BOJO IN OVERALLS
The day he entered the employ of the Dyer-Garnett Caster and Foundry
Company was like an open door into the wonderland of industry. The sun,
red and wrapped in dull mists, came stolidly out of the east as they
crossed the river in the unearthly grays, with electric lights showing
in wan ferry-boats. When they entered the factory a few minutes before
seven, the laborers were passing the time-clocks, punching their
tickets, Polack and Saxon, Hun and American, Irish and Italian, the men
a mixture of slouchy, unskilled laborers and keen, strong mechanics,
home-owners and thinkers, the women of rather a higher class,
bright-eyed, deft, with a prevailing instinct for coquetry.
In the offices Dyer, lanky New Englander, engineer and inventor, and
Garnett, the president, self-made, simple and shrewd, both in their
shirt sleeves, gave him a cordial welcome. Unbeknown to Bojo, Granning
had given a flattering picture of his future destination as heir
apparent to the famous Crocker mills and his progressive desire for
preliminary experience in factories that were handling problems of
labor-saving along modern lines.
"Glad to meet you," said Garnett, gripping his hand. "Mr. Granning tells
me you want to see the whole scheme from the bottom up. It's not
playing football, Mr. Crocker."
"Hope not," said Bojo with a smile. "It's very good of you to give me an
opportunity."
"Don't know how you'll feel about it after a couple of weeks. I'll get
Davy--that's my son--to show you around. We're doing some things here
you'll be interested in. Mr. Dyer's just installed some very pretty
machines. Davy'll put you onto the ropes--he's just been through it.
That's a great plant of your father's--went through it last year.
Nothing finer in the country."
He found young Garnett a boy of twenty, just out of high-school, alert,
eager, and stocked with practical knowledge. The morning he spent in
exploration was a revelation. In his old prejudice against what he had
confusedly termed business he had always recoiled as before a leveling
process, stultifying to the imagination, a thing of mechanical movements
and disciplined drudgery. He found instead his imagination leaping
forward before the spectacle of each succeeding regiment of machines,
before the teeming of progress, of the constant advance toward the
harnessing of iron and steel things to the bidding of the human mind.
Cars were being switched at the sidings, unloading their cargoes of
coiled steel; other cars were receiving the completed article, product
of a score of intricate processes, stamped, turned, assembled, and
hammered together, plated, lacquered, burnished, and packed for
distribution. He had but a confused impression at first of these rooms
of tireless wheels, automatic feeders and monstrous weights that sliced
solid steel like paper. The noises deafened him: the sandy, grinding
whirl of the tumbling room, the colliding shock of the blanking
machines, the steel hiss of the burnishers--deafening voices that in the
ensuing months were to become articulate utterances to his informed
ears, songs of triumph, prophetic of a coming age.
In the burnishing-room grotesque human and inhuman arms reached down
from a central pipe to the poisonous gases of the miniature furnaces.
"Granning's idea," said young Garnett. "Carries off the fumes. This room
was a hell before. Now it's clean and safe as a garden. Here's a machine
the Governor's just installed--does the work of six women. Isn't it a
beauty?"
Bojo looked beyond it to the clustered groups of women by long counters
piled with steel parts, working rapidly at slow, intricate processes of
assembling.
"I suppose you'll get a machine some day to do all that too," he said.
"Sure. Wherever you see more than two at a job there's something to be
done. Look here." They stood by a couple of swarthy Polack women, who
were placing tiny plugs in grooves on round surfaces to be covered and
fastened with ball-bearing casters. "Looks pretty tough proposition to
get out of those fingers. We've worked two years at it, but we'll get
them yet. It's the slug shape that makes it hard; the simple
ball-bearings were a cinch. Here's how we worked that out."
A machine was under Bojo's eyes that caught the open roller and plunged
it into a circular arena, where from six converging gates steel balls
were released and fell instantly into place, a fraction of a second
before the upper cover, descending, was fixed and hammered down.
"One hundred and fifty a minute against thirty to forty, and two
operations made into one."
"But you can't do the same thing with an irregular slug," said Bojo,
amazed.
"There's a way somehow," said Garnett, smiling at the tribute of his
astonishment. "If you want to see what a machine can do, look at this,
the pride of the shop."
"Who's watching it?" said Bojo, surprised to see no one in attendance.
"Not a soul. It's a wise old machine. All we do is to fill up the hamper
once an hour, and it goes ahead, feeds itself, juggles a bit, hammers on
a head, and fills up its can, two hundred a minute."
In a large feeding-box, a tangled mass of small steel pins, banded at
one end, were rising and falling, settling and readjusting themselves. A
thin grooved plate rose and fell into the mass, sucking into its groove,
or catching in its upward progress, from one to six of the pins, which,
perpendicularly arranged, slid down to a new crisis. Steel fingers
caught each pin as released, threw it with a half turn into another
groove, where it was again passed forward and fixed in shape for the
crushing hammer blow that was to flatten the head. A safety-device based
on exact tension stopped the machine instantly in case of accident.
"Suffering Moses, is it possible!" said Bojo, staring like a schoolboy.
"Never saw anything like it."
