He pointed to the end of the curve on the disc, that was opposite the 9.30 mark on the circumference.
"Saves me a watch," he said, with a grin.
After supper that evening, I mended a sleeve of my shirt that had been torn on a piece of cinder in the cast-house. Sounds of conversation were rising from the porch. I went out and found Mr. Farrell sitting in a rocker with one leg on the railing and his face screwed into an attitude of thinking. Mrs. Farrell, having done the dishes, had come out to knit, and a lanky visitor, who leaned uncomfortably against the railing, was doing the talking. The conversation was political.
"Before I came to this town, nobody had the guts to vote Democratic," said the visitor. "I'm from Democratic parts," he went on, "and when I first come here I used to go round. 'Come, come,' I said, 'you fellers is Democrats, you know you is. Sign up.' 'We know it,' they'd say, 'but we can't afford ter, there's the wife and kids—we can't afford ter, we've got a job and we're goin' to keep it.' That's how bad it was."
"You mean—"
"I mean you voted with the Company or pretty quick you moved out of Bouton, for you hadn't any job to work at.... I used ter work at glass blowin', that's a real business—"
"Mr. Herder is always telling us how much better the glass business is than the steel business," said Mrs. Farrell. "You'll have to get used to that." She gave everybody a smoothing-out smile.
It was fun when you could pick up "dope" in the course of a morning's sweat. I learned one Sunday a few pointers about judging conditions through the peepholes. If there is a lot of movement, your furnace is O.K. If the cinder begins to settle into the tuyère, your furnace is cold. If she looks reddish, cold; blue, O.K. Don't be fooled by different colored glasses in the peepholes.
One day we kept the stoves on "all heat" for the furnace was cold. "All you can give her, goddam it," McLanahan said, looking through the peepholes. McLanahan was always a little ridiculous. Anxiety made him hop about and waddle from peephole to peephole, like a hen looking for grain.