FORGING AND SMITHING--HYDRAULIC
OPERATIONS--“BALTIMORE”--“BLACK SAM”--“STRAWBERRY” AND
GUSTAVUS--THE “FIRE KING”--“TUBBY ”--BOLAND--PINNELL OF
THE YANKEE PLANT
The drop-stamps and forgers, together with the plant known as the Yankee
hammers--so called by reason of their having been introduced from the
other side of the Atlantic--are the life and soul of the shed. The
hydraulic machines, through their noiseless and almost tedious operation
and the considerably less skill required on the part of the workmen in
carrying out the various processes, are dull and tame in comparison with
them. The steam-hammers, both by their noise, speed, and visible power
and by the alertness and dexterity of the stampers and forgers, are
certain to compel attention. There is a great fascination, too, in
standing near the furnace and watching the sparkling, hissing mass of
metal being withdrawn by the crane, or seeing the heated bars removed
from the oil forge and clapped quickly on the steel dies to be beaten
into shape. No one can withstand the attraction of the steam-hammers;
even those who have spent a lifetime in the shed like to stand and watch
the stampers and forgers at work.
Forging and smithing are, without doubt, the most interesting of all
crafts in the factory; other machinery, however unique it may be, will
not claim nearly as much attention. Visitors will pass by the most
elaborate plant to stand near the steam-hammers, or to watch the smith
weld a piece of iron on the anvil. The small boy who has just been
initiated into the shed, the youth, the grown-up man, and the
grey-haired veteran are bound to be attracted by the flashing of the
furnace and the white-hot metal newly brought out. They are greatly
delighted, too, with the long, swinging blow of the forging hammers, or
the short, sharp stroke of the stampers; to watch the metal being
transposed and conforming to the pressure of the dies, to see the sparks
shooting out in white showers, and the men sweating; to feel the earth
shaking, and to hear the chains jingling, the steam hissing and roaring
and the blows echoing like thunder all the time. To stand in the midst
of it and view the whole scene when everything is in active operation is
a wonderful experience, thrilling and impressive. You see the lines of
furnaces and steam-hammers--there are fifteen altogether--with the
monkeys travelling up and down continually and beating on the metal one
against the other in utter disorder and confusion, the blazing white
light cast out from the furnace door or the duller glow of the
half-finished forging, the flames leaping and shooting from the oil
forges, the clouds of yellow cinders blown out from the smiths’ fires,
the whirling wheels of the shafting and machinery between the lines and
the half-naked workmen, black and bare-headed, in every conceivable
attitude, full of quick life and exertion and all in a desperate hurry,
as though they had but a few more minutes to live. And what a terrific
din is maintained! You hear the loud explosion of the oil and water
applied for removing the scale and excrescence from the iron, the ring
of the metal under the blows of the stampers or of the anvil under the
sledge of the smiths, the simultaneous priming of the boilers, the
horrible prolonged screeching of the steam-saw slowly cutting its way
through the half-heated rail, the roaring blast, the bellowing furnace,
the bumping Ajax, the clanking cogwheels, the groaning shears, and a
hundred other sounds and noises intermingled. There is the striker’s
hammer whirling round, this one pulling and heaving, the forgeman
running out with his staff, the stamper twisting his bar over, the
furnaceman charging in his fuel, the white slag running out in streams
sparkling, spluttering, and crackling, the steam blown down from the
roof through the open door, the thick dust, the almost visible heat, the
black gloom of the roof and the clouds of smoke drifting slowly about,
or hanging quite stationary like a pall, completely blotting out the
other half of the shed, all which form a scene never to be forgotten by
those who shall happen to have once viewed it.
