Steel Part 9

"Two month more what?"

"Two month more this work every Sunday--G.o.ddam work all day like h.e.l.l, all night like h.e.l.l. Pretty soon go back to good job."

I knew what he meant now. He had told me weeks before, when we had hewed cinders together in the pit, how he was a rougher in a Pittsburgh mill. Worked only twelve hours a day and no Sundays.

"No more G.o.ddam long turn," he concluded; "work of rougher slack now, all right October."

He moved off slowly, with no spring in his step, and no energy expended beyond what was absolutely necessary to move him.

I walked out on the floor to look at the clock. The night gang on every furnace was was.h.i.+ng up, very cheerfully and with an extraordinary thoroughness. They were slicking up for the once a fortnight twenty-four-hour party. Nearly everyone drank through his day off, or raised h.e.l.l in some extraordinary manner. It was too precious and rare to spend in less violent reaction to the two weeks' fatigue. I looked at them and tried not to be envious. The first-helper on Seven was taking a last look through the peepholes as he put on his collar. A great Slavic hulk on Number 5 was brus.h.i.+ng his clothes with unheard of violence.

d.i.c.k Reber pa.s.sed by. He saw me leaning against a girder b.u.t.toning my s.h.i.+rt.

"Front-wall, Number 5, you!" he bawled.

I was sore at myself for having been seen standing about doing nothing.

But I was sore at d.i.c.k also, unreasonably. I went back to my locker, got my gloves, and went to Number 5. I began filling the spoon, with the help of "Marty," the Wop. He glared at me, and interfered with my shovel twice when we went together to the dolomite pile. Marty had made enemies widely on the furnaces because of a loud mouth, and an officiousness that sat ridiculously on his stature and his ignorance of steel-making.

I was glad when the front-wall was done. I took the hook down, and went over to the fountain in back of Five, cooled my head, neck, and arms, and went over to Seven, without taking a swallow. I had decided to have only two drinks of water in the half-day.

d.i.c.k Reber saw me coming up and, I think in punishment for loafing, said: "Clean up under there. I want you to clean all that filth out, all of it, from behind that girder."

It was near the locker and under the flooring, in a sort of shelf, where lime, dolomite, dirt, old gloves, shoes, filth of all sorts had acc.u.mulated. I cleaned it out with a broom and a stick. It took me half an hour.

"All right," said the first-helper; "now get me ten thousand."

So I went off to the Bessemer, rather glad of the walk. I climbed the stairs to the pouring platform, and watched the recorder, who had left his book, operate the levers. The s.h.i.+fting engine backed a ladle under, and slowly the huge pig-iron mixer, bubbling and shooting out a tide of sparks, dipped and allowed about 20,000 pounds to drop into the ladle.

"Ten thou' for Seven," I said.

In another five minutes, the engine brought up a ladle for my ten thousand, and the boy dipped it out for me with the miraculous levers.

"All right," I said; and ran down the stairs fast enough to catch a ride back past the furnaces, on the step of the locomotive.

The second-helper grabbed the big hook which came down slowly on a chain from the crane, and stuck it into the bottom of the ladle. As the chain lifted, the ladle tipped, and poured the ten thousand pounds with a hiss. But the craneman was careless, which isn't usual. Fred kept saying, "Whoop, whoop!" but he went right on spilling for quite a spell before he recovered control.

"Dolomite," said the first-helper to me, after the "jigger" was poured.

I went to a box full of the white gravel, at the end of the mill, and yelled at Herb, the craneman. A box of dolomite is about eight feet square and three high. This one was perched on top of a dolomite pile, ten feet off the ground. I struggled up on top, and took the hooks Herb gave me from the crane,--eight-inch hooks,--and put them into the corners of the box, using both hands. Then I slid down, and the box rose and swung over my head.

Herb settled it neatly on our own little dolomite pile in front of Seven. I slipped out the front hooks, and the back ones lifted and dumped the load, with a soft swish, nearly on the low part of the old pile.

There was a little time to sit down after this--perhaps ten minutes. I smoked a Camel, which had spent the last s.h.i.+ft in my s.h.i.+rt pocket. It was a melancholy Camel, and tended to twist up in my nose, but it tasted sweet. I sat on Seven's bench, and watched Fred take his rod and move aside the shutters of the peepholes, to give final looks at the furnace.

She must be nearly ready. He looked back at me, and I knew that meant "test."

