THE SKY SCRAPER
Once in an enormous city, men built an enormous building. Deep they built it, deep into the ground; high they built it, high into the air. Now that it is finished the men who walk about its feet forget how deep into the ground it reaches. But they can never forget how high into the blue it soars. Their necks ache when they throw back their heads to see to the top. For, of all the buildings in the world, this sky scraper is the highest.
The sky scraper stands in the heart of the great city. From its top one can see the city, one can hear the city, one can smell the city—the city where men live and work. One can see the crowded streets full of tiny men and tiny automobiles, the riverside with its baby warehouses and its baby docks, the river with its toy bridges and toy giant steamers and tug boats and barges and ferries. The city noise,—the distant, rumbling, grumbling noise,—sounds like the purring of a far-away giant beast. And over it all lies the smell of gas and smoke.
The sky scraper stands in the heart of the great city. But from its top in the blue, blue sky one can see all over the land. Landward the fields spread out like a map till they are lost in the mist and smoke. Seaward lies the vast, the tremendous stretch of the sea, the wrinkled, the crinkled, the far-away sea that stretches to touch the sky.
Now this soaring sky scraper is the work of men—of many, many men. Its lofty lacy tower was first thought of by the architect. With closed eyes he saw it, and with his well-trained fingers quickly he drew its outline. Then at his office many men with T squares and with compasses, sitting at high long tables, with green-shaded lamps, worked far into the nights till all the plans were ready.
Then the sky scraper began to grow. The first men brought mighty steam shovels. One hundred feet into the earth they burrowed. The gigantic mouths of the steam shovels gnawed at the rock and the clay. Huge hulks they clutched from this underworld, heaved up with enormous derricks and crashed out on the upper land. Deep they dug, deep into the ground till they found the firm bed-rock. With a network of steel they filled this terrific hole. Into the rasping, revolving mixers they poured tons of sand and cement and gravel which steadily flowed in a sluggish stream to strengthen the steel supports.
At last,—and that was an exciting day,—the great beams began to rise. Again the derricks ground, as slowly, steadily, accurately, they swung each beam to its place. A thousand men swarmed over the steel bones, some throwing red-hot rivets, others catching them in pails, all to the song of the rivet driver.
The riveter screamed and shrieked and shrilled. It pierced the air of the narrow streets. On the nearby buildings it vibrated, echoed. The sky scraper seemed alive and thrilled by the quivering, throbbing, shrieking shrill,—by the song of the riveter. Story by story the sky scraper grew, a monstrous outline against the sky. And ever and ever as it grew, hissed the rivet and screamed the drill.
At length the sky scraper soared sixty dizzy stories high. Then swiftly came the stone masons and encased the giant steel frame. Swiftly in its center, men reared the plunging elevators. Swiftly worked the electrician, the plumber, the carpenter. All workmen were called and all workmen came. The world listened to the call of this sky scraper standing in the heart of the great city. From the mines of Minnesota to the swamps of Louisiana came goods to serve its need. Long, long ago, in olden days, the churches grew slowly bit by bit, as one man carved a door post here and another fitted a window there, each planning his own part. Not so with the sky scraper. It grew in haste. Its parts were made in factories scattered the country over. Each factory was ready with a part, and the railroad was ready swift to bring them to its feet. The sky scraper grew in haste. For it the many worked as one.
Planned by those who command and reared by those who obey, in an enormous city men built this enormous building. Deep they built it, deep into the ground; high they built it, high into the air. And now they use this building built by them. The sky scraper houses an army of ten thousand men. All day they clamber up and down its core like insects in a giant tree. They buzz and buzz, and then go home.
But there with the shadowy silent streets at its feet stands the lofty sky scraper. On its head there glows a monstrous light. The rays pierce through the fogs. And when the storm is screaming wild, the light struggles through to the frightened boats tossing on the mountain waves. The storm howls and beats on the sides of the lofty lacy tower with the shining light on top. The storms beat on its side, the tower leans in the wind, the tower of steel and of stone leans and leans a full two feet. Then when the blast is past, this tower of steel and of stone swings back to straightness again.
And so in the enormous city men built this enormous building. Deep they built it, deep into the ground; high, they built it, high into the air. Now that it is finished, the men who walk about its feet forget how deep into the ground it reaches. But they can never forget how high into the blue it soars. Their necks ache when they throw back their heads to see to the top. For of all the buildings in the world this sky scraper is the highest.
END