The Story of Sugar Part 13

"Several times over," was the answer. "It takes a lot of this ground material for the different kinds; some of it has other ingredients mixed with it later, and some is beaten, flavored, and colored for the fillings of chocolates."

"But who on earth eats so much candy?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Bob.

"I don't know," responded the boy wearily. "I'm sure I don't."

"What?"

"I don't believe I'd touch a piece of candy for a hundred dollars,"

he continued. "I am sick of the sight of it. Candy from morning to night--candy, candy, candy! Candy everywhere! Nothing but candy."

Bob and Van eyed him unbelievingly.

Could a boy be human and feel that way?

"Everybody here gets into the same state of mind," the lad went on.

"When the green hands come they are crazy about the stuff for about a couple of days; then it is all over. You couldn't hire them to eat. Every few weeks the different employees are allowed to buy two pounds for themselves at the wholesale price, but you would be surprised to see how few of them do it. If they get it you can be pretty certain that it is to give away, for they'd never eat it themselves."

His two listeners stared incredulously.

Their guide led them across the room.

"So," said he, reverting once more to the kettles and the thermometer, "our candy is not made by guesswork, you see. Sugar costs too much to risk having such a large batch as a kettleful spoiled. We boil it by the thermometer, and when it is at just the right point we take it off and put it into these coolers, where it thickens and is reduced to a workable temperature. That which is to be used as filling is then shifted into these big cylindrical cans that have inside them a series of revolving fingers and here the candy is beaten until quite smooth; whatever flavoring or coloring matter is needed is beaten into it."

As the machinery whirled the boys stood watching the beaters.

"Some of this beaten sugar will be colored pink, flavored with rose or wintergreen, and used for the centers of chocolate; some will have maple flavoring, some vanilla, some lemon. Nuts will be stirred into some of the rest of it. There is an almost endless number of ways in which it may be varied. Come over here and see them preparing the centers and getting them ready to cover with chocolate."

It was an interesting process.

Shallow wooden trays filled with dry corn-starch pa.s.sed beneath a machine which left in them rows of empty holes the size of the heart of a chocolate cream. The trays then moved on until they stopped just under a nozzle, which ran exactly the right amount of liquid filling into each hole. The dryness of the corn-starch prevented the mixture from flowing together. As soon as every hole in the tray was filled with fondant it was set away to cool and an empty tray subst.i.tuted. When the little centers were hard enough they were taken out of the corn-starch moulds, and after being put upon traveling strips of fine wire netting, melted chocolate was poured over them. The wire frames sped along like miniature moving sidewalks, their contents drying and cooling on the way. In the meantime the superfluous chocolate dripped through the netting into a trough beneath and was collected to be melted over again. On went the finished chocolates until they reached the packing-room, where girls removed them from the frames, sorted them, and put them into boxes.

"These are not what is known as hand-dipped or fork-dipped chocolates," explained the boy. "Those are higher priced, because they require individual attention, and the material put into them is more expensive. To make those the girls take the centers and submerge each one in melted chocolate with a dipping-fork, finishing the pieces with a certain little twist or decoration on top; it requires no small amount of skill to make this top-knot, which not only serves to render the candy more attractive but to distinguish one variety of filling from another. Each kind has its own particular decoration. After some practice any of us might, I suppose, learn to make the twist on a chocolate once; but to make that precise thing each time and never vary it would be quite a different matter. It is important the pattern should be uniform, since both the dippers and the packers must know what is inside; in addition those who sell the candy must know. It is no easy task.

After the chocolates are finished _Eureka_ is stamped on the bottom of every piece and they are ready to be sold."

"I don't see what prevents your candy from sticking to everything,"

observed Van thoughtfully.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IT IS NO EASY TASK"]

"Blasts of cool air that come through those overhead pipes. We can turn on the current whenever we wish. Whenever the girls who are packing candy find that it is becoming soft they turn on a current of cold air to chill and harden it; we often use these cool blasts, too, when handling candies in the process of making. Such kinds as b.u.t.ter-scotch, h.o.a.rhound, and the pretty twisted varieties stick together very easily. If they are allowed to become lumpy or marred they are useless for the trade and have to be melted over."

