Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts Part 14

"Only," said the explorer, dryly, "because there are several hundred men killed in just that way every year--and most of them have families.

Don't you put guards around any of your belts in this mill, either?"

Again that puzzled look in the engineer's eyes. "No, not here," he answered slowly. "There was some talk about putting them on, but nothing came of it. It wouldn't be a bad idea, either; every now and then some poor fellow loses a hand or an arm. Last spring a new man from out in the yards was walking through here, and the wind blew his sleeve too near the belt. It yanked him clear in between the belt and pulley--smashed him up so he didn't live more'n a couple of hours. That certainly was hard luck."

"Luck!" snorted Uncle Jack, when the three were out of hearing. "A moving belt is almost as dangerous as a can of gunpowder! Yet these men call it luck when it takes off an arm or snuffs out a life. It's disgusting."

All through the plant they found the same state of affairs--careless men, unguarded machinery, guesswork everywhere. In the machine shop they found men and boys cleaning machines that were running at top speed. Any one could see how easily the rags and soft cotton waste they were using could catch in the moving parts and draw a hand or an arm into the flying wheels.

"I noticed in the accident reports of one single state," Uncle Jack told Betty, "that more than five hundred people were hurt in that very way, by cleaning machines that were moving. Half of them lost fingers and many lost their hands or arms. No sensible workman, these days, treats his machine as anything but downright dangerous as long as it's running."

The buzz saws fascinated the twins. They felt as if they could stand all day long and listen to the drone of the saw as it ate its way into the clean white boards, snarling like an angry dog when its teeth struck a knot in the wood. There were a good many of these saws in the big, long room; now and then they would get to singing together like a music cla.s.s at school and then they would drop out of tune again.

"Not a saw guard in the place," shouted Bob in Uncle Jack's ear, for the saws drowned out his ordinary tone.

But Uncle Jack's keen eyes had already caught sight of some metal guards hung up on the wall here and there. "They've got them," he corrected, "but they are not making any use of them." He stepped up to one of the saws and spoke to the man who was running it. "Why don't you keep the guard on your saw?"

"Aw, those things are a nuisance," said the man. "Yes, we're supposed to keep 'em on, but they'd be in the way--we couldn't get the work out so fast with them."

"That's queer," said Uncle Jack. "In a good many mills like this they've found that a man using a good saw guard turns out more work than ever--because he's so much more free in using his hands, I suppose."

The man grunted, but did not answer. On their way to the door, the Safety Scouts spied, clear back in one corner, a man who really did have his saw guard in use. "And a rattling lot of work he's turning out, too," said Bob, after the three had watched him a while from a distance.

The neat metal guard came clear down over the murderous saw teeth, so that no matter how much his fingers happened to be in the way, they were safe.

"Let's ask him why he uses his saw guard when the others won't," said Uncle Jack. He stepped nearer the silent workman and then--he saw the reason. Turning to Bob and Betty, he tapped his left hand with his right and jerked his head toward the man beside the saw. The twins walked around to where they could get a look at the workman's left hand. Then they understood. There was nothing left of the fingers but the stub of one, and the thumb!

"Easy enough to see why that one man was using his saw guard, eh?" said Uncle Jack to Sure Pop that night.

"Nothing easier," said the little Colonel. "A burnt child dreads the fire, you know. Not much Safety First idea noticeable in that mill, was there?"

"Colonel, that's just what I don't understand. I thought you said yesterday your Safety Scouts had done good work among the wood-working mills, but if that's a sample--"

"It isn't," was the quiet answer. "Do you happen to know who's the biggest stockholder in that mill?"

Uncle Jack stared. "Surely not--not Bruce?"

"You've guessed it."

Uncle Jack gave a long, low whistle of surprise. "But I had no idea he owned wood-working mills too."

"This is the only one. It's out of his line, I'll admit--but it goes to show his bitter prejudice against the Safety First movement, doesn't it?

He'll come around by and by, never fear. All in good time, my friend, all in good time."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

ADVENTURE NUMBER SEVENTEEN

GIVING THE OTHER FELLOW A SQUARE DEAL

The Dalton twins had something on their minds. Mother felt it. Uncle Jack felt it. Every now and then they forgot to go on eating their breakfast; and when a Dalton went that far, as their uncle remarked, things were getting very bad indeed.

