"I—draw," Nannie managed to say; she really could not think of any other amusement.
Then her stepmother had an inspiration: "Would you like to come over to the furnace and see the night cast? It's quite a sight, people say."
Nannie was dumfounded at the attention. Mamma offering to take her to the Works! To be sure, it was the last thing on earth she would choose to do, but if her stepmother asked her, of course she could not say no. She said "yes," reluctantly enough, but Mrs. Maitland did not detect the reluctance; she was too pleased with herself at having thought of some way of entertaining the girl.
"Get your bonnet on, get your bonnet on!" she commanded, in high good humor. And Nannie, quailing at the thought of the Works at night—"it's dreadful enough in the daytime," she said to herself—put on her hat, in trembling obedience. "Yes," Mrs. Maitland said, as she tramped down the cinder path toward the mills, Nannie almost running at her heels—"yes, the cast is a pretty sight, people say. Your brother once said that it ought to be painted. Well, I suppose there are people who care for pictures," she said, incredulously. "I know I'm $5,000 out of pocket on account of a picture," she ended, with a grim chuckle.
As they were crossing the Yards, the cavernous glooms of the Works, under the vast stretch of their sheet-iron roofs, were lighted for dazzling moments by the glow of molten metal and the sputtering roar of flames from the stacks; a network of narrow-gauge tracks spread about them, and the noises from the mills were deafening. Nannie clutched nervously at Mrs. Maitland's arm, and her stepmother grunted with amusement. "Hold on to me," she shouted—she had to shout to make herself heard; "there's nothing to hurt you. Why, I could walk around here with my eyes shut!"
Nannie clung to her frantically; if she protested, the soft flutter of her voice did not reach Mrs. Maitland's ears. A few steps farther brought them into the comparative silence of the cast-house of the furnace, and here they paused while Sarah Maitland spoke to one of the keepers. Only the furnace itself was roofed; beyond it the stretch of molded sand was arched by the serene and starlit night.
"That's the pig bed out there," Mrs. Maitland explained, kindly; "see, Nannie? Those cross-trenches in the sand they call sows; the little hollows on the side are the pigs. When they tap the furnace, the melted iron will flow down into 'em; understand?"
"Mamma, I'd—I'd like to go home," poor Nannie managed to say; "it scares me!"
Mrs. Maitland looked at her in astonishment. "Scares you? What scares you?"
"It's so—dreadful," Nannie gasped.