make of each task merely a stepping-stone to something higher. His uncle was congratulated right and left on having such a nephew, and very proud indeed he was of Giusippe.
In the meantime Uncle Tom Curtis, although busy with more important matters, kept his eyes and ears open. Frequent reports concerning his protégé reached him in his far-away office at the other end of the works. Indeed the boy would have been not a little surprised had he known how very well informed about his progress the head of the firm really was. But Uncle Tom never said much. He did, however, write Uncle Bob that to bring home a penniless Italian as a souvenir of Venice was not such a crazy scheme after all as he had at first supposed it. From Uncle Tom this was rare praise, a complete , in fact. Uncle Bob over the letter and showed it to Hannah, who rubbed her hands and declared things were working out nicely.
"Some day, Giusippe," remarked Uncle Tom one evening after dinner, when together with the young people he was sitting within the glow of the library lamp, "I propose you take Jean through the works. It is ridiculous that a niece of mine should acquaint herself with the history of the glass of all the past ages and never go through her own uncle's factory. What do you say, missy? Would you like to go?"
"Of course, Uncle Tom, I'd love to. I wrote Uncle Bob only the other day that I wanted dreadfully to see how plate glass was made and hoped some time you'd take me. I didn't like to ask you for fear you were too busy."
"I have been a little rushed, I'll admit. We business men," he slapped Giusippe on the shoulder, "live in a good deal of a whirl—eh, Giusippe?"
"I know you do, sir."
"And you? You have nothing to do, I suppose. It chances that I have heard to the contrary, my lad. You've put in some good work since you came here, and I am much gratified by the spirit you've shown."
Giusippe glowed. It was not a common thing for Mr. Curtis to commend.
"I didn't know, sir, that you——"
"Knew what you were doing? Didn't any one ever tell you that I have a search-light and a telescope in my office?" Uncle Tom laughed. "Oh, I keep track of things even if I do seem to be otherwise occupied. So look out for yourself! Beware! My eyes may be upon you almost any time."
"I am not afraid, sir," smiled the boy.
"And you have no cause to be, either, my lad," was Uncle Tom's serious rejoinder. "Now you and Jean fix up some date to see the works. Why not to-morrow? It is Saturday, and she will not be at school."
"But I work Saturday mornings, Mr. Curtis."
"Can't somebody else do your work for you?"
"I have never asked that."
"Well, I will. We'll arrange it. Let us say to-morrow then. Take Jean and explain things to her. You can do it, can't you?"
"I think so. Most of the process I understand now, and if there is anything that I need help about I can ask."
"That's right. Just go ahead and complete the girl's education in glass-making so she can write her Boston uncle that she is now to superintend any glass works that may require her ."
Jean laughed merrily.
"I am afraid I should be rather a poor , Uncle Tom," said she. "There seems to be such a lot to know about glass."
"There is," agreed Mr. Curtis. "Sometimes I feel as if about everything in the world was made of it. Of course you've seen the ink erasers made of a cluster of fine glass fibres. Oh, yes; they have them. And the aigrettes made in the same way and used in ladies' . Then there are those beautiful brocades having fine threads of glass woven into them in place of gold and silver; it was a Toledo firm, by the way, that presented to the Infanta Eulalie of Spain a dress of satin and glass woven together. To-day came an order from California for glass to serve yet another purpose; you could never guess what. The people out there want some of our heaviest polished plate to make the bottoms of boats."
"Of boats!"
"Boats," repeated Uncle Tom, nodding.
"But—but why make a glass-bottomed boat?"
"Well, in California, Florida, and many other warm climates boats with bottoms of glass are much in use. Sightseers go out to where the water is clear and by looking down through the bottom of the boat they can see, as they go along, the wonderful plant and animal life of the ocean. Such , such fish, such seaweeds as there are! I have heard that it is as interesting as moving pictures, and quite as thrilling, too."
"I'd like to do it," said Giusippe.
"I shouldn't," declared Jean with a . "I hate things that , and squirm, and . Imagine being so near those creatures! Why, if I once should see them I should never dare to go in bathing again. I'd rather not know what's in the sea."
"There is something in that, little lady," Uncle Tom answered, slipping one of his big hands over the two tiny ones in the girl's lap. "Giusippe and I will keep the sea monsters out of your path, then; and the land monsters, too, if we can. Now it is time you children got to bed, for to-morrow you must make an early start. You'd better telephone your aunt or uncle that you are going to stay here to-night, Giusippe. If you do not work to-morrow you will not need to get to the factory until Jean and I do; it will be much simpler for you to remain here and go down with us in the car. I'll call up your boss and explain matters. Good-night, both of you. Now ! I want to read my paper."
The next morning the Curtis family was astir, and after breakfast Uncle Tom with his two charges rolled off to the factory in the big red .
"Your superintendent says you are welcome to the morning off, Giusippe," Mr. Curtis remarked as they sped along. "But he did have the grace to say he should miss you. Now it seems to me that if you are to give Jean a clear idea of what we do at the works you better begin with the sheet glass department. That will interest her, I am sure; later you can show her where you yourself work."
The car pulled up at Mr. Curtis's office, and they all got out.
"Good-bye! Good luck to you," he called as the boy and girl started off.
Jean waved her hand.
"We will be back here and ready to go home with you, Uncle Tom, at one o'clock," she called over her shoulder.
"We won't be late, sir."
"See that you're not. I shall be hungry and shall not want to wait. I guess you'll have an appetite, too, by that time."
"Is sheet glass blown, Giusippe?" inquired Jean, as they went across the yard. "I hate to ask stupid questions, but you see I do not know anything about it."
"That isn't a stupid question. Quite the contrary. Yes, sheet glass is blown. You shall see it done, too."
"But I do not understand how they can get it out, if they blow it."
"You will."
The boy led the way through a low arched door.
Before the furnaces within the great room a number of glass-blowers were at work. They stood upon wooden stagings, each one of which was built over a well or pit in the floor, and was just opposite an opening in the furnace.
"Each of these men has a work-hole of the furnace to himself, so that he may heat his material any time he needs to do so. The staging gives him room to swing his heavy mass of glass as he blows it, and the pit in the floor, which is about ten feet deep, furnishes space for the big to run out, or grow longer, as he blows. The for sheet glass is done much as was that for the smaller piec............