"See all these beans growing around us," he said to his boys. "They are almost like the castor beans we have in America, and Americans make oil out of the castor bean. Bring me a jack from the carpenter shop." The boys ran to get the jack. "Now, turn it upside down and make a press out of it."
They mashed the beans until a thick oil ran out. Then Mr. Hope bought peanuts, not ten cents worth in a paper sack from the corner store, but tons from the farms where they grew. The boys mashed them until barrelfuls of oil were stored away. It was a better grade and much cheaper than the oil they bought from Europe. Today two hydraulic presses make the manufacture of oil easy.
"What shall we do now?" asked a boy one day. "There are no more of the American brooms."
"Why not make brooms here in our own school?" said Mr. Hope.
They planted broom-corn seed and it grew so well that now broom-making is one of the trades taught at Elat.
During the war there was no soap to be had. Some people said, "How dreadful!" but Mr. Hope said, "What good luck! We shall have to find a way to make our own soap."
He sent to America for lye, and the school has added soap-making to its other work.
One day the boys asked what they should do with the shavings in the carpenter shop.
"Burn them," said Mr. Hope. "Burn all of them."
The foolish boys set fire to them on the dirt floor of the shop. They were piled up so high that the roof mats caught fire and in a few moments there was nothing left of the carpentry shop but a pile of ashes and a few blackened tools.
But almost before the ashes were cold, Mr. Hope started the remorseful boys to building another shop, and in less than a week they were back at work.
Many of the young men who came to the school were married, and Mr. Hope decided that he would build a town where each man who attended school could live in his own home. His town now has houses on each side of the street and more than one hundred families live there. In the afternoons, Mrs. Hope has classes for the girls and women. She teaches them to cook and to sew, to read and to write, and to take care of their children.
After the boys and men and their wives have finished their training in the schools, they go back to their own villages. Often they build themselves a home. The chief is sure to be interested in a man who has a house better than his own, so the mission boys become men of importance.