Part 15 (1/2)

”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 gla.s.s blowin', that's a real business--”

”Mr. Herder is always telling us how much better the gla.s.s 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 gla.s.ses in the peepholes.

One day we kept the stoves on ”all heat” for the furnace was cold. ”All you can give her, G.o.ddam 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.

I heaved on the hot-blast chain, and the indicator climbed.

We had a pleasant, light brown chocolaty slag, that day, which meant good iron. When the metal runs out with large white speckles, she has too much sulphur; when she smokes, you'll get good iron.

The other day they had too large a load of ore for the c.o.ke and stone in her.

”Sledge!” yelled the keeper.

A cinder-snapper brought up two, and held the bar while the keeper and first-helper sledged. They worked well, and I watched with fascination the hammer head whirl dizzily, and land true at the bar.

At last the liquid slag broke through, jet-black as if it were molten coal, flowing thickly down the clay spout. The clay notch was hammered and eaten away, and had to be remade.

I watched the stove-tender on Number 7 as he opened the cold-air valve.

His motions were exactly calculated--the precise blow, to an ounce, to loosen that wedge.

”How long have you been stove-tender?” I asked.

”Ten years,” he said.

”Go down to the stockroom and tell the skip-man, one more c.o.ke,” said McLanahan.

I was glad to get a glimpse of that part of the blast-furnace operation.

Gondola cars bring up ore and the other ingredients of blast-furnace digestion, and run over tracks with gaps between the sleepers. The cars, by means of their collapsible bottoms, drop the loads down through, and the material falls into an underground ”stockroom.”

I entered it by climbing down two ladders, and found the skip-man at the base of one of the endless chains. The chamber had the appearance of a mine gallery de luxe. I looked at the tons of ore moving upward neatly, efficiently. What an incalculable saving of labor and time, this endless chain affair with its continually moving boxes, over the old manner of hoisting painfully, in few-pound lots, by hand!

I gave McLanahan's order to the skip-man and went up the ladders.

You've got to tap, ”when the iron's right,” and when a little later the keeper held the steam drill in front of the mud wall of the tap hole, the steam stayed at home. There was no time for a steam-fitter.

Young Lonergan and I beat it for the electric drill. It was heavy enough to make us waddle as we carried it on the run.

”That's bludy funny,” said McLanahan. The electric drill wouldn't electrify. A hurry call followed for the electrician. He smiled benignly while twelve sweaty men looked on. And in thirty seconds he fixed the connection, and we tapped in time to save the iron.

When the drill had almost bored through the hard mud in the tap hole, the keeper shoved in a crowbar, and a couple of helpers sledged rhythmically for one minute. Then the molten iron broke the mud into bits, and tumbled out. Little sheets of flame from the slag skated along the top of the red river. It rose in the runway with bubbles and smoke on top. The keeper grabbed a sc.r.a.per--an exaggerated hoe--and started the slag through a side ditch.

”Now try it,” said Old Mac.

By then, I had the test spoon ready, scooped up a bubbling ten pounds, carried it carefully, and poured it into two moulds.