The Iron Boys in the Steel Mills; or, Beginning Anew in the Cinder Pits

  CHAPTER XVI

  THROUGH THE MELTING POT

  "I've got a new job for you," said the head melter to Steve, when theIron Boys reported for duty on the following evening.

  "Am I to be the monkey?"

  "No, not to-day. I'll let you be the ladle man."

  "What does he do?"

  "Not much. He stands with a ladle in his hands, scooping from the moltenmetal, as it bursts out through the clay dam, all the cinders and slaghe can pick up. Every little bit helps. You've got to watch lively, oryou will be burned to a crisp before you pick up the first ladle full,"was the cheerful additional remark of the head melter.

  "I was going to ask if you have a new job for me to-night," interruptedBob, "but I don't think I care very much for your promotions. That'swhere I have the best of you, Steve. If anything happens in mydepartment I can jump down, but you can't jump up to get out of the wayof your troubles."

  "At least, I am in little danger of breaking my neck in trying to jumpup," laughed Rush.

  Bob was soon at the top of the furnace. He was still sore from the bumphe had gotten in collision with the train of flat cars. Jarvis walkedwith a limp. One leg seemed to be shorter than the other, since theaccident, but of course this was not the case. He took up his work withmore confidence than he had begun it on the previous night, relievingthe monotony by alternately whistling and singing, though the latter wasusually attended with a severe coughing spell as he swallowed a mouthfulof gas and smoke.

  Steve found his new occupation far from an improvement over what he hadbegun with. His first effort to scoop cinders and slag from the yellowstream resulted in his losing his eyebrows, much of the hair on his headand nearly all the clothing he had on.

  Had it not been for the quick action of the man with the hose he wouldnot have had a stitch of clothing left on him, and perhaps very littleskin-covering either.

  "Dip and jump!" shouted the melter. "What are you trying to do?"

  "Principally jumping, only I didn't jump quite quickly enough," laughedSteve, the tears running from his smarting eyes. He bathed themliberally in cold water, after which they felt better.

  The next dip was not much of an improvement over the first, except thatthere were fewer clothes to be burned and no eyebrows at all. Now, Rushwas shouting for water, as had the others before him. Being a raw handit was dashed over him by the pailful, in addition to the deluge he gotfrom the hose in the hands of the hoseman.

  The Iron Boy staggered away, gasping for breath. His head was a-whirland he felt as though he were on fire.

  "Water, water!" he gasped, settling down in a heap.

  No one laughed. No one cared. They were used to such scenes ofsuffering, and the rough furnace men felt no compassion for thesuffering boy. It was the water man's business to cool him off and noconcern of theirs.

  In a short time Rush recovered and went staggering to his work again.Once more he collapsed, and once more he was brought out of his partialfaint by a pail of water and hose.

  This kept up for the greater part of the night, but each succeedingcollapse left him weaker and weaker. Still, Steve Rush clung doggedly tohis task. Only his iron will kept him up. Every pore in his body was theoutlet of a living stream of perspiration. Never in his life had hesuffered the excruciating or long-drawn-out agony that he experiencedas ladle man this night.

  Pig-Iron Peel nodded approvingly. He was a rough man himself, but heappreciated pluck and he knew pluck when he saw it.

  "You had better lie down between casts," he advised, grasping an arm ofthe Iron Boy, who was staggering about blindly after a successfuldipping, for even in his suffering he was rapidly getting the knack ofthe work.

  "I do--don't need to," gasped Steve.

  "I don't care. I was simply telling you."

  The next dip was worse than any that had preceded it. This time Stevedid not need to be told. He fell down without any effort of his own. Hesimply collapsed, rolling over on his back on the hot brick flooring ofthe platform, where he lay gasping for breath.

  A pail of water was dashed over him and the hoseman played the hose upand down his body. But Rush did not care. It is doubtful if he even feltthe cooling effect of the water. The boy was too nearly spent foranything to matter. During this wait, however, he had more time torecover himself, and by the time the men were ready for the next cast hewas on his feet. Steve's eyes were bloodshot, and seemed to stand outfrom their sockets like two red balls. He worked automatically for therest of the night, not answering questions addressed to him andprobably not hearing any.

  "They all have to go through the same experience," was the comfortingassurance of the head-melter. "You will come out all right in a day orso, if you don't die in the meantime."

