"I eat at Mrs. Farrell's."
"How much?"
"Seven a week."
"Too much. Pretty goddam good is it?"
"Damn good food," I said.
"Is Mrs. Farrell a widder woman?"
"No," I said, "she's not."
"Well," he said, "if you hear of a damn fine little widder woman, let me
know will yer?"
"Sure," I said.
"I'm lookin' for a place ter board, and most of all I'm lookin' for a
little widder woman ter honor wid holy matrimony."
After tapping that morning at 8.00, McLanahan took a silver dollar out
of his pocket. "If it comes heads," he said, "I'm goin' out to-night,
see, I'm goin' out ter find a woman."
He flipped the coin and it fell tails. "Don't count," said he, "two out
of three."
This flip fell heads.
"Hah," he said, "if this comes heads, I'm goin' out to-night ter find a
woman."
It fell tails.
"Hell!" he said, "Don't count, flipped it with the wrong hand."
He kept this up all day. Finally at 5.30 the coin came heads. He picked
the coin up and put it in his pocket.
"Goin' out, to-night," he said.
"Boss wants to keep Number 6 lookin' right. Go down below, and clean out
all that flue dust."
I shoveled between the stone arches of the furnace base, that curved
overhead like the culverts of a bridge. Sometimes the flue dust was wet
and clotted with mud, and came up in cakes on the shovel; sometimes it
was light, and flew in your nose and eyes. I made a pile of it six feet
high, and shaped it into a brick-red pyramid with my shovel. I washed
the arches white with a hose.
"Change 'em before we tap," McLanahan ordered, nodding at the stoves.
I went among the rangy hundred-foot shafts with a certain sense of
control over great forces. Every set differs in its special crankiness.
Number 9's have stiff-working valves, but are powerful heaters; Number
8's are cool stoves, but their valves slide genially into place. I
always a little dreaded "blowing her off." Resting my arms on the edge
of the wheel, and grabbing the top with my hands, I wrenched it over to
the left, and the blast began. The immense volumes of compressed air
escaped with a gradually accelerated blare. I gritted my teeth a little,
and my ears sang.
Then came "putting on the gas." I climbed to a little platform near the
combustion chamber, and with a hunk of iron scrap for hammer, knocked
out some wedges that held tight a door. By now I knew just the pressure
for making the iron slab creep on its rollers. I braced my feet and
pulled with back and arms.
Through the door, the combustion chamber glowed red. I went down the
steps and slowly turned the gas-pipe crank, bringing an eight-inch pipe
close to the red opening. I dodged the back flare as it ignited.
When the "new" stove was on, and the "old" one lit for reheating, I went
to the pyrometer shanty. In a little hut among the furnaces were
tell-tale discs, that let you know if you were keeping your heat right.
I found my heat curve was smooth with only a tiny hump.... Two Hunkies
were inside the shanty.
"Nine-thirty," said one.
"How do you know?" I asked.
He pointed to the end of the curve on the disc, that was opposite the
9.30 mark on the circumference.
"Saves me a watch," he said, with a grin.
After supper that evening, I mended a sleeve of my shirt that had been
torn on a piece of cinder in the cast-house. Sounds of conversation were
rising from the porch. I went out and found Mr. Farrell sitting in a
rocker with one leg on the railing and his face screwed into an attitude
of thinking. Mrs. Farrell, having done the dishes, had come out to knit,
and a lanky visitor, who leaned uncomfortably against the railing, was
doing the talking. The conversation was political.
"Before I came to this town, nobody had the guts to vote Democratic,"
said the visitor. "I'm from Democratic parts," he went on, "and when I
first come here I used to go round. 'Come, come,' I said, 'you fellers
is Democrats, you know you is. Sign up.' 'We know it,' they'd say, 'but
we can't afford ter, there's the wife and kids--we can't afford ter,
we've got a job and we're goin' to keep it.' That's how bad it was."
"You mean--"
"I mean you voted with the Company or pretty quick you moved out of
Bouton, for you hadn't any job to work at.... I used ter work at glass
blowin', that's a real business--"
"Mr. Herder is always telling us how much better the glass business is
than the steel business," said Mrs. Farrell. "You'll have to get used to
that." She gave everybody a smoothing-out smile.
It was fun when you could pick up "dope" in the course of a morning's
sweat. I learned one Sunday a few pointers about judging conditions
through the peepholes. If there is a lot of movement, your furnace is
O.K. If the cinder begins to settle into the tuyere, your furnace is
cold. If she looks reddish, cold; blue, O.K. Don't be fooled by
different colored glasses in the peepholes.
One day we kept the stoves on "all heat" for the furnace was cold. "All
you can give her, goddam it," McLanahan said, looking through the
peepholes. McLanahan was always a little ridiculous. Anxiety made him
hop about and waddle from peephole to peephole, like a hen looking for
grain.