i. an early call

“good morning, children,” said mrs. duwell, with a bright smile—so bright that it seemed as if the oatmeal she was stirring smiled too.

“good morning, mother,” said ruth. “my, but we are early this morning; it is only seven o’clock.”

“good morning, mother,” said wallace, sleepily. “may i go back to bed again?”

“yes—after supper to-night,” replied his mother. “but i am glad you are up, for i am expecting a caller to knock at the door any moment.”

“who is it?” asked ruth.

“oh, he is a very important man,” said her mother. “the strange part of it is that he never rings the front door bell, but always comes to the kitchen door and knocks.”

“please tell us who he is!” cried both the children.

[96]

woman cooking while two children watch

tell a story about this picture

[97]

baker stading by gian loaf of bread with photographs in it

the next time a loaf of bread comes to your house, will you look into it and see if you can find pictures like the ones in the loaf on this page?

here you will find pictures of harvesting, grain elevator, bakers at work, and baker wagon.

[98]

“yes,” went on mrs. duwell, “he is going to bring us the most useful and wonderful article sold in any store in this city.”

“oh, mother, tell us what it is,” begged the children.

just then there came a heavy knock at the kitchen door.

“there he comes with it now, i believe,” whispered mrs. duwell. “wallace, you may open the door.”

wallace ran quickly to the door and opened it, and there stood—the bread man.

“oh, mother,” exclaimed wallace, “it’s only the bread man!”

“wallace,” said his mother, “speak more politely. say ‘good morning,’ and take a loaf of bread and a dozen rolls.”

“now, mother, tell us who it is you expect, and what he is going to bring,” coaxed ruth as soon as the door was closed.

“sit down and eat your breakfast, children, and i will tell you all about it.”

when the children had been served, she went on: “the man i spoke about has just gone—he is the bread man. isn’t a loaf of bread the most useful and wonderful article sold in any store in the city?”

[99]

“why, mother, you are joking!” exclaimed wallace.

“no, indeed, i am not. tell me, children, what must you have in order to live?”

“food,” replied ruth.

“correct; and what article of food do we most need?”

“bread,” replied ruth.

“i believe that is so,” said wallace, after thinking a moment. “i am going to talk with father about it when he comes home to-night.”

“that is right; i think he will tell you something about wheat fields and bake ovens,” said mrs. duwell. “now run along to school or you will be late.”

ii. the staff of life

“father,” said wallace, as the family sat about the supper table that evening, “a very important man called at the door this morning before we went to school.”

“he did! who was he?” asked mr. duwell.

“guess who,” said ruth. “he left us the most wonderful and useful article sold in any store in this city.”

“who was he? what was it?” mr. duwell pretended to be very curious.

[100]

“guess! see if you can guess!”

“let me see—oh, yes, it must have been the mayor with a pound of butter.”

“guess again,” shouted the children.

“a policeman, with a bottle of ink.”

“no, guess again!”

“i give it up.”

“the bread man with that loaf of bread,” cried the children, pointing to the loaf on the table.

“well, well, i believe you are right, children,” said their father. “i certainly ought to have guessed, although i never thought of the bread man as a very important man before.”

“mother explained it to us this morning and said that you would tell us about the wheat fields and bake ovens,” spoke up ruth.

“i certainly will, children,” said their father, looking pleased. “let me see; what is this made of?” he asked, picking up a piece of bread.

“flour.”

“yes, what kind?”

“wheat flour.”

“correct; so this is wheat bread. what other kinds of bread are there?”

“rye bread, bran bread, graham bread.”

[101]

“yes; and in europe bread is often made of oats and barley.”

“bread is sometimes called by another name,” said their mother; “did you ever hear of it? the staff——”

“the staff of life,” finished the children.

“i have an idea,” cried their father suddenly. “the spotless bakery is about three squares up the street. it is open in the evening. i know the manager. let us go up there to see how they make bread.”

