The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1889-12-27
coLo.LEAF MAKING.
Two Women Teach 1t FREQ Daily In . New
sfyork Basement.

Hundredssdf people stop every day
to look down the steps leading into the
basement OF one of the old buildings on
that part of Park row that used to be
Chatham square, says the New York
!Sun. Behind closed doors at the foot
of the steps they see two women seated
facing each other at q small wooden
bench covered with white oil cloth.
One woman is blonde. plump, and
smiling; the other thin and melan-
choly. The top of the bench is made
of three boards. zach about ten inches
wide, and the middle one is raised two
inches higher than the others, leaving
ing two cIxpA, That wide, one facing
each wbmap. Beneath the table is a
huge weodtB trough, SO that what
ever falls through the cracks goes into
it. At the. left Of each woman is q
thick pad about Eve inches square, ap-
parently of many pieces Of kid laid to-
gether.
The woman raises one Of the kid
pieces with her left hand and glesm-
ing yellow surface lies exposed, With
pair of wooden tongs nine inches
long, each foot about the size of lead
pencil, in her right hand, the woman
makes dexterous jab at the yellow
surface and pulls it away. fluttering,
quivering sheet of gold. 1t seems to
be crumbling upinto all sorts of shapes.
but the woman blows on it and it set
ties down, outspread, fat upon the
white oil-cloth before her. Its edges
on every side are irregular and ragged.
Her left hand has grasped an arrange
ment of two steel knives with rocker
edge, fastened together parallel to each
other about four inches apart by rods.
She places this over the golden sheet,
SO that ths knives rest upon two of the
irregular edges. A little rock and the
edges arc cut straight, while the irreg-
ular bits trimmed off curl up and flut-
ter about, A dexterous Whit of the
woman's breath sends them kiting like
dead leaves through the crack in the
table. The knives meantime have
trimmed the other two edges, and as
the ragged bits from them, too, go
through the crack the square yellow
sheet is caught up in the wooden tongs
and whisked over to a book of blank
pink paper, each page just the size of a
yellow square that lies before the wo-
man. 1t probably is inclined to be re-
bellious and double up or wrinkle, but
another breath from the woman's lips
epreads it out flat, and the pink page is
turned in an instant, concenling it from
view.
All this is done SO quickly that the
breath as the golden sheets whisk about
and the little ragged leaves flutter
through the crack in the table in con-
tinual yellow shower. If the sheet,
when spread upon the pink page, shows
q flaw bit of leaf, picked up on the
end of Il little sick, is put over the
hole and patted dawn in an instant. If
sheet tears in being lifted out of tho
skins one of the ragged edges blown
away is laid over it at the edge that is
torn off, and little rub with the end
OF stick YIELDS the two pieces togeth-
cr; then breath blows the free edge
of the added piece off of the main sheet,
and the whole is spread out fiat and
fair as though it had never been mend
ed. When the little pink book is full
it is put away to be done up in delicate
wrappers and sold to sign painters and
decorators who want gold leaf. Back
in the dark recesses Of the basement
men are beating out the thin sheets, SO
delicate that breath whisks them all
about. from Jumps of virgin gold. The
women work at the foot of the steps
because the best light is there, and they
need it most. The idea that he is
thus ntfording Il good many people
daily free lessons on the gold beater's
art does not worry the owner of the
shop.