“John,” said Crist, addressing one of the gang, a short, rather slender Irishman, with a smooth-shaven, sallow face, “John, you take this man and fetch down the dry tongues from the paint-shop. There’s the wagon-truck,” and he pointed to a vehicle whose heavy box, open at both ends, and rising at the sides to a height of three feet, was supported on two small iron wheels, while an iron leg under the heavier end kept the bottom of the truck horizontal.
“Yes, sir,” came instantly from John, as he stepped alertly from among the men and joined me, his small, gray eyes looking inquisitively into mine and showing in their sudden light the pleasure which he felt in being thus singled out for special work and put in charge of a new hand.
“Come this way,” he said to me. “Me and you is partners. What’s your name? My name’s John, John Barry. Some calls me Jake, but my name’s John,” he concluded, with an emphasis which made it clear that he had a rooted objection to “Jake.”
Barry’s Christian name I considered a poaching upon my preserve, and I was feeling about for a new handy prænomen; but without waiting for an answer he continued swiftly on his loquacious way, calling me “partner” the while, as Clark had done, and “partner” I remained through the days of our co-labor.
Barry was an old hand; he knew his way about the factory perfectly. We pushed the truck before us into a warehouse and through a long, dim passage between piles of various portions of the various machines which rose to the ceiling in compact stacks on both sides of us as we walked the great length of the building. It was as dark as a tunnel, except where an occasional gas-jet burned brightly in the centre of a misty halo. The cold, unchanging air that never knew the sunlight chilled us to the bone, and near the gas we could see our breath rising in clouds of white vapor. We came at last to an elevator, and, having pushed our truck aboard, we rose to the next landing. Then down another long, dark, damp passage we passed until we reached a covered bridge, a run-way, as the men call it, which sloped upward to the paint-shop in the main building of the factory.
The spring-doors at the head of the bridge