"I'll tell you, there'll come a time," broke in the melter, "when Gary and all the other big fellers will have to work it themselves—no one else will."
"Now in the old country, a man can have a bit of fun," said the Scotchman. "Picnics, a little singin' and drinkin',—and the like. What can a man do here? We work eight hours in Scotland. They work eight hours in France, in Italy, in Germany—all the steel mills work eight hours, except in this bloody free country."
The melter broke in again. "It's the dollar they're after—the sucking dollar. They say they're going to cut out the long turn. I heard they were going to cut out the long turn when I went to work in the mill, as a kid. I'm workin' it, ain't I? Christ!"
I left, to shovel in fluor spar with Fred.
When we finished, Fred said: "You better get your lunch now, if you want it. Then help Nick on the spout."
I ate in the mill restaurant. My order was roast beef, which included mashed potato, peas, and a cup of coffee—for thirty-five cents. Then I had apple pie and a glass of milk. The waiters are a fresh Jew, named Beck, and a short, fat Irish boy, called Pop. There is a counter, no tables; the food is clean.
I went back to help Nick on the spout, and found him already back on the gallery with a wheelbarrow of mud. He looked up gloomily and said: "One more."
I dumped the wheelbarrow, and went after more, bounced it over tracks and a hose, and up and down a little board runway to where the mud-box stands. After filling up, I went back slowly, dangerously, swayingly, over bits of dolomite and coal, navigated the corner of the gallery by a hair's tolerance, and dropped the handles of the wheelbarrow by Nick with relief. It's bad on my back, that's it. I'd rather do two back-walls, and tap three times in high heat, than wheel these exacting loads of mud.
Nick knelt on the other side of the spout, and I gave him the mud with my shovel, to repair the holes and broken places of the spout, which the last flow of molten steel had carried away. When he finished the big holes, I gave him small gobs of mud, dipping my hands in a bucket of water between each two, to keep the stuff from sticking. A wave of weakening heat rose constantly from the spout still hot from the last flow. I prayed God Nick would hurry. He made a smooth neat surface on the whole seven-feet of spout, rounding the edges with his hands.