The hydraulic work, on the other hand, though interesting, is not
engrossing. There is a lack of life and animation in it; it is not
stirring or dramatic. The huge “rams” of the presses, though capable of
exerting a pressure equal to two hundred tons weight, descend very
slowly; the quick, alert steam-hammer could strike at least ten or a
dozen blows while the ram is once operating. So rapid is the blow of the
steam-hammer that the pressure raised in the metal by the impact of the
dies is often still unspent when the hammer rebounds, so that, as the
dies separate, if the metal is very hot, it explodes and flies asunder.
The speed of the rebound may be gauged by the fact that the stamper can
actually see the flow of metal in the dies from the blow after the
hammer has left it. The metal, as the result of this, will frequently
overflow the edge of the bottom die, and when the hammer descends again
the top die will have to shear away a quarter, or half an inch.
It is instructive to note the effect of the blows on the hot metal.
Continual beating it will quickly raise the temperature of the iron or
steel; I have many times raised the heat of a piece in operation from a
dull yellow to a brilliant welding pitch during the delivery of three or
four blows. Hammers have recently been invented that, with continually
beating on cold metal, will make it sufficiently hot to allow of drawing
and shaping; but though such machinery is interesting, it is not of much
use for serious manufacture. Compressed air, directed on metal of a dull
yellow heat, will soon considerably increase its temperature; you may
easily burn a hole quite through a six-inch steel bloom by the method.
The flying of sparks through the air will greatly intensify their heat;
after travelling a few yards they will become very dazzling and
brilliant and explode like fireworks. Sometimes a piece of this
superfluous metal, an ounce or more in weight, forced out from the die
with the blow, will shear off and fly to a great distance--often as much
as sixty or seventy yards. This, at the moment of leaving the die, may
be no more than a dull yellow, but by the time it falls to the ground it
will be intensely hot and will throw off a shower of hissing sparks. The
shearing-off of the bur is a source of great danger to the workmen. I
have several times been struck with pieces and been brought to the
ground in consequence; the effect is almost as though you had been
struck with a bullet from a gun.
Nothing of this kind is ever possible with the hydraulic machines. If a
weld is to be made it must be performed with one stroke of the ram;
after the top die leaves the metal it will be too cool to receive any
benefit from a second application of the power. Welding by hand or steam
power is always preferable to that performed by hydraulic action; a
joint that is made with six or ten small quick blows will be far more
effective and durable than where the iron has been simply squeezed
together by one operation of the ram. As soon as the hydraulic dies meet
the metal is considerably chilled. Instead of intensifying the heat, as
in the case of the steam-hammer, the cold tools greatly lessen it. The
weld, when made, will most certainly be short and brittle.
Some portion of the personnel of the shed has already been given, but of
the hundred and fifty comprising the permanent staff of the place
several are conspicuous among the rest for strangeness of habit, queer
characteristics, or strong personality. The men are a mixture of many
sorts and of several nationalities--English, Scotch, Welsh, and Irish.
There is the shaggy-browed, fierce-looking son of Erin; the canny Scot
from Motherwell over the border; the gruff and short-tempered old
furnaceman from Dowlais; the doughty forger from Middlesborough; the
cultured cockney with his superb nasal twang; the Lancastrian with his
picturesque brogue; a representative of distant Penzance; an ex-seaman,
nicknamed “The Jersey Lily,” from the Channel Islands, and those hailing
from nearly every county in the Midlands and south of England, from
“Brummagem Bill” to “Southampton Charlie.” There are ex-soldiers and
sailors with arms and breasts tattooed with birds, flowers, serpents,
fair women and other emblems, and who have seen service in the East and
West Indies, China, Egypt, or the Transvaal; those who constantly pride
themselves on having once been in gentlemen’s service--though they do
not tell you how they came to leave it! butchers and bakers,
professional football players, conjurers, bandsmen, and cheap-jacks.