Betty sat and fidgeted. Bob looked as if he would like to pop one question at his uncle, but he managed to hold it in. Finally Betty slid down from her chair, went boldly around to Uncle Jack, and whispered something in his ear. How he threw back his handsome head and laughed!

"Betty, you're a regular mind reader! Why, we're going down to try them on this very morning, and I was just going to tell you to get ready, but you were too quick for me!"

Two hours later Betty, looking very spruce in her new Safety Scout uniform, was dancing up and down before the mirrors while Bob's blouse was having the b.u.t.tons set over a bit.

"That boy," said the tailor, looking at him with bulging eyes, "has grown smaller since this uniform was measured!"

"If you'd seen the luncheon he tucked away, just before we came over that day to be measured," laughed Uncle Jack, "you'd only wonder that those b.u.t.tons won't have to be set back at least a foot! Now, where are the trousers?"

"They are up in the shop. Wait, I'll get them. What? You'd like to come along? Up this way, then."

On the second floor they found themselves in a big room that looked like a forest of sewing machines, humming and clicking so fast that at first the twins were fairly bewildered. Girls who, it seemed, could hardly be older than Betty were bending over their machines, sewing away as if for dear life. Most of them did not even look up from their work as the visitors came through.

"The young man's trousers are in this next room," said the tailor, leading the way to a heavy iron door which separated the two rooms on that floor.

"What's the idea of this iron door?" asked Uncle Jack. "To keep a fire from spreading from one department into the other?"

"Exactly so. That big, thick fire wall goes straight through the building from top to bottom--cuts it in two. Suppose a fire breaks out here on the piecework side: the foreman just opens this fire door and shoos the boys and girls right through, like a lot of chickens. Then he shuts the fire door tight, and they are safe. That big fire we had here four years ago taught us something. So when the owner rebuilt it for us, he built it right."

The big room on the other side of the fire wall was crowded almost as full of workers as the first one. The main difference was that there were more boys and men, and that more sewing was being done by hand.

Bob's khaki trousers were quickly found and tried on--a perfect fit.

"We'll give Bob a Patrol Leader's arm badge--two white bars of braid below his left shoulder," said Uncle Jack. "Betty will get one bar for the present, I understand. There are some badges yet to come, Colonel Sure Pop says."

Bob and Betty looked at each other, too pleased to talk.

The four were walking downstairs for a look at the other floors of the big tailor shop when the noon whistle blew. R-r-rip--slam--bang! A torrent of rattle-brained boys came tearing pell mell down the stairs like a waterfall over a dam. Most of them came pelting down three steps at a jump, but on one of the landings somebody stumbled, and the yelling boys piled up in a squirming, kicking heap.

"Hey! WAIT!" No one would ever have suspected the mild-mannered tailor of having such a foghorn of a voice! The rush from the upper floors slowed up at once, and Uncle Jack and Bob helped the fallen lads pick themselves up. But the boy at the bottom, a little fellow with a thin, pinched face that looked as if he had never had half enough to eat, nor even enough fresh air, lay there moaning softly.

Bob knew that queer, unnatural angle of the boy's right arm, which lay awkwardly stretched out beside him, as if it had never quite matched his left. The arm was broken.

"Here, here!" roared the tailor, gently picking the little fellow up and carrying him to the elevator. "Will you crazy fellows never learn? Only last week, somebody hollered 'Fire!' just to see the other fellows jump up and run, and broke that poor little Levinski's collar bone! And now look at this!"

"The old fellow's right on that score," was Uncle Jack's remark as the twins followed him to the street car, each hugging tight a big pasteboard box with a brand new Safety Scout uniform inside it. "Those lads meant no particular harm, but that certainly was about as far from a square deal as one fellow can give another. These 'practical jokers'

who will yell 'Fire!' or run over a boy smaller than themselves--well, if a Boy Scout had no more sense than that, he'd be drummed out of the service!"

Once on the way home, when the car stopped at the corner, he pointed up to a fire escape on a big flat building. "There's your flower-pot risk over again, Betty. Even worse, for this time they're on the fire escape steps where folks would fall over head first in case of fire. And see that girl leaning against that rickety old porch railing on the third floor! Certainly there's plenty in sight for a Safety Scout to do!"

That afternoon they visited a large machine shop across the river. To their great delight, Bob and Betty were allowed to wear their new Safety Scout uniforms, leggings and all. They stood very straight as they waited for their companion to get a permit at the Company's office.