ADVENTURE NUMBER SIXTEEN
WHERE SAFETY WAS A STRANGER
True to their word, Bob and Betty were up bright and early, ready for Uncle Jack's exploring trip.
"We're going to visit one of the big wood-working mills," he explained as they left the house after breakfast. "I'm curious to see the result of Colonel Sure Pop's Safety patrolling, and it seems to me that will be about as interesting a shop as we can begin on. It will be fun to see what they're doing to make it safer for the men—perhaps we can get some ideas for your outside patrols, Bob."
The twins looked around them sharply as they went into the mill by way of its lumber yard. "I don't see anything here that looks dangerous," was Bob's first remark. "Hold on, though—what about those piles of lumber? Don't you think they're piled too high to be safe?"
"I can tell you this much," said Uncle Jack, who had been reading up on the year's long list of accidents. "The danger of being hit by falling or flying objects in mills and factories is the biggest risk in the whole country today."
He walked around to the laborers who were piling lumber and began talking with the foreman. The twins stepped nearer so that they could hear what he was saying.
"They're getting that pile rather high," said Uncle Jack, as if he had only just noticed it. "It's beginning to look a bit wobbly on its pins. Isn't there danger of its toppling over and hurting somebody?"
"Oh, I don't know," was the foreman's answer. "We do have a few men smashed up that way, off and on; it's all in the day's work, though."
Hardly were the words out of his mouth when a heavily loaded wagon in passing beside the lumber piles swayed and came squarely up against the one the men were working on. With a crash and a clatter the whole thing went over. One man jumped clear of the wreck, another slid down with the lumber, bruised but not much hurt—and two disappeared under the huge mass of falling boards.
The three Safety Scouts stood watching the ambulance, fifteen minutes later, as it carried off the two men to the hospital, one with a broken arm and a gash over one eye, the other hurt inside so badly that he died that night. Both of them had boys and girls of their own—families whose living depended on their daily wages at the mill!
"Hard luck for their folks," said Uncle Jack, as the ambulance rumbled away. "The Colonel told me yesterday his men had done a lot of successful Safety scouting among the wood-working mills. I can't understand it. By the way, Bob, that ambulance reminds me: what drill are you giving your Safety Scouts on how to call the fire department, and the police and the ambulance and so on?"
"We've got that well covered in our Saturday reports, Uncle Jack. Once a week each Scout adds to his report the telephone number of the police and the fire department—it's usually a number that's easy to remember, like 'Main 0' for fire and 'Main 13' for police—as well as the street address of the nearest station."
"Bob, how did they happen to choose those numbers?" wondered Betty.
Her brother grinned. "I suppose because after a bad fire there's nothing left, and because it's unlucky to fall into the hands of the police!" and he cleverly ducked the box Betty aimed at his ear.
Uncle Jack's twinkle didn't last long, though. He was too much puzzled over the carelessness he was noticing in this mill, carelessness where he had expected to find up-to-date Safety methods. He poked with his foot at a board with several ugly nails sticking up in it and jammed them carefully down into the ground.
"That's the fourth bad case of upturned nails I've found here already," he said quietly. "There's no end of broken bottles and such trash under foot, and just look at that overloaded truck, will you? One sharp curve in the track and that load will spill all over the place. Why, these chaps don't realize the first thing about Safety, Bob."
They moved on into the engine room. One of the engineer's helpers, a boy who looked hardly older than Bob, stood beside a swiftly moving belt, pouring something on it out of a tin can. His sleeve was dangling, and every time the belt lacing whirled past, it flipped the sleeve like a clutching finger trying to jerk his arm into the cruel wheel.
Uncle Jack walked over for a word with the engineer, a fat, jolly looking man who seemed well satisfied with life. "Do your helpers often put belt dressing on while the belt is running?" he asked.
The jolly engineer was plainly surprised. "Why, they never do it any other time!" he exclaimed. "Why do you ask?"
"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 class 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."