“Baltimore” works the middle drop-stamp, about halfway up the shed, and,
in the line of smaller steam-hammers opposite to him, toils a mulatto
known to everyone about the place as “Black Sam,” or “Sambo.” They are
old hands, having both come to the premises as boys, where they have
since been, except for the time when “Balty” was absent for the annual
training in the local Militia. It is not explained how he came to
receive the nickname. Black Sam is so called from his very dark
complexion, his short, black, curly hair and large, dark eyes. Baltimore
is rather ordinary in appearance. His forehead is low, his cheek-bones
high and his nose irregular. His lips are thick, he has a pointed chin
and lantern jaws. He is of medium height, square and broad shouldered.
As he walks his shoulders sway to and fro and up and down, keeping time
with his footsteps; he is exceedingly unmilitary both in physique and
movement.
It was by reason of these characteristics that Baltimore obtained the
attention of his shopmates. They all laughed rudely to see him in the
old-time Militia uniform--scarlet tunic much too big, with regulation
white belt, baggy trousers too long in the legs, heavy bluchers on the
feet and, instead of the swagger headgear worn in the Service to-day,
the old Scotch cap with long streamers behind and a little swishing cane
in the hand or under the arm. It is carefully handed down and passed
from one to the other that when Balty was at home on furlough all the
small boys of the street would gather round him, sniggering and jeering,
and making fun of his cut and appearance, and it is said furthermore
that he used very unceremoniously to drive them away with his cane
crying--“Get out, you young varmints! ’Aven’t you never seen a sojer
before?” In the shed and at the furnace he continued to attract
attention and be the subject of jocular remarks made by his workmates.
They never would take him seriously, not even though he came in time to
work one of the biggest drop-stamps and be reckoned among the honourable
company of forgers.
To all the superfluous attentions and mock regard of his fellow-mates
Baltimore preserves a good-natured and even an indulgent attitude; he is
not at all disconcerted with their wit and sarcasm. Though not one of
the most skilful of workmen, he is very shrewd and painstaking; his
whole heart and soul are in the business. From morning till night he is
toiling and sweating over his blooms and forgings, and when he is off
the premises he is still concerned with his occupations at the hammer.
He will sometimes tell one of his mates how he lay awake the greater
part of a night working out in his mind some problem connected with a
difficult piece of forging and then came in the next morning and
triumphantly finished the job.
Sambo’s father was an army veteran, a sergeant, who took for his wife an
Indian woman and became the parent of a family, of whom Samuel is the
eldest. He is of medium height, thin, but very erect, with low shoulders
and long neck. The forehead is sloping, the nose rather thick. He has
large dark eyes with tremendous whites, short woolly hair, high
cheekbones, skin very dark and sallow. The whole countenance is long and
the head angular; he has the clear characteristics of the half-cast. The
general opinion is that Sambo is out of place in the shed. He ought
rather to have been trained for a life on the stage; without doubt he
would have made a good pantomimist. Both his appearance and manner are
comical; he causes everyone to smile by reason of his ludicrous
expressions and grotesque facial contortions.
Sambo is quite aware of his own funniosity and readily lends himself to
the amusement of the small fry that sometimes come to gaze upon him.
Snatching up a shovel, he claps it to his shoulder as though it were the
traditional nigger’s instrument and, rolling his eyes and turning up the
whites of them, pretends to be fingering the banjo while he sings a few
lines of the “Swanee River” or other coon song. Sambo has always been
the butt of the rougher section in the shed and has been forced to
suffer many indignities. It was a common thing for the bullies of the
place to throw him on the ground and disgrace him. This they continued
to do long after he had married and become the father of children.
Working just beyond Sambo, at the next furnace, is the very shadow of a
man--a mere frame, a skeleton, which a good puff of wind might very
likely throw down. He is stripped to the waist and hatless. His hair is
long and it stands upright. His flannel shirt is thrown open; his
trousers merely hang on him, and he is as black as a sweep with the
smoke and grime of the furnace. This is “Strawberry,” sometimes also
known as “Gooseberry.” His features are remarkably small and fine, and
his neck is no bigger round than a span. He does not appear strong
enough to do any work, but, for all that, he is very tough and wiry.