"Gives you an idea what can be done, doesn't it?"
"It does!"
Then he began to see these strangely human machines and these mechanical
human beings in a larger perspective, in a constant warfare, each
ceaselessly struggling with the other, each unconsciously being
fashioned in the likeness of his enemy.
"When we've got the human element down to the lowest terms, then we'll
fight machines with machinery, I suppose," said Garnett.
"Makes you sort of wonder what'll be done fifty years from now," said
Bojo.
"Doesn't it?" said Garnett. "I wouldn't dare tell you what the Governor
talks about. You'd think he's plum crazy."
"By George, I feel like starting now."
"Same way I did," said Garnett, nodding. "I suppose what you'll want
will be to follow the whole process from the beginning. It gives you a
general idea. I say, that's a great machine your father's just
installed."
He began to expatiate enthusiastically on an article he had read in a
technical paper, assuming full knowledge on Bojo's part, who listened in
wonder, already beginning to feel, beyond the horizon of these animated
iron shapes, the mysterious realms of human invention he had so long
misunderstood.
The next morning, in overalls and flannels, he took his place in the
moving throngs and found his own time-card, a numbered part of a great
industrial battalion. He was apprenticed to Mike Monahan, a grizzled,
good-humored veteran, whose early attitude of suspicion disappeared with
Bojo's plunge into grime and grease. He was himself conscious of a
strange bashfulness which he had never experienced in his contact with
Wall Street men. It seemed to him that these earnest, life-giving hordes
of labor must look down on him as a useless, unimportant specimen. When
he came to take his place in the early morning, sorting out his
time-card, he was conscious of their glances and always felt awkward as
he passed from room to room. Gradually, being essentially simple and
manly in his instincts, he won his way into the friendly comprehension
of his associates, living on their terms, seeking their company, talking
their talk, with a dawning avid curiosity in their points of view, their
needs, and their opinions of his own class.
Garnett had not exaggerated when he had said that the work was not
playing football. There were days at first when the constant mental
application and the mechanical iteration amid the dinning shocks in the
air left him completely fagged in mind and body. When he returned home
it was with no thought of theater or restaurant, but with the joy of
repose. Moreover, to his surprise, he found that he awaited the arrival
of Sunday eagerly for the opportunity of reading along the lines where
his imagination had been stirred. As he studied the factory closer, his
pleasure lay in long discussions with Granning over such subjects as the
utilization of refuse, the possible saving of time in the weekly
cleanings by some process of construction which might permit of quicker
concentration, or the possibility of further safety-devices.
He saw Doris every Sunday, in the afternoon, often staying for the
dinner and departing soon after. Patsie was never present at these
meals. A month later, he heard that she had left on a round of visits.
Mr. Drake often made humorous allusions to his enforced servitude, but
never attempted to sway his course, being too good a judge of human
nature to underestimate the intensity of the young man's convictions.
Doris had completely changed in her attitude toward him. She no longer
sought to direct, but seemed content to accept his views in quiet
submission. He found her simple and straightforward, patiently resigned
to wait his decisions. He could not honestly say to himself that he was
madly in love, yet he owned to a feeling of growing respect and genuine
affection.
Matters went on according to the routine of the day without much change
while the spring passed into the hot stretches of summer. The exigencies
of the life of discipline he had enforced on himself had withdrawn him
more and more from the intimate knowledge of the every-day life of
Marsh, whose hours did not coincide with his, and of DeLancy, who, since
the episode of the speculation in Pittsburgh & New Orleans, had, from a
feeling of unease, seemed to avoid his old friends. Occasionally in her
letters from the country Doris mentioned the fact that Gladys had been
to visit her and that she thought Fred was rather neglectful; but beyond
that he was completely ignorant of his friend's sentimental standing
either with Gladys or with Louise Varney, so that what happened came to
him like a bolt out of the blue.
Toward the end of July Fred DeLancy married Louise Varney.
It was on a Friday night when Marsh, after an unusual tarrying in the
den, was preparing to return to the office, that DeLancy, to their
surprise, came into the room. In response to their chorused welcome, he
flung back a curt acknowledgment, looked around gravely in momentary
hesitation, and finally installed himself on the edge of a chair,
bending forward, his hat between his knees, turning in his hands. The
others exchanged glances of interrogation, for such seriousness on
Fred's part usually presaged a scrape or disaster.
"Well, infant, why so solemn?" said Marsh. "Been getting into trouble
lately?"
DeLancy looked up and down.
"Nope."
"There's not much information in that," said Marsh cheerily. "Well,
what's the secret sorrow? Out with it!"
"There's nothing wrong," said DeLancy quietly. He began to whistle,
staring at the floor.
"Oh, very well," said Marsh in an offended tone.
They sat, watching him, for quite a moment, in silence. Finally DeLancy
spoke, slowly and monotonously:
"I have made up my mind to a serious decision!"
Again they waited without questioning him, while he frowned and seemed
to choose his words.
"You will think I have gone out of my head, I suppose. Well--I am going
to be married--to-night--at eleven."
"Louise Varney?" said Marsh, jumping up, while Granning and Bojo stared
at each other blankly.
