When I mounted the ladder, and moved out into the air, I thought, "I haven't learned much from Tony, except that he somehow cleaned the checkerwork, and it's best to keep the head high; no more bending."
Five minutes passed, and I was scheduled to take my turn alone. Every man poked three holes and came up. I was full of resolutions for glory and poked four, coming up rather elated. John looked at me sadly when I stepped off the ladder.
"What's the matter, Charlie? You only poke 'em half out." He simulated my motions with the rod. I hadn't qualified.
John, the Slav, was tying his handkerchief back of his ears.
"I show him; you come with me, Charlie, I show you all right."
I wasn't gleeful. The last time I had done a job with John, we had carried pipes, many more at a time than anyone else. John, I anticipated, would stay in the stove, poking away, till ordinary mortals lost their lungs.
He picked up a poking rod, after very carefully putting on his gloves, and went over to the ladder, descending slowly. I followed him with my teeth in my lips, feeling for the rungs of the ladder with my feet, and holding my poking rod in my right hand. When I stepped off at the bottom, I felt my fingers closing over the bent handle of the rod in a death grip. I determined on no half-way poking.
John set to work at once, and I after him, rattling my rod in the checkerwork with all my strength, and pushing her in up to the hilt. I did three holes, and John four. My lungs were like paper on fire, when John turned to go up. We climbed out of the hole, and took down the handkerchiefs. The gang looked at me, and then at John.
"He do all right," he cried rather loudly, "every time all right."
I felt extraordinarily elated, and much as if John had given me a diploma, with a cum laude inscribed in gold letters.