“hurrah for dad! fine, come on!” cried wallace.

“i wish mother could go,” ruth said.

her mother shook her head; “no, dear, i’ll not go this time, but thank you for thinking of it.”

“we won’t be long, mother, and we’ll tell you about everything when we get home,” said wallace, as the three left the house.

iii. a visit to the bakery

soon they came to a big square building that seemed to be all windows, blazing with light. over the door was a sign which read:

the spotless bakery

[102]

the children had often seen the building before but had never been inside.

they entered and their father asked to see the manager. soon he came bustling in—a round smiling little man, dressed in a spotless white suit.

“good evening, mr. duwell,” he said, shaking hands.

“good evening, mr. baker,” replied mr. duwell. “this is ruth, and this is wallace. they want to see how bread is baked, if you are not too busy for visitors.”

“i shall be delighted to show you,” said mr. baker, smiling and shaking hands with both children; “this way, please.”

up a narrow winding stair they climbed to the sifting room on the fourth floor.

“every bit of flour starts on its journey through these sifters,” said the manager, pointing to a row of box-like sifting machines.

on the floor stood a huge pile of bags of flour. “each one of these bags holds one hundred and forty pounds,” he explained.

passing down the stairway they saw the store-room piled high with more bags of flour. “there are more than a thousand of them,” said the manager.

[103]

then they came to the mixing room. everything was white—the huge mixers were white; the walls were white; the bakers were dressed in white with odd round white caps; the dough trays were white—everything was white and spotless.

“the flour from the sifters above comes through an opening in the floor into the mixers. then the yeast and other things are added. the electric power is started. the great iron arms of the mixers turn, and twist, and mix until the whole mass becomes dough,” mr. baker explained.

along the wall were the dough trays in which the dough is set to rise. these trays remind one of huge white bath tubs on wheels, a little wider and deeper and about twice as long as the ones in our houses.

“how much will each one of those hold?” asked wallace, pointing to the trays full of creamy dough.

“enough to make eleven hundred loaves,” answered the manager.

“why, there must be over forty of them,” said wallace, looking down the long line. “how many loaves do you bake in a day?”

“we have two more bakeries like this, and[104] in the three we bake about one hundred thousand loaves a day—besides rolls and cakes.”

“why, i didn’t know there was so much bread in the world,” said wallace.

“yes, my boy, there are bakeries almost everywhere. we supply only a small part of the bread needed in our large city.”

as they went down the next stairway to the baking room, the pleasant odor of fresh-baked bread came up to meet them.

“here they are!” cried ruth. “look, wallace, here are the bake ovens!”

all that could be seen on one side of the room was a long row of black oven doors, set in a low white-tiled wall.

on the other side of the room were large oblong tables, around which the white-uniformed bakers were busily working.

the dough was piled high on the tables. one baker cut it into lumps. another made the lumps into pound loaves, weighing them on a scale. another shaped the loaves and put them into rows of pans, which were slipped into large racks and wheeled to the oven door.

“look,” said wallace, “they are going to put them in!”

a baker put four loaves on a long-handled[105] flat shovel; then quickly opened the oven door and slipped them inside.

“look at the loaves!” cried wallace, peeping into the open door. “hundreds of them. how many will that oven hold?”

“six hundred,” said the baker, closing the door.

“look,” cried ruth, “they are taking them out of that other oven. there comes our loaf for breakfast, wallace.”

farther down the room a baker was lifting out of an oven the nut-brown loaves, bringing with them the sweet smell of fresh bread.

“isn’t it wonderful!” said mr. duwell, who was almost as excited as the children. “notice how all the men work together, everyone doing his part to help the others.”

“what are the baking hours?” he asked the manager.

“from twelve o’clock, noon, till midnight, the ovens are kept going as you see them now,” said the manager.

