“Each one of those ingots weighs twenty thousand pounds,” Jack said, surprising Penny with his knowledge. “After stripping, they are placed in gas-heated pit furnaces and brought to rolling temperature.”
To see fiery ribbons of steel rolled from cherry red ingots was to Penny the most fascinating process of all. She could have watched for hours, but Jack, bored by the familiar sight, kept urging her on.
Leaving the steel plant, they returned to the main factory buildings, and without thinking, sauntered toward the room where Sally worked. A portable lunch cart had just supplied hot soup and sandwiches to the employes. Sally sat eating at her machine. Seeing Jack, she quickly looked away.
“Now she’s really sore at me, and I can’t blame her,” Jack commented. “Who is Joe the Sweeper anyhow? Riff-raff, I’ll warrant.”
Though somewhat amused by the boy’s staunch defense of Sally, Penny was inclined to agree in his second observation. Although she knew nothing of the man who had turned informer, she had not liked the sly look of his face.
Before the pair could approach Sally, the brief lunch period came to an end. A whistle blew, sending the girls back to their machines.
“You’ll have to step on it,” a foreman told Sally. “You’re behind in your quota.”
Her reply was inaudible, but as she adjusted her machine and started it up, she began to work with nervous haste.
“This is no place for Sally,” Jack said, obviously bothered. “She never was cut out for factory work. And that foreman, Rogers, who is over her! He’s a regular slave driver!”
“I thought you didn’t like Sally,” Penny teased.