Many a one laughs at him and tells him that he is melting away “like a
tallow candle,” but he answers them all boldly and tells them, with a
merry twinkle in his tiny dark eyes, that he is all right. “You look
after yourself, mate, and don’t fret about me,” says he.
Strawberry was at one time a cobbler, and used to get his living by the
patching up and renovation of old soles. Long after he entered the shed
he kept up the employment in his spare time, but by and by he
discontinued the work and betook himself to the more genteel though less
lucrative pursuits of flute-playing and photography. For a time he
donned uniform and played in the local band, and then, after a while,
that had to be discontinued. Now all his thought and care is to take
photographs and make models of steam-engines, magic lanterns and
cinematographic instruments. Mounted on a cycle, and provided with a
camera, he scours the country round at week-ends for customers and comes
home and does the developing and printing on Sundays. He is thoroughly
versed in time exposures and the various mysteries of photographic
development. Wherever he goes he carries a book of instructions in his
pocket, and if you stop to speak with him for a moment he is sure to
tell you of some new lens or snap-shot arrangement he has lately made,
or wearies you nearly to death with an attempted explanation of the
compounds in his home-made developers--“Hypo-tassum” something or other,
and the rest of it.
Another of Strawberry’s hobbies is the blind poring over fusty books,
several hundreds of years old, bought at auctions and usually fit for
nothing but the fire or dust-heap. These he treasures with great care,
and he is frequently trying to expound the contents of them to his
workmates, and to any others who will suffer to listen to him for a few
moments. His latest passion is to seek out old caves, ruins and
legendary sites; he is musician, artist, engineer, archæologist and
antiquarian combined. What he will become ultimately no one knows. I
much fear, however, that he will suffer the furnaceman’s fate in the end
and perish of the smoke and heat of the fires.
Strawberry succeeded Gustavus, who died under very sad circumstances.
Poor Gus was most unfortunate, though such cases as his are not of
uncommon occurrence. He had been through the war in South Africa, and
had fought there for his country. He had not been long on the furnace.
His health was not good at the best of times. If regard for a man’s
health were had at the time of putting him on a job Gus would never have
gone to the fires, but there is a ruthless, and very often a sinister,
disregard of a man’s physical condition when he is wanted to fill a
difficult post. About a year before Gus’s wife contracted milk fever,
after confinement. This affected her reason and she had to be removed;
her case was pronounced hopeless--absolutely hopeless. This came as a
great shock to Gus; there were five little children, all babies, one of
them new-born. He had no friends to come and take care of them and he
was poor--very poor. Accordingly, with a little assistance from the
neighbour, he determined to look after them himself. The oldest boy
prepared the meals by day; Gus saw to the general needs at night and did
the washing Sundays. Very soon one of the mites fell ill and had to go
to the workhouse hospital. All the others but one suffered sickness, and
Gus very soon followed suit. Worn out with the day’s work at the furnace
and obliged to toil and watch half the night over his infants, he soon
fell a prey to ill-health, and was compelled to stop at home from work.
Then the little stinging insects of the shed began to cavil and sneer.
“He’s oni shammin’. Ther’s nothin’ the matter wi’ he. He’s as well as I
be. He oni wants to shirk the furnace. Kip un to’t when a comes in.” By
and by Gus started work again, but not till the overseer had played a
treacherous trick upon him and tried to have him rejected at the medical
examination through an innocent and incautious remark he had chanced to
let fall concerning himself. The fact of the matter was, Gus was a
broken, ruined man. His general health was gone. His sight was failing;
his constitution was wrecked. For several weeks he dragged himself to
work, in a last desperate effort to keep a home for his babes and supply
them with food, though anyone might have seen that he was in positive
torture all the while. At last he could bear up no longer. He came to
work the fore part of the week, then stopped at home; in three days he
was dead. His little boys and girls went to the workhouse, or to
charities. One has to die before his mates in the shed think there is
anything the matter with him. Then, in nine cases out of ten--especially
if he happens to be one of the poorest and most unfortunate--he is
mercilessly sneered over. Probably that was his own fault. They even
blame him for dying; in three days he is almost totally forgotten. Cruel
hearts and feelings are bred in the atmosphere of the factory.
