The idea of candle-making seemed to have taken the fancy of all the
boys; and next morning they woke, one after the other, with the word
candle on their lips. When they were thoroughly roused they continued
to talk candles; all breakfast-time, candles were the subject of
conversation; and after breakfast they would hear of nothing else but
setting to work at once and making candles.
`So be it,' said I, `let us become chandlers.' I spoke confidently,
but, to tell the truth, I had in my own mind certain misgivings as to
the result of our experiment. In the first place, I knew that we lacked
a very important ingredient--animal fat, which is necessary to make
candles burn for any length of time with brilliancy. Besides this, I
rather doubted how far my memory would recall the various operations
necessary in the manufacture.
Of all this, however, I said nothing; and the boys, under my
direction, were soon at work. We first picked off the berries and
threw them into a large shallow iron vessel placed on the fire. The
green sweet-scented wax was rapidly melted, rising to the surface of
the juice yielded by the berries. This we skimmed off and placed in a
separate pot by the fire, ready for use, repeating the operation
several times, until we had collected sufficient liquid wax for our
purpose.
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