I was sore at myself for having been seen standing about doing nothing. But I was sore at Dick also, unreasonably. I went back to my locker, got my gloves, and went to Number 5. I began filling the spoon, with the help of "Marty," the Wop. He glared at me, and interfered with my shovel twice when we went together to the dolomite pile. Marty had made enemies widely on the furnaces because of a loud mouth, and an officiousness that sat ridiculously on his stature and his ignorance of steel-making.
I was glad when the front-wall was done. I took the hook down, and went over to the fountain in back of Five, cooled my head, neck, and arms, and went over to Seven, without taking a swallow. I had decided to have only two drinks of water in the half-day.
Dick Reber saw me coming up and, I think in punishment for loafing, said: "Clean up under there. I want you to clean all that filth out, all of it, from behind that girder."
It was near the locker and under the flooring, in a sort of shelf, where lime, dolomite, dirt, old gloves, shoes, filth of all sorts had accumulated. I cleaned it out with a broom and a stick. It took me half an hour.
"All right," said the first-helper; "now get me ten thousand."
So I went off to the Bessemer, rather glad of the walk. I climbed the stairs to the pouring platform, and watched the recorder, who had left his book, operate the levers. The shifting engine backed a ladle under, and slowly the huge pig-iron mixer, bubbling and shooting out a tide of sparks, dipped and allowed about 20,000 pounds to drop into the ladle.
"Ten thou' for Seven," I said.
In another five minutes, the engine brought up a ladle for my ten thousand, and the boy dipped it out for me with the miraculous levers.
"All right," I said; and ran down the stairs fast enough to catch a ride back past the furnaces, on the step of the locomotive.
The second-helper grabbed the big hook which came down slowly on a chain from the crane, and stuck it into the bottom of the ladle. As the chain lifted, the ladle tipped, and poured the ten thousand pounds with a hiss. But the craneman was careless, which isn't usual. Fred kept saying, "Whoop, whoop!" but he went right on spilling for quite a spell before he recovered control.