  Steve went on with his work in silence. At the coming of the dawn Jarviscame down from the charging platform, the whites of his eyes lookingtwice their natural size in their frame of black soot, which wasplastered over the boy's face layer upon layer. Bob found Steve leaningwearily against a pillar. The latter's face was drawn and haggard. Rushlooked years older. Jarvis gazed at him in astonishment.

  "In the name of goodness what's the matter with you? Are you going todie--are you sick, or----"

  "Nothing is the matter with me," answered Steve, the harsh lines thathad grown on his face during the night smoothing out into a wan, butsunny smile.

  "Well, if there isn't there ought to be, for you are about theworst-looking object I ever saw."

  "You--you wouldn't take a prize yourself, at--at----"

  "At a poultry show, no," finished Jarvis. "Come along; are you goinghome, or would you rather hang around here?"

  "Home?" answered Steve.

  "I think you will have to be carried, if you get there to-day. Shall Igo get a rig for you? You're clean knocked out."

  "I tell you I am all right," retorted Rush, with some show ofirritation. "Don't you trouble yourself about me."

  Bob gazed at his companion in surprise. Steve had never spoken to him inthat tone before, so Jarvis kept still for a time as they went on acrossthe yards, over the hot metal bridge and to the lower exit from theyards. As they were passing out they met Ignatz Brodsky coming in. ThePole stopped short, peering into the face of Steve Rush.

  "What the matter with you?"

  "Nothing is the matter with me, Ignatz," answered Steve, by this time inbetter control of himself. "I am a little tired--that's all."

  "You stay by the house to-night. You no go to the furnace; you go by thegraveyard by and by."

  "We expect to, you old croaker," scoffed Jarvis. "Go on, or else talkabout something pleasant. Where are you working now?"

  "I work by the hot bed," answered Ignatz.

  Bob laughed heartily.

  "I guess we all do, though they are not exactly beds. Well, so long; wemust be going."

  Brodsky bade them good-bye, Steve waving his hand; then the Pole stoodlooking after them, his eyes fixed longingly on Rush, whose gait wasnone too steady. Brodsky shook his head and went on to work.

  "What's a hot bed, Steve?" questioned Bob.

  "I don't know. I know a place that is hot enough to be called one."

  "And I know two places, the one you work in and the one I work on topof. Do you know, the waste gas that comes out of the top of that stoveis strong enough to light a whole town?"

  "Goes up into the air, does it?"

  "All that doesn't swoop down and suffocate me. I've been asphyxiatedevery ten minutes since I have been up there."

  "I wonder why they don't use the gas for something else?" mused Rush. Helapsed into silence, pondering over this subject all the rest of the wayhome. This was well, for it made him forget his weariness in a measure.Reaching the widow Brodsky's, Steve was for going to bed without anybreakfast, but Bob was so insistent that the boy did sit down to hismeal after having taken his bath. Rush ate a fairly nourishing breakfastand after that felt better. This, followed by a refreshing sleep put himin very good condition.

  St
eve left the house a couple of hours before it was time to go towork. He was still unsteady on his feet, but the color was returning tohis face and his wonderful vitality was asserting itself. He would behimself again, in a few hours, if he were out in the open away from thekilling heat of the blast furnaces.

  The boy wanted to see the furnaces by daylight so, that he might get abetter idea of them than was possible in the night. He stopped towitness the work of the day shift as they made a cast. This was veryinteresting, though a wave of pity welled up in the heart of the IronBoy for the suffering of the furnace men in the terrific heat to whichthey were subjected while tapping the furnace.

  The cast over, he walked to where the huge black stoves towered abovehim, and through which the gas flamed and circulated to heat the airthat was driven in over the charge in the furnace itself.

  The engineer nodded to him.

  "Where does the waste gas go to?" asked the Iron Boy.

  "Out into the air. Why?"

  "I should think they would use it for something else."

  "What else?"

  "I don't know."

  "Neither do I. We don't use gas for anything else, except running thegas engines over on the other side of the yard. I guess you don't knowmuch about this business, or you wouldn't be asking such questions."

  "One never learns much unless he does ask questions," answered the lad."I have learned more from asking questions that I ever have any otherway."

  "That's right, so long as you can find anybody who's willing to answerfool questions."

  Steve walked away without replying. His mind was at work, what Jarviscalled working over time. The lad was thinking deeply over what he haddiscovered, and, though he did not realize it at the time, he had comeupon an idea that was to work a great change in one department of thegreat steel industry.