I grabbed tongs, lying spread out by the anvil, clamped hold of the mould, and ran with them to about ten feet from number two door of the furnace. Fred had the test-spoon lifted and shoved into the door; he moved it around in the molten steel, and brought it out full, straining his body tense to hold it level and not lose the test. I s.h.i.+fted the mould a little on the ground, and closed my hands as tight as I could on the tongs, so the mould wouldn't slip and turn. He poured easily and neatly, just filling the mould, and flung the spoon violently on the floor, to shake off the crusting steel on the handle.

I ran with mould and tongs to the water-trough in front of Eight, and plunged it in, the steam coming up in a small cloud. I brought it out and held it on the anvil, end-wise, with the tongs, while Nick flattened in the top slightly on both edges, to make it break easily. Nick broke the ingot in two blows, and Fred and the melter consulted over the fragments.

"All right," said d.i.c.k.

We were about to tap. I went after my flat manganese shovel, but it was gone from the locker. Some dog-gone helper has nailed it. I took out an ordinary flat shovel.

In back of the furnace Nick was already busy with a "picker," prodding away the stopping from the tap. He burned his hands once, swore, gave it up, went halfway along the platform away from the tap, returned, and went at it again. Finally, the steel escaped, with its usual roar of flame and its usual splunch as it fell into the ladle.

I stepped back, and nearly into "Shorty," who had come to help shovel manganese. "Where you get shovel?" he said, with his eyes blazing, pointing to mine.

"Out of my locker," I said.

He started toward it, and I held it away from him.

"I tell you that G.o.ddam shovel mine--" he began; but d.i.c.k, from the other side of the spout, shouted at us how many piles to shovel, and Shorty shut up. We were to get in the first big pile and the next little one.

The ladle was beginning to fill. "Heow!" yelled d.i.c.k.

Shorty and I went forward and put in the manganese. It was hot, but I took too much interest in shoveling faster than Shorty, to care. Then came the second ladle, during which Shorty's handkerchief caught on fire, and made him sputter a lot, and rid himself of some profanity in Anglo-Italian.

I went to that trough by Eight afterward, to wash off the soot and cinder, and put my head under water, straight down. I knew back-wall was coming, and sat down a minute, wondering, rather vaguely, how I was going to feel at six or seven the next morning.

Back-wall came. I had bad luck with it, trying too hard. It was too hot for one thing. There are times when a back-wall will be so cool you can hesitate a long second, as you fling your shovelful, and make sure of your aim; at others, your face scorches when you first swing back, and you let the stuff off any fas.h.i.+on, to get out of the heat. There's a third-helper on Five, I'm glad to say, who is worse than I. They put him out of the line this time; he was just throwing into the bottom of the furnace.

Everyone develops an individual technique. Jimmy's is bending his knees, and getting his shovel so low that it looks like scooping off the floor.

Fred's is graceful, with a smart snap at the end.

Then front-wall. I start in search of a spoon and a hook. It's not easy to get one to suit the taste of my first-helper. There's one that looks twenty feet,--I haven't any technical figures on spoons,--but it's too long, I know, for Fred. There's a spoon three feet shorter, just right.

h.e.l.l--with two inches melted off the end! I pick a short one in good repair,--he can use the thing or get his own,--and drag it to Seven, giving the scoop a ride on the railroad track, to ease the weight. Fred has put a hook over number one door; so I hurry, and lift the spoon handle with gloved hands to slip it on the hook. If it's not done quickly, you'll get a burn; you're an arm's length from molten steel, and no door between. I get it on, and pick up a shovel.

Front-wall can be very easy,--you can nearly enjoy it, like any of the jobs,--if the furnace is cool, and there's a breeze blowing down the open s.p.a.ces of the mill. And, too, if the spoon hangs right in the hook, and the first-helper turns it a little for you, then you can stand off, six feet from the flame, and toss your gravel straight into the spoon's scoop. You hardly go to the water fountain to cool your head when the stunt's over. On number one the hook hung wrong, the spoon wouldn't turn in it, and you had to hug close, and pour, not toss. I tried a toss on my second shovel, and half of it skated on the floor.

"Get it on the spoon, G.o.ddam you!" from Nick.

So I did.

After that, we sat around for twenty minutes. Fred looked at the furnace once or twice, and changed the gas. Several gathered in front of Seven--Jock, d.i.c.k, the melter, Fred, and Nick.

"Do you know what my next job's going to be?" said Fred.

The others looked up.

"In a bank."

"Nine to five," said d.i.c.k. "Huh! gentlemen's hours."

"Sat.u.r.day afternoons, and Sundays," said Fred.

The other faces glowed and said nothing.

"This wouldn't be so bad if there were Sundays," said Fred.