He was a little more encouraging about the United States when it came
to government.
"You have a man president; that no good, after four year you kick him
out. My country sometime get king, that's all right, sometime get damn
bad one. No can kick him out."
But he relapsed into censure again when he came to American women.
"Women," he said, "in my country do more work than men this country."
"They have more time, here," I said, "and don't have to work so hard."
"American women, when you meet 'em, always ask: 'How much money in de
pock?' What they do? Dress up,--hat, dress, shoe,--walk all time Main
Street. Bah!"
It was a refreshing shock to receive this outspoken critique of America
from a Hunky, a Hungarian stove-gang boss of a blast-furnace. I was
amused very much by it, except the phrase "America all right mak' money,
old country place live." I coupled it up with some talks I had had with
men on the open-hearth. America, steel-America, which was all they knew,
was very largely a place of long hours, gas, heat, Sunday work, dirty
homes, big pay. There was a connection in that, I thought, with the
gigantic turnover figures of laborers in steel, the restless moving from
job to job that had been growing in recent years so fast. Too many men
were treating America as a good place for taking a fortune out of. The
impulse toward learning English, building a home, and becoming American,
certainly wasn't strong in steel-America. But I left these questions in
the back of my head, and returned to the stove gang at Adolph's command.
In a few days I was well in the midst of my gang-novitiate. We got
formally introduced by name one day in front of No. 12 stove. The little
Italian with the black moustache said: "What's your name?"
"Charlie," I said, knowing that first names were the thing.
"All right," he said, "that's Jimmy, Tony, Joe. Mike not here. You know
Mike? Slavish. John, that's me. That's John too wid de bar.--Hey!" with
an arresting yell, that made the others look up, "_Dis is Charlie!_"
I became a part of an exclusive group of seven men, who had worked
together for about two years. There is a cohesiveness and a structure of
tradition about a semipermanent mill-group of this sort that marks it
off from the casual-labor gang. The physical surroundings remain
unaltered, and methods and ways of thought grow up upon them. I was
struck by the amount of character a man laid bare in twelve hours of
common labor. There are habits of temper, of cunning and strength, of
generosity and comradeship, of indifference, that it is capable of
throwing into relief beyond any a priori reasoning. It begins by being
extensively intimate in personal and physical ways; you know every man's
idiosyncrasies in handling a sledge or a bar or a shovel, and the
expression of his face under all phases of a week's work; you know
naturally the various garments he wears on all parts of his body. You
proceed to acquaint yourself, as the work throws up opportunity, with
the mannerisms and qualities of his spirit. It is astonishing, with the
barrier of a different language, only partly broken down by a
dialect-American, how little is ultimately concealed or kept out of the
common understanding.
I was impressed by the precise practices established in doing the work.
Every motion and every interval of the job had been selected by long
trial. If you didn't think the formula best, try it out. Many
considerations went into its selection--to-day's fatigue, to-morrow's,
and next month's. It had an eye for gas effect, for the boss's peculiar
character, and for all material obstacles, many of which were far from
obvious.
When the flue dust had been removed from the blast-stoves, I found
wheeling and dumping it an easy and congenial set of movements, and
consequently took off my loads at a great speed.
At once I became a target, "Tak' it eas'--What's the matter with you;
tak' it eas'."
John--Slovene, and Stoic--put in an explanation: "Me work on this job
two year, me know; take it easy. You have plenty work to do."
"Take it easy," I said, "and no get tired, eh? feel good every day?"
"You no can feel good every day," he amended quickly. "Gas bad, make
your stomach bad."
So I slowed up on my wheelbarrow loads, sat on the handles, and spat and
talked, till I found I was going too slow. There was a work-rhythm that
was neither a dawdle nor a drive; if you expected any comfort in your
gang life of twelve hours daily, you had best discover and obey its
laws. It might be, from several points of view, an incorrect rhythm,
but, at all events, it was a part of the gang _mores_. And some of its
inward reasonableness often appeared before the day was out, or the
month, or the year.
Everybody wore good clothes to work, and changed in the shanty to their
furnace outfit. I usually came in a brown suit, which had been out in
the rain a good many times and was fairly shapeless. One day I entered
the mill in a gray suit, which fitted and was moderately pressed.
At the dinner-bucket hour in the shanty, I was asked by John the
Italian: "How much you pay for suit, Charlie?"
I was embarrassed, fearing vaguely explanations that might have to
follow a declaration of price. I suddenly recalled the fact that the
suit had been given me by my brother, so that I didn't know the price,
and said so.
"My brother give me suit, I don't know how much he pay," I said. That
dumped me into another quandary.
"What job your brother have?" I was immediately asked.