“Let’s begin at the beginning,” he said. “See those railroad tracks over there? Well, that’s where the timber comes from the forests and the steel from the mills. Now we’ll see what happens to ’em in the shop.”
He took her into the shed and showed her the traveling-cranes that could pick up a locomotive between their long fingers and carry it across the long room like a captured beetle.
“Up-stairs is the mold-loft. It’s our dressmaking-shop. We lay down the design on the floor, and mark out every piece of the ship in exact size, and then make templates of wood to match––those are the patterns. It’s something like making a gown, I suppose.”
“I see,” said Marie Louise. “Then you fit the dress together out in the yard.”
“Exactly,” said Davidge. “You’ve mastered the whole thing already. It’s a long climb up there. Will you try it?”
“Later, perhaps. I want to see these delightful what-you-may-call-’ems first.”
She watched the men at work, each group about its own machine, like priests at their various altars. Davidge explained to her the cruncher that manicured thick plates of steel sheets as if they were finger-nails, or beveled their edges; the puncher that needled rivet-holes through them as if they were silk, the ingenious Lysholm tables with rollers for tops.
Marie Louise was like a child in a wholesale toy-shop, understanding nothing, ecstatic over everything, forbidden to touch anything. In her ignorance of technical matters, the simplest device was miraculous. The whole place was a vast laboratory of mysteries and magic.
There was a something hallowed and awesome about it all. It had a cathedral grandeur, even though it was a temple builded with hands for the sake of the things builded with hands. The robes of the votaries were grimy and greasy, and the prayer they poured out was sweat. They chewed tobacco and spat regardless. They eyed her as curiously as she them. They swaggered each his own way, one by extra obliviousness, another with a flourish of gesture. They seemed to want to speak, and so did she, but embarrassment caused a common silence.