Flamsted quarries Part 51

"I'll bet that's the new boss at the upper quarries," said one, pointing to a short thickset man making his way up the platform.

"Yes, that's him; and they're taking on a gang of new men with him; they're in the last car--there they come! There's going to be a regular spring freshet of 'em coming along now--the business is booming."

They scanned the men closely as they pa.s.sed, between twenty and thirty of them of various nationalities. They were gesticulating wildly, vociferating loudly, shouldering bundle, knapsack or tool-kit. Behind them came a few stone-cutters, mostly Scotch and Irish. The last to leave the train was evidently an American.

The crowd on the platform surged away to the electric car to watch further proceedings of the newly arrived "gang." The arrival of the immigrant workmen always afforded fun for the natives. The men s.h.i.+vered and hunched their shoulders; the raw March wind was searching. The gesticulating and vociferating increased. To any one unacquainted with foreign ways, a complete rupture of international peace and relations seemed imminent. They tumbled over one another into the cars and filled them to overflowing, even to the platform where they clung to the guards.

The man who had been the last to leave the train stood on the emptied platform and looked about him. He carried a small bundle. He noted the sign on the electric cars, "To Quarry End Park". A puzzled look came into his face. He turned to the baggage-master who was wrestling with the immigrants' baggage:--iron-bound chests, tin boxes and trunks, sacks of heavy coa.r.s.e linen filled with bedding.

"Does this car go to the sheds?"

The station master looked up. "It goes past there, but this is the regular half-hour express for the quarries and the Park. You a stranger in these parts?"

"This is all strange to me," the man answered.

"Any baggage?"

"No."

At that moment there was a rapid clanging of the gong; the motorman let fly the whirling rod; the over full cars started with a jerk--there was a howl, a shout, followed by a struggle to keep the equilibrium; an undersized Canuck was seen to be running madly alongside with one hand on the guard and endeavoring to get a foothold; he was hauled up unceremoniously by a dozen hands. The crowd watching them, cheered and jeered:

"Goin' it some, Antoine! Don't get left!"

"Keep on your pins, you Dagos!"

"Steady, Polacks--there's the strap!"

"Gee up, Johnny!" This to the motorman.

"Gosh, it's like a soda bottle fizzin' to hear them Roos.h.i.+ans talkin'."

"Hooray for you!"

The cars were off swiftly now; the men on the platforms waved their hats, their white teeth flas.h.i.+ng, their gold earrings twinkling, and echoed the American cheer:--

"Horray!"

The station master turned away laughing.

"They look like a tough crowd, but they're O. K. in the end," he said to the man beside him who was looking after the vanis.h.i.+ng car and its trailer. "There's yours coming down the switch. That'll take you up to Flamsted and the sheds." He pushed the loaded truck up the platform.

The stranger entered the car and took a seat at the rear; there were no other pa.s.sengers. He told the conductor to leave him as near as possible to the sheds.

"Guess you don't know these parts?" The conductor put the question.

"This here is new to me," the man answered; he seemed nothing loath to enter into conversation. "When was this road built?"

"'Bout five years ago. You'll see what a roadway they've made clear along the north sh.o.r.e of the lake; it's bein' built up with houses just as fast as it's taken up."

He rang the starting bell. The car gathered headway and sped noisily along the frozen road-bed. In a few minutes it stopped at the Flamsted station; then it followed the sh.o.r.e of the lake for two miles until it reached the sheds. It stopped here and the man got out.

"Can you tell me where the manager's office is?" he asked a workman who was pa.s.sing.

"Over there." He pointed with his thumb backwards across some railroad tracks and through a stone-yard to a small two-storey office building at the end of three huge sheds.

The man made his way across to them. Once he stopped to look at the leaden waters of the lake, rimmed with ice; and up at the leaden sky that seemed to be shutting down close upon them like a lid; and around at the gray waste of frozen ground, the meadows covered lightly with snow and pools of surface ice that here and there showed the long bleached gra.s.s p.r.i.c.king through in grayish-yellow tufts. Beyond the meadows he saw a rude stone chapel, and near by the foundations, capped with wood, of a large church. He s.h.i.+vered once; he had no overcoat. Then he went on to the manager's office. He rang and opened the door.

"Can I see the manager?"

"He's out now; gone over to the engine-house to see about the new smoke stack; he'll be back in a few minutes. Guess you'll find a stool in the other room."

The man entered the room, but remained standing, listening with increasing interest to the technical talk of the other two men who were half lying on the table as they bent over some large plans--an architect's blue prints. Finally the man drew near.

"May I look too?" he asked.

"Sure. These are the working plans for the new Episcopal cathedral at A.;" he named a well known city; "you've heard of it, I s'pose?"

The man shook his head.

"Here for a job?"

"Yes. Is all this work to be done by the company?"

"Every stone. We got the contract eleven months ago. We're at work on these courses now." He turned the plates that the man might see.

He bent over to examine them, noting the wonderful detail of arch and architrave, of keystone, cornice and foundation course. Each stone, varying in size and shape, was drawn with utmost accuracy, dimensions given, numbered with its own number for the place of its setting into the perfect whole. The stability of the whole giant structure was dependent upon the perfection and right placing of each individual stone from lowest foundation to the keystones of the vaulting arches of the nave; the harmony of design dependent on rightly maintained proportions of each granite block, large or small--and all this marvellous structure was the product of the rude granite veins in The Gore! That adamantine mixture of gneiss and quartz, prepared in nature's laboratory throughout millions of years, was now furnis.h.i.+ng the rock which, beneath human manipulation, was flowering into the great cathedral! And that perfect whole was _ideaed_ first in the brain of man, and a sketch of it transferred by the sun itself to the blue paper which lay on the table!

What a combination and trans.m.u.tation of those forceful powers that originate in the Unnamable!

The manager entered, pa.s.sed into the next room and, sitting down at his desk, began to make notes on a pad. At a sign from the two men, the stranger followed him, cap in hand.

The manager spoke without looking at him:--"Well?"

"I'd like a job in the sheds."

At the sound of that voice, the manager glanced up quickly, keenly. He saw before him a man evidently prematurely gray. The broad shoulders bowed slightly as if from long-continued work involving much stooping.

He looked at the hands; they were rough, calloused with toil, the knuckles spread, the nails broken and worn. Then he looked again into the face; that puzzled him. It was smooth-shaven, square in outline and rather thin, but the color was good; the eyes--what eyes!

The manager found himself wondering if there were a pair to match them in the wide world. They were slightly sunken, large, blue, of a depth and beauty and clarity rarely seen in that color. Within them, as if at home, dwelt an expression of inner quiet, and sadness combined with strength and firmness. It was not easy to look long into them without wanting to grasp the possessor's hand in fellows.h.i.+p. They smiled, too, as the manager continued to stare. That broke the spell; they were undeniably human. The manager smiled in response.

"Learned your trade?"

"Yes."

"How long have you been working at it?"

"Between six and seven years."

"Any tools with you?"