Steel Part 4

"h.e.l.l," he said, "he got fired from furnace, for too G.o.ddam lazy." I felt less hurt at his sn.o.bbishness after that.

Marco and I became good chums. We sat on a wheelbarrow one day, after finishing a job on the track under Six.

"You teach me American," he said; "I teach you Croatian."

"d.a.m.n right," I said; and we began on the parts of our body, and the clothing we wore, drawing out some of the words in the dirt with a stick, or marking them with charcoal on a board.

"Did you ever go to school in America?" I asked.

"Three month, night school, Pittsburgh. Too much, work all day, twelve hour, go to school night," he said.

"Do you save any money? Got any in the bank?" I asked, feeling a little fatherly, and wondering on the state of his economic virtues.

"h.e.l.l, no," he said; "I don' want money in bank, jes nuff get along on."

I talked to a good many on the savings question, and found the young men very often didn't save, but "b.u.mmed round," while practically all the "Hunkies" of twenty-eight or thirty and over saved very successfully. A German who put sc.r.a.p in the charge-boxes, after the magnet had dropped it, had saved $4000 and invested it. One man said to me: "A good job, save money, work all time, go home, sleep, no spend." Speaking of the German, "He no drink, no spend." The savers, I think, are apt to be the single men who return to their own country in ten or fifteen years.

I came out of the mill one morning after a night-shift, with an appet.i.te that made me run from the railroad bridge to Main Street. I went to the Hotel Bouton, where the second-helper on Eight usually eats, and started at the beginning, with pears. I ate the cereal, eggs, potatoes, toast, coffee, and griddle-cakes, taking seconds and thirds when I could negotiate them--the Bouton is stingy under a new management, probably finding that steel-workers eat up the profit. I got up from the table feeling as hungry as when I sat down, and went to the restaurant just two doors below--unpalatable, but serving fairly large portions. There I had another breakfast: coffee, oatmeal, eggs. I felt decidedly better after that, and started home in good humor. But by the time I reached the window of Tom, the Wiener man, I felt that there was room for improvement, and looked in my pocketbook to see if I had any breakfast money left. I hadn't a cent, but there were quant.i.ties of two-cent stamps. I went in and sat down at Tom's counter, where I ate a bowl of cereal and a gla.s.s of milk. Then I opened my purse. In a moment or two I convinced Tom that two-cent stamps were good legal tender, and went home.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] I learned later the flow could have been stopped by simply tilting back the furnace, but the craneman was ready and so brought the ladle up.

III

THE OPEN-HEARTH--NIGHT-SHIFTS

"Have a cigarette, Pete," I said, offering a Camel to a very fat and boyish-looking Russian.

"No t'ank."

"What, no smoke?" I asked, incredulous.

"No, no smoke."

"No drink?" I asked, wondering if I had found a Puritan.

"Oh, _drink_" he said with profound emphasis; and continuing, he told me of other solaces he found in this mortal life.

"Look!" cried some one.

Herb, the craneman, in a fit of extreme playfulness had thrown some wet green paint forty feet through the air at the pit boss, greening the whole side of his face. Al was doing a long backward dodge, and slapping a hand to his painted face, supposing it a draught of hot metal. When he perceived that he wasn't killed, he picked up cinder-hunks and bombarded the crane-box. It sounded like hail on tin.

Pete, the Russian melter, came out on the gallery behind the furnaces, and I could see by the way he looked the pit over, that he was picking a man for furnace work. Somebody had stayed out and they were short a helper. He looked at the fat workman beside me, and then grunted.

This was the third time he had picked Russians in preference to the rest of us, who are Serbian, Austrian, and American.

The next day I went on the floor, and tackled Pete.

"How about a chance on the floor?" I said, standing in front of him to keep him from lurching away.

"Y' get chance 'nuff, don' worry."

"If I can't get a crack at learning this game in Bouton, I'll go somewhere I can," I said, boiling up a little.

d.i.c.k Reber, the Pennsylvania-Dutch melter, came up.

"I want a chance on the floor," I said.

"All right, boy, go on Number 7 to-day."

I made all speed to Number 7. "Is he doing that," I thought, as I picked up my shovel, "because I'm an American?"

I looked up and saw the big ladle-bucket pouring hot metal into a spout in the furnace-door, accompanied by a great swirl of sparks and flame, spurting upward with a sizzle.

"At last," I said, "I'm going to make steel."

The steel starts in as "sc.r.a.p" in the mill-yard. Sc.r.a.p from anywhere in America; a broken casting, the size of a man's trunk, down to corroded pipe, or strips the thickness of your nail, salvaged in bales. The overhead crane gathers them all from arriving flat cars by a magnet as big as a cart wheel, and the pieces of steel leap to meet it with apparent joy, stick stoutly for a moment, and fall released into iron charge-boxes. By trainloads they pa.s.s out of the stockyard and into the mill, where the track runs directly in front of the furnace-doors. There the charging-machine dumps them quickly into the belly of the furnace.

