Steel Part 14

"What job your brother have?" I was immediately asked.

I thought a moment and answered truthfully again.

"My brother, priest," I said.

That arrested immediate attention, and I was looked at with respect and curiosity.

Tony finally said, "Why you no be priest, Charlie?"

"Oh," I answered, laughing, "I run away; I like raise h.e.l.l too much be priest." This was pretty accurate, too.

"O Charlie!" they bellowed.

After that, the gang were friends to the death.

VII

DUST, HEAT, AND COMRADEs.h.i.+P

One day I was promoted to stove-tender or hot-blast man on Number 6.

The keeper of the furnace was a negro. When he was rebuilding the runways for the tapped metal, I noticed that his movements were sure and practised. He patted and shaped the mud-clay in the runway, like a potter moulding a vessel. When it was tap time, he bored the tap hole with the electric drill easily and neatly; when the metal flowed, he knew the exact moment to lift the gates for drawing away slag. I watched him to see how he managed the four white men that worked for him. They were Austrians, and I found they joked together and showed no resentment of status. Commands were given with a nod or gesture. With the Americans on the furnace, the relation was the traditional one. The negro was light and seemed too slightly built for the job, but he performed it very efficiently, and so did his gang.

The blower was Old McLanahan, a man somewhere between thirty-five and sixty. A long, successful life of inebriety had given him a certain resignation to the ills of man, and enabled him to keep the heart of a viveur throughout his life. His skin appeared thrown like a bag over an a.s.semblage of loosely fitted bones--the only considerable part of him being a paunch which coursed forward into a moderate point.

He was rather proud of being a blower on furnace No. 6.

After the slag had been sampled he said: "Where d'ye eat, boy?"

"I eat at Mrs. Farrell's."

"How much?"

"Seven a week."

"Too much. Pretty G.o.ddam good is it?"

"d.a.m.n good food," I said.

"Is Mrs. Farrell a widder woman?"

"No," I said, "she's not."

"Well," he said, "if you hear of a d.a.m.n fine little widder woman, let me know will yer?"

"Sure," I said.

"I'm lookin' for a place ter board, and most of all I'm lookin' for a little widder woman ter honor wid holy matrimony."

After tapping that morning at 8.00, McLanahan took a silver dollar out of his pocket. "If it comes heads," he said, "I'm goin' out to-night, see, I'm goin' out ter find a woman."

He flipped the coin and it fell tails. "Don't count," said he, "two out of three."

This flip fell heads.

"Hah," he said, "if this comes heads, I'm goin' out to-night ter find a woman."

It fell tails.

"h.e.l.l!" he said, "Don't count, flipped it with the wrong hand."

He kept this up all day. Finally at 5.30 the coin came heads. He picked the coin up and put it in his pocket.

"Goin' out, to-night," he said.

"Boss wants to keep Number 6 lookin' right. Go down below, and clean out all that flue dust."

I shoveled between the stone arches of the furnace base, that curved overhead like the culverts of a bridge. Sometimes the flue dust was wet and clotted with mud, and came up in cakes on the shovel; sometimes it was light, and flew in your nose and eyes. I made a pile of it six feet high, and shaped it into a brick-red pyramid with my shovel. I washed the arches white with a hose.

"Change 'em before we tap," McLanahan ordered, nodding at the stoves.

I went among the rangy hundred-foot shafts with a certain sense of control over great forces. Every set differs in its special crankiness.

Number 9's have stiff-working valves, but are powerful heaters; Number 8's are cool stoves, but their valves slide genially into place. I always a little dreaded "blowing her off." Resting my arms on the edge of the wheel, and grabbing the top with my hands, I wrenched it over to the left, and the blast began. The immense volumes of compressed air escaped with a gradually accelerated blare. I gritted my teeth a little, and my ears sang.

Then came "putting on the gas." I climbed to a little platform near the combustion chamber, and with a hunk of iron sc.r.a.p for hammer, knocked out some wedges that held tight a door. By now I knew just the pressure for making the iron slab creep on its rollers. I braced my feet and pulled with back and arms.

Through the door, the combustion chamber glowed red. I went down the steps and slowly turned the gas-pipe crank, bringing an eight-inch pipe close to the red opening. I dodged the back flare as it ignited.

When the "new" stove was on, and the "old" one lit for reheating, I went to the pyrometer shanty. In a little hut among the furnaces were tell-tale discs, that let you know if you were keeping your heat right.

I found my heat curve was smooth with only a tiny hump.... Two Hunkies were inside the shanty.

"Nine-thirty," said one.

"How do you know?" I asked.

He pointed to the end of the curve on the disc, that was opposite the 9.30 mark on the circ.u.mference.

"Saves me a watch," he said, with a grin.

After supper that evening, I mended a sleeve of my s.h.i.+rt that had been torn on a piece of cinder in the cast-house. Sounds of conversation were rising from the porch. I went out and found Mr. Farrell sitting in a rocker with one leg on the railing and his face screwed into an att.i.tude of thinking. Mrs. Farrell, having done the dishes, had come out to knit, and a lanky visitor, who leaned uncomfortably against the railing, was doing the talking. The conversation was political.

"Before I came to this town, n.o.body had the guts to vote Democratic,"

said the visitor. "I'm from Democratic parts," he went on, "and when I first come here I used to go round. 'Come, come,' I said, 'you fellers is Democrats, you know you is. Sign up.' 'We know it,' they'd say, 'but we can't afford ter, there's the wife and kids--we can't afford ter, we've got a job and we're goin' to keep it.' That's how bad it was."