"What are those men over there doing?" inquired Bob, pointing to a group of workmen who were stirring a seething mixture of nuts and mola.s.ses.

"Some of them are making peanut brittle, some caramels; and in the last kettle I believe they are boiling h.o.a.rhound candy. See! The last man is ready to empty his upon the table. Suppose we go over and watch him."

They reached the spot just in time to see the kettle lifted and the hot candy poured out upon the metal top of the table, where it spread itself like a small, irregular pond. At once the workman in charge took up a steel bar not unlike a metal yardstick and began pressing down the ma.s.s to a uniform thickness. This done he ran the bar deftly beneath and turned the vast piece over just as one would flop over some gigantic griddle-cake. He continued to change it from side to side, pressing it down in any spot where it was too thick, but never once touching it with his hands. He then cut off a long narrow strip and fed it into a machine at his elbow, the boys regarding him expectantly. Suddenly, to their great surprise, the formless ribbon of candy that had gone into the machine began to come forth at the other end in prettily marked discs, each with the firm name stamped upon it.

"h.o.a.rhound tablets, you see," observed the boy. "The Italian who is making peanut brittle has flattened his on the table in the same fashion and marked it into bars which later will be cut and wrapped in paraffine paper."

"I never realized so much candy was manufactured in one day,"

exclaimed Bob as they went down in the elevator.

"Oh, this isn't much," returned the boy. "We are running light just now. You should come a few weeks before Christmas if you want to see things hum here."

"I guess that would be a good time for visitors to keep out,"

returned Bob as they smilingly bade good-bye to their guide and started home in the motor-car.

As the automobile glided into Fifth Avenue Van said:

"Look, Bobbie, there's a candy shop! I suppose all that stuff in the window was made in exactly the same way as those things we saw to-day, don't you?"

But Bob did not turn his head.

Instead he replied:

"Don't say candy to me. I do not want to lay eyes on another piece of it for a week!"

"Nor I!" Van echoed. "Do you wonder that boy at the factory feels as he does? I guess your father can keep his money so far as we are concerned. He'll have no candy bills from us."

In the meantime Mr. Carlton waited for the tremendous bonbon bill that had threatened to reduce his bank account, and when it was not forthcoming he nodded his head and chuckled quietly to himself.

CHAPTER VIII

VAN MUTINIES

Another day pa.s.sed and Bob and Van were once more back at Colversham greeting the boys and vainly endeavoring to settle down to the work of the last term.

"It seems as if the stretch from April to June is about the hardest pull of the whole year," yawned Van, looking up for the twentieth time from his Latin lesson and gazing out into the sunny campus.

"Studying is bad enough at best, but when the trout brooks begin to run and the canoeing is good it is a deadly proposition to be cooped up in this room hammering away for the finals."

"It always seems worse after a vacation," agreed Bob, tilting back in his chair. "You'll get back into the harness, though, in a day or two; you know you always yap just about so much when you first get back to school."

"I don't yap, as you call it, any worse than most fellows do. I hate being tied up like a pup on a leash. It seems as if I'd just have to get out and play ball--and if you were a human being you'd want to, too," growled Van.

"Hang it all, don't you suppose I want to?" Bob retorted. "What do you think I'm made of, anyway?"

"I don't know, Bobbie. Sometimes you're so resigned I begin to fear you are a mummy," was Van's laughing retort. "Now, I'm not like that. It is one big grind for me to study. The minute spring comes it seems as if I never could translate another line of Cicero as long as I lived, and I don't care a hurray what X equals. What will it matter a hundred years hence whether we plug away here at this stuff, or get out and play ball?"

"I guess you'd find it would matter to you right now without waiting for the end of a century," was the laconic answer. "But speaking of ball, what wouldn't you give to see the first League game of the season in town, Sat.u.r.day? That will be some playing!"

"I clean forgot the season opened this week," exclaimed Van. "Since I got back here I've been all mixed up on dates. I thought it was next week. Are you sure it's Sat.u.r.day?"