"Yes."
"You damned fool!"
At this Fred started up wildly with an oath, but Granning interposed
with a warning cry.
"You fool--you idiot!" cried Marsh, furiously. "Shoot yourself--cut your
throat--but don't--don't do that!"
"Shut up, Roscy, that does no good!" said Bojo quickly. He seized Fred
by the wrist: "Fred, honestly--you're going to marry her to-night?"
DeLancy nodded, his mouth grim.
"Oh, Fred, you don't know what you're doing!"
"Yes, I do," he said, sitting down. "It's nothing hasty. It's been
coming for months. I know what I'm doing."
"But--but the other--Fred, you can't--in decency you can't--not like
this."
"Shut up!" said DeLancy, wincing.
"No, no, you can't like this," said Bojo indignantly.
"By heavens, he sha'n't," said Marsh angrily. "If we have to tie him up
and keep him here--he's not going to ruin two lives like this, the
lunatic!"
"Go easy," said Granning, with a warning glance.
But, contrary to expectation, Fred did not resent the attack. When he
spoke, it was with a shrug of his shoulders, in a tired, unresisting
voice:
"It's no use, Roscy. It's settled and done for."
"Why, Fred, old boy, can't you see clear?" said Roscy, coming to him
with a changed tone. "Don't you know what this means? You're not a fool.
Think! I'm not saying a word against Louise."
"You'd better not!" said Fred, flushing.
"Her character's as good as any one else's--granted that. But, Fred,
that's not all. She's not of your world, her mother's not--her friends
are not. If you marry her, Fred, as sure as there's a sun in heaven,
you're ended, done for; you're dropped out of the world and you'll never
get back!"
"Well, I'm going to do it," said DeLancy, stubbornly.
"You're going to do it and deliberately throw over every friend and
every attachment you've got in life?"
"I don't admit that."
"What are you going to live on?" said Granning.
"I've got the money I made and what I make."
"What you make now," said Marsh, seizing the opening, "what you make
because you know people and bring down customers! You yourself said it.
But when you drop out of society you'll drop out of business. You know
it."
"I may fool you yet," said Fred angrily.
"You think you can play the Wall Street game and beat it," said Bojo,
divining his thought. "Fred, if you marry, whatever else you do--quit
gambling." Knowing more than the others, he had from the first known the
hopelessness of argument. Still he persisted blindly. "Fred, can't you
wait and think it over--let us talk it over with you?"
"I can't, Bojo, I can't. I've given my word!"
"Good God!" said Marsh, raising his hands to heaven in fury.
"Fred, can't you see what Roscy says is true?" said Granning, quieter
than the rest.
"Even so, I'm going to do it," said Fred, in a low voice.
"But why?"
"Because I'm crazy, mad in love," said Fred, jumping up and pacing
around. "Infatuated?--Yes!--Mad?--Yes! But there it is. I can't do
without her. I've been like a wild man all these months. Whether it
ruins me or not, I can't help it-- I've got to have her, and that's all
there is to it!"
"Then I guess that's all there is to it," repeated Granning solemnly.
Marsh swore a fearful oath and went out.
"I want to talk to him a moment," said Bojo, turning to Granning with a
nod. Granning went into the bedroom, while Bojo drew nearer to DeLancy.
"Fred, let's talk this over quietly."
"Oh, I know what you're going to fling at me," said Fred miserably.
"Gladys and all that. I know I'm a beast, I've no excuse. But, Bojo, I'm
half wild! I don't know what I'm doing--honest I don't!"
"Is it as bad as all that, old fellow?" said Bojo, shaking his head.
"It's awful--awful." He sat down, burying his head in his hands.
"Fred, answer me--do you yourself _want_ to do this?"
"How do I know what I want!" he said breathlessly. He raised his head,
staring in front. "I suppose it will end me with the crowd. I suppose
that's true. Bojo, I know everything that it will do to me--everything.
I know it's suicide. But, Bojo, that doesn't do any good. Reasoning
doesn't do any good--what's got to be has got to be! Now I've told you.
You'll see it's no use."
"I hope it will work out better than we think," said Bojo, solemnly.
"And Gladys?"
"I wrote to her."
"When?"
"Yesterday." He hesitated. "Her letters and one or two things--they're
done up in a pile."
"I'll get them to her."
"Thank you." He turned. "I say, Bojo, stand by me in this, won't you?
I've got to have some one. Will you?"
"All right. I'll come."
* * * * *
At eleven o'clock in a little church up in Harlem he stood by DeLancy's
side while the words were said that he knew meant the end of all things
for him in the worldly world he had chosen for his own. It was more like
an execution, and Bojo had a guilty, horribly guilty, feeling, as though
he were participating in a crime.
"Louise looks beautiful," he found the heart to whisper.
"Yes, doesn't she?" said Fred gratefully, with such a sudden leap in the
eyes that Bojo felt something choking in his throat.
He waved them good-by after he had put them in the automobile, and took
Mrs. Varney and a Miss Dingler, the maid of honor, home in a taxi. It
was all very gloomy, shoddy, and depressing.