Again Sidney Wyeth felt a peculiarity about his heart. His thoughts went back into yesterdays, and he recalled all that he had lived and hoped for, and then for one brief moment, another stood before him. Miss Palmer was talking, but her voice seemed to come from far away. Presently she touched him. He looked up and she saw the something in his eyes, and suddenly all she had been feeling passed, as she now observed him closely. Her lips parted. They started to say: "You strange man. You've had your troubles too." And then something else seemed to say: "But you're game, oh you're game. You've lived a bitter pill, a very bitter pill. Look into those eyes; study them, and if you have suffered, and by that suffering you have learned, you can read that a secret lurks therein; you say nothing, but you feel, nevertheless." What Miss Palmer did say when her lips spoke was: "We'd better be going, Mr. Wyeth. It's getting late. Hear the whistle of the furnace, and across from that we hear another. That belongs to the Semet Solvay; but they both are right. It's one o'clock and thirty minutes. Time to canvass; we must go." Her voice was kinder now than ever.
CHAPTER FOUR
"Eidder Stuck Up ah She's a Witch"
They now passed between two large industrial plants of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company. To the left, roaring mightily, was one of the many blast furnaces, where the pig iron was made from the crude ore. Innumerable small cars, upon which sat huge ladles, whirled to and fro. Backward and forward they were pulled, out of the great shed, where they received their supply of molten matter from the largest cupolas in existence. Everywhere the white heat flashed. Hundreds and thousands of men, black and white (although as they were now seen, they were all black), worked away. System was everywhere evident. The cars, with their loads of molten heat, moved with systematic regularity, while each and every man seemed to know and fill a certain place. Only a little carelessness, a little disregard for established rules and regulation, would lead to death, of one to a score of men.
To the right of them, filling the hot summer air with sulphuric and gaseous fumes, the plant of the Semet Solvay Company was visible in all its activity. It rose grim and forbidding, with intense heat, and stretched back for a mile, seemingly, from where they passed. Even the dirt upon which they walked, as they went into the quarters between the plants, was hot and dead. No grass was to be seen. A sickly little short weed struggled for existence in this medley of industry.
And now, before them rose a hill, at the top of which were the quarters. High above the factories, as though seeking the air, and as if to be as much as possible free from the sulphuric fumes that at times almost stifled one, these houses stood, dirty, grim and forbidding. They rose sinister-like in the dull sunlight, and fell back beyond as they approached.
When the two had reached the summit and viewed the place closer, Sidney was, for a time, awed by the sight. Row after row of little red or brown, shell-like homes they were. With a thin board porch, they made little resistance against the intense heat, for it seemed hotter here than elsewhere.
At this hour, the inmates could be seen spread about on these little porches, if it happened to be on the shady side; or else, they could be seen in the houses, and some were even beneath them, anywhere they could find a spot that would permit of a little rest; for, from one to three weeks they must work at nights, twelve, thirteen and fourteen long hours. The furnace cupolas had not been cool, in many instances, since they were erected, and only two shifts were employed. They were predominantly black people.