“we will go down one more flight to the shipping room,” he added, leading the way.

there the finished loaves were coming down from the floor above on great racks to wait for shipping time. the space in front of the[106] shipping platform was crowded with wagons and automobiles.

man and children visting commerical baker and watchign men bake loaves of bread

“why, look!” said wallace, “there are more wagons than automobiles. i should think you would use automobiles entirely.”

“no,” replied the manager, “the automobiles are better for long distances; but for short distances, where the driver has to start and stop, horses are much better. when the driver serves bread along a street he calls, ‘come[107] dolly,’ or whatever the horse’s name is, and the horse follows. the horse is alive; the automobile isn’t.”

“when does the delivery start?” asked mr. duwell.

“soon after midnight.”

after thanking the manager for his kindness, shaking hands all around, and bidding him good-night, the little party hurried home.

all that night wallace dreamed that he was putting loaves of bread into a big oven and lifting them out, brown and crisp, on the end of a long-handled shovel, loading them into a delivery wagon, and driving all over the city, so that the people could have fresh bread for breakfast.

iv. where the wheat comes from

at the table the next evening the children were still talking about their visit to the bakery.

“well, children,” said their father, “we followed the flour through the bakery to the loaf on our table. what do you say if we take a little journey to the place where the wheat comes from.”

“fine!” cried wallace. “when can we start?”

[108]

“right now, son, but it will be a stay-at-home journey,” said mr. duwell; and everybody laughed.

“let us see,” mr. duwell went on; “where did the thousand bags of flour we saw in the bakery come from?”

“i know,” said ruth. “i read ‘minn.’ on one of the bags.”

“good, ruth,” said her father. “that is what i call using your eyes. what does ‘minn.’ stand for?”

“min-ne-so-ta,” answered wallace quickly.

“correct! minnesota has great wheat fields, and so have north and south dakota, kansas, and many other states; but the wheat in our loaf grew in minnesota.

“wallace, step over to the bookcase and bring me the large book marked ‘w.’”

wallace brought it in a moment.

mr. duwell opened the book and found some colored pictures.

“here we are,” said he. “what does it say under the first picture, ruth?”

“‘reaping and binding wheat,’” read ruth, bending over the book.

“right! there is our loaf growing, and there is the machine cutting the wheat and tying it[109] into bundles. what does it say under this picture, wallace?”

“‘threshing by steam,’” read wallace.

“yes—taking the wheat from the straw and chaff. what comes next, ruth?”

“‘grain el-e-va-tor,’” read ruth.

“what is a grain elevator?” asked mr. duwell.

“why, the place where the wheat is stored until needed.”

“yes,” said mr. duwell, “some elevators are so large that they will hold nearly two million bushels of wheat.”

“plenty large enough to hold our loaf,” added mrs. duwell.

“now read again, wallace.”

“‘in-te-ri-or of flour mill,’” read wallace.

“yes, that is where they grind the wheat into white flour and remove the bran.”

“bran is the outside coat, isn’t it?” asked ruth.

“yes, that’s it! now read again.”

“‘train being loaded with flour,’” read ruth.

“yes, that must be a picture of the fifteen car loads of flour used every week by the spotless bakery.”

“i never would have believed it took so many people to make a loaf of bread,” exclaimed mrs.[110] duwell. “let me see: the plowman, the sower, the reaper,—go on, wallace.”

“the thresher, the miller, the train-men, the baker—” added wallace.

“and the baker’s horses,” finished ruth.

questions

have you ever visited a bakery? tell about it.

the duwell family had a splendid time finding out things about their bread and rolls, didn’t they?

why don’t you try it with some of the other things you eat?

can you think of some ways of helping this very useful man, the baker?

suppose company had come unexpectedly to see your great-grandmother when she did not have bread enough baked. how would she have gotten bread for her guests?

what would your mother do if the same thing happened to her?

praise god for wheat, so white and sweet,

of which we make our bread!

praise god for yellow corn, with which

his waiting world is fed!

—edward everett hale.