As intimated in the foregoing paragraph, the clothing worn by the tanyard gang during the summer months was almost nil—negligible, at any rate. Always there were rents and patches, and more rents. But the gang did not care.
The next day after Davey’s debauch my father came blustering into the house, and bellowed, “Now, who in hell has taken my axe?” My mother said to him in her sweet, calm way, “Oh, don’t be so fussy, William—Davey loaned your axe to Jim Cardwell last night.”
Attaching no significance to this fact, nor sensing forebodings, my father laughingly said, “I wonder what Jim thought he could do with an axe, in his pickled condition?” I should like to tell you now that he found that out, to his dismay, all too soon.
He was a good feeler, was my father, happy as a lark when things went right—and not at all ugly even when he swore, not counting of course the tempo of the sulphurous words of easement which he sometimes released. Just habitual, understand. The indiscriminate use of swearwords was as natural as long-whiskers to the old pioneer. He whistled a lot, and sometimes tried to sing, but he was hot very good at that.
Having first boots to mend for a patron of his shoe-shop, my father was late in reaching the tannery this day. The ruffled condition which had broken forth with the axe inquiry now relegated from his thoughts, he whistled while he worked, and this too in bad taste in the presence of his patron.
It had fallen to my lot to remain at the house for a while, the home and the shoeshop being one and the same place. A packing case containing alum, tallow, neatsfoot oil, and lampblack, had been received by express the day previous. I was to take from this packing box some alum, powder it fine, then dissolve it in warm water. It was to be used at the tannery in the day’s workout of the hides from one of the vats. It was to firm them. A hide in the jelly stage is as slippery as an eel, and it was always a chore to get them safely landed on the work bench.
My father would work the ooze out of the hides with a slicker—a piece of plate glass ground smooth on the edge. Then he would rub the alum in with the same devise, before returning them to the vat which would be refilled with fresh ooze. Later, after the six vats were worked out, the hides would again be put upon the bench, when tallow and neats-foot oil would be worked into them with that same slicker. It would come into play again when he polished the blackened leather. All handlings at the bench called for vigorous rubbings. So vigorously did he attack them that he would sweat. Oh, God, how that man did sweat! Being in fine fettle, and late on the job this day, he would rush the work, and whistle—and sweat all the more.