There is one “Fire King” and only one; all the others are mere
apprentices--nobodies. He comes from “The Noth,” from Middlesborough, of
great iron fame. Without doubt he is a marvel. He is always talking
about the “haats” they used to draw “way up there.” It was prodigious.
There is nothing like it down south. “Wales! I tell you Wales is a
dung-hill; they can’t do it for nuts.” He looks at you with
inexpressible scorn. Then he plunges the bar into the furnace hole and
stirs up the coals, “stops up” again, peers through the iron door and
comes back mopping his face with the wiper. “I tell you tha be a lot o’
cow-bangers about here. Tha never sin a furnace nor a haat afore. When I
was at Sunderland”--here he gives an especially knowing wink, and
scratches one side of his nose with his forefinger, drawing his head
near to your ear and speaking in an undertone--“when I was at
Sunderland, though I says it myself, there wasn’t a man on the ground
as could hold a candle to Phil Clegg. The manager allus used to stop and
talk to me about the haats, and slip a crown piece into mi hand for a
drink. ‘Clegg,’ says he, ‘I’ve learned from you what I never knew
before.’” All this is accepted with reserve in the shed. It may or may
not have been true; one is not compelled to believe all the
extraordinary reports circulated by the forgers and furnacemen.
Some years ago the doughty one was set to do some initial forging in
steel blooms and spoiled three parts of the material by overheating.
“Bad steel! damn bad steel! ’Twunt stand a bit o’ haat,” said he. The
matter was accordingly reported to the managers, and word was sent to
the firm that had manufactured the blooms--“Bad steel! Bad steel!”
passed all along the line. Then the manufacturers’ representative came
to inspect the process and to report upon the quality of the metal. The
Fire King scraped his leg and scratched his nose and talked much of
“kimicals,” winking at his mates and getting his metal to a fizzing
heat. “Too hot, too hot,” said the representative. “Aye! man, but we
must get it so hot or the hammer wunt bate it down,” the Fire King
replied. “Get a heavier hammer,” said the inspector, touching the spot
immediately, and walking off in disgust. The steel was all right, it was
merely overheated. Thereafter the Fire King’s prestige visibly
diminished. He became the scorn of the furnaces; he was humbled and
disgraced for ever. He was subsequently put in charge of the damping-up
of the furnaces, and he styled himself foreman of the night shift there,
which was one, besides himself.
After all, “Tubby” is the best furnaceman. He hails from Wales, “the
true old country, where the men comes from,” according to him. Tubby is
short, fat and round, about the size of a thirty-six barrel, and he is
extremely short-legged. His head is quite bald and shines well. His
features are regular and well-formed. He has an aristocratic nose, thick
neck, and shoulders shapeless with fat. At the fire he strips off his
outer shirt and only retains his flannel vest. The sleeves of this are
cut short to the shoulders and it is fastened at the neck by means of
strings threaded with a bodkin. He drinks an enormous quantity of cold
water, and it is singular that he never uses a cup but swallows it from
the large two-gallon pot. To this habit he attributes his uncommonly
good health and fine proportions.
He is a genius at the fire. Whether the furnace be in a good or bad
condition he will soon have it as radiant as a star, and he is
marvellously cool at it. His speech has a strongly Welsh accent and he
talks with great rapidity, especially when he happens to become excited.
At such times it is difficult to understand him; he pours out his words
and sentences like a cataract.