It does its work with a single iron finger, about ten feet long and nearly a foot thick, lifting the box by a cleat on the end, and poking it swiftly into the flaming door. Old furnaces charged by hand hold from twenty-five to thirty-five tons; new ones, up to two hundred and fifty.

That is the first step in starting to make a "heat," which means cook a bellyful to the proper temperature for steel, ready to tap into a ladle for ingot-making. Next comes "making front-wall," which signifies that no self-respecting brick, clay, or any other substance, can stand a load of metal up to steel-heat without being temporarily relined right away for the next draft of flame. We do that relining by shoveling dolomite into the furnace. The official known as second-helper wields a Brobdingnag spoon, about two inches larger than a dinner-plate and fifteen feet long, which a couple of third-helpers, among them myself, fill with dolomite. By use of the spoon, he carefully spreads the protection over the front-wall.

But the sporting job on the open-hearth comes a bit later, and consists in "making back-wall." Then all the men on the furnace and all the men on your neighbor's furnace form a dolomite line, and marching in file to the open door, fling their shovelfuls across the flaming void to the back-wall. It's not a beginner's job. You must swing your weapon through a wide arc, to give it "wing," and the stuff must hop off just behind the furnace-door and rise high enough to top the sc.r.a.p between, and land high. I say it's not a beginner's job, though it's like golf--the first shovelful may be a winner. What lends life to the sport is the fact that everybody's in it--it's the team play of the open-hearth, like a house-raising in the community.

Another thing giving life is the heat. The mouth of the furnace gapes its widest, and you must hug close in order to get the stuff across.

Every man has deeply smoked gla.s.ses on his nose when he faces the furnace. He's got to stare down her throat, to watch where the dolomite lands. It's up to him to place his stuff--the line isn't marching through the heat to warm its hands. Here's a tip I didn't "savvy" on my first back-wall. Throw your left arm high at the end of your arc, and in front of your face; it will cut the heat an instant, and allow you to see if you have "placed" without flinching. It's really not brawn,--making back-wall,--but a nimble swing and a good eye, and the art of not minding heat.

After that is done, she can cook for a while and needs only watching.

The first-helper gives her that, pa.s.sing up and down every few minutes to look through the peepholes in her furnace-doors. He puts his gla.s.ses down on his nose, inspects the brew, and notices if her stomach's in good shape. If the bricks get as red as the gas flame, she's burning the living lining out of her. But he keeps the gas blowing in her ends, as hot as she'll stand it without a holler. On either end the gas, and on top of it the air. The first-helper, who is cook of the furnace, makes a proper mixture out of them. The hotter he can let the gas through, the quicker the brew is cooked, and the more "tonnage" he'll make that week.

"Get me thirty thousand pounds," said the first-helper when I was on the furnace that first night. Fifteen tons of molten metal! I was undecided whether to bring it in a dipper or in my hat. But it's no more than running upstairs for a handkerchief in the bureau. You climb to a platform near the blower, where the stuff is made, and find a man there with a book. Punch him in the arm and say, "Thirty thou' for Number 7."

He will swear moderately and blow a whistle. You return to the furnace, and on your heels follows a locomotive dragging a bucket, the ladle, ten feet high. Out of it arise the fumes of your fifteen tons of hot metal.

The overhead crane picks it up and pours it through a spout into the furnace. As it goes in, you stand and direct the pouring. The craneman, as he tilts or raises the bucket, watches you for directions, and you stand and make gentle motions with one hand, thus easily and simply controlling the flux of the fifteen tons. That part of the job always pleased me. It was like modeling Niagara with a wave of the hand.

Sometimes he spills a little, and there is a vortex of sparks, and much molten metal in front of the door to step on.

She cooks in anywhere from ten hours to twenty-four. The record on this floor is ten, which was put over by Jock. He has worked on most of the open-hearths, I learn, from Scotland to Colorado.

When it's time for a test, the first-helper will take a spoon about the size of your hand and scoop up some of the soup. But not to taste. He pours it into a mould, and when the little ingot is cool, breaks it with a sledge. Everyone on the furnace, barring myself, looks at the broken metal and gives a wise smile. I'm not enough of a cook. They know by the grain if she has too much carbon or needs more, or is ready to tap, or isn't. With too much carbon, she'll need a "jigger," which is a few more tons of hot metal, to thin her out.

That's about the whole game--abbreviated--up to tap-time. It takes, on an average, eighteen hours, and your shift may be anything from ten to twenty-four. Of course, there are details, like shoveling in fluor-spar to thin out the slag. Be sure you clear the breast of the furnace, with your shovelful, when you put that into her. Spar eats the dolomite as mice eat cheese.

At intervals the first-helper tilts the whole furnace forward, and she runs out at the doors, which is to drain off the slag that floats on top of the brew. But after much weariness it's tap-time and the "big boss"

comes to supervise.