Notwithstanding the old furnaceman’s skill and general inoffensiveness,
he could not escape a little practical joking at the hands of the
youths. In the shed was an iron bogie, in the shape of a box, just big
enough to contain his Falstaffian body. When he was on night duty he
always seized upon this as a sleeping bunk for meal hours. Resting it
upon the handles forward he sat in it, with his head at the back and his
feet hanging over the front, and slept profoundly, with his arms folded
and a coat drawn over his face. When he had fallen asleep several
hard-hearted youths came up quietly and attached a strong rope to each
handle of the bogie. They then raced off with it as fast as they could
travel, going out of the shed and returning by a roundabout route to the
furnace over bricks and stones, steel rails, and anything else that
happened to be in the way. The jolting was terrific, but the bogie was
drawn at such a rate that poor Tubby dared not attempt to get out and
was forced to endure it as best he could. Arrived back at the furnace
the youths speedily decamped and Tubby never knew for certain who had
perpetrated the joke upon him in the darkness.
_Dominus vobiscum. Et cum spiritu tuo. Domine sanctorum._ The old
ash-wheeler leans on his shovel and thus addresses you with profound
gravity, as though he were the reverend Father himself ministering to
his flock in the church. Boland is an Irishman and hails from far
Tipperary. He brought his old mother over to England many years ago and
has since dwelt in the railway town. He is a typical Hibernian. He is
square-set and distinctive in feature, with heavy brows, thickish nose,
strong eyes, and firm, expressive mouth. Notwithstanding the fact that
he is slighted by the critical of the shed he has a good many virtues;
underneath his rough exterior is concealed a wealth of kindness and
good-nature. In common with the bulk of his race he is a Catholic in
religion. If you should approach him on the subject you would be
surprised at his interest in and affection for his Church and doctrine:
he is immovable in his simple and childlike faith. In speaking of any
matters connected with it his voice will be solemn and hushed; he is
filled with reverence and awe. Though not a very constant church-goer he
yet manages to attend at festival times and pays considerable attention
to the sermon. He will always tell you the text, and in summing up the
Father’s oratorical abilities he tells you, as a climax, that he can “go
back in history two hundred years.”
The last and most important of all to be dealt with is Pinnell, of the
Yankee Plant. He is by far the hardest working man in the stamping shed.
In the first place he cannot help being a hard worker, for it is his
nature so to be. Rest and he are most inveterate enemies. He _must_
find something or other to do; he could not be idle though he tried
never so hard. In the second place he is bound to work hard. The job
requires it, or, at any rate, the “super” requires it, which is a
slightly different matter. Pinnell used to work one of the small
drop-stamps and was always remarkable for his conscientiousness and
dogged perseverance. He was the first to start work and the last to
finish. He would never take a moment’s spell. If there had been no work
he would promptly have made some, and have kept plodding away at his
forge and stamp. Accordingly, when the miraculous tools from the other
side of the Atlantic--which, in the opinion of the Yankee innovator,
were going to smash up the other section altogether and displace half
the men in the shed--were introduced, Pinnell was the man selected to
start the process and lead the way for others. He had to demonstrate
what the machines were capable of doing, and upon his output would be
based the standard of prices for those to follow after or work beside
him.
The introduction of the Yankee hammers and the oil furnaces for heating
was the beginning of hustle in the shed. Everything was designed for the
man to start as early as possible, to keep on mechanically to and from
the furnace and hammer with not the slightest pause, except for meals,
and to run till the very last moment. His prices were fixed accordingly.
Every operation was correctly timed. The manager and overseer stood
together, watches in hand. It was so and so a minute; that would amount
to so much in an hour, and so much total for the day. If Pinnell flagged
a little--it is dreadful to have to keep hammering away for hours in an
exhausted condition, with never a moment’s pause--if he flagged a
little, or checked the oil somewhat in the forge, the overseer promptly
set it going again and pricked him on to greater effort, answering his
words--if he ever dared utter any--with a wheedling and plausible
excuse, and telling him it was not at all hard; “Just a busy little
job,” and so forth. If nature required that he should leave the forge
and walk across the shed, that was the subject of a note--“One minute
and three-quarters gone.” Did he think he could beat the records of all
the other men at the stamps? The manager hoped he would try hard to do
so, he wanted the machine to be quite first in output. The prices were
weighed, chiselled, and pared with great exactness, even to the
splitting of a farthing: “A halfpenny is too much for this job; I shall
give you three-eighths.” Moreover, the overseers only timed him in the
morning, after breakfast, which is the most active part of every day,
and when all are fresh and fit for work, or never, so that the prices
were fixed at a time when everything was going at its best. It is
impossible to maintain the same speed in the afternoon, or even during
the latter part of the morning towards dinner-time, that one is capable
of after breakfast.
So Pinnell was little by little broken in to the new conditions.
Whatever protests he made were of no avail. If the acute manager
happened to make a slight misjudgment and give him a fair price for a
job, one or other of the shed overseers--though always very flip with
him to his face--rushed off privately and informed about it, and had it
cut down to the dead level. Very often the overseers competed with each
other to see which could make the lowest quotation in order to get into
favour with the managers. Once, after playing an underhanded game in the
fixing of prices, the foreman even induced Pinnell to leave his hammer
and forge and go and protest to the manager himself, though he knew
very well the matter was nothing but a farce. When the deluded one
arrived at the office he was received with studied courtesy. A little
arithmetic was entered into, and it was proved beyond all doubt that the
job was well, and even generously, paid for. Accordingly, feeling rather
foolish at his boldness in going to the manager and his failure to
succeed in the matter, Pinnell returned to his work, while the overseer
stood in hiding and watched him back to his hammer, laughing at his
simplicity.
When at last he found that there was no escape for him, he settled down
in despair, and decided to bury himself at the toil. So exacting is the
labour it admits of no interest whatever in anything else. It is a body-
and soul-racking business, just that which keeps the whole man in a
crushed and subdued state, and makes him a very part of the machinery he
operates. It was nothing but the man’s natural zeal for work and grit
that kept him at the task. Night after night he went home to his wife
and children as tired as a dog, too tired even to read the newspaper, or
write a letter. He simply sat in the chair or lay on the couch till
bed-time, completely worn out with the terrible exertions.
Very soon the abject misery of his condition found expression in words
to his workmates. He was continually wishing himself dead. He said he
should like to die out of it. Life was nothing but a heavy burden, and
there was nothing better in sight in the future; only the same killing
toil day after day. He often wondered _when_ he should die. He had heart
enough for anything, but somehow he felt he could never keep it up, and
everyone told him he was “going home sharp.” At the same time, nothing
would prevent him from turning up at the hammer day after day; ill or
well he was sure to be at his post. Sometimes, when his wife exhorted
him to stay at home and recuperate and locked the doors against him, in
the early morning he escaped to work through the window. There was no
detaining him at all; he felt bound to come to the shed and endure the
daily punishment. To intensify his sufferings everyone told him it was
his own fault. He had no one to blame but himself; he should not have
been such a fool as to lend himself so easily to it, they said.
So, eternally tired with the work--he has two forges to attend to, he
heats all his own bars, drives his own hammer with the foot and operates
the heavy trimmer by the side of it in the same manner--half-choked and
blinded with the reeking smoke and fumes of the oil, sore-footed with
using the treadle, his arms blistered and burnt with the scale and hot
water from the glands and valves--they are very often in bandages--his
hands cut and torn with the sharp ends of the bars, or burned with the
hot ones that sometimes shoot out from the die and slip white-hot
through his palm and fingers, beaten and distressed with the heat, the
gazing-stock of everyone that passes through the shed and who look upon
him as a freak and a marvel, he keeps plodding away, a much be-fooled
and over-worked individual, the utter victim of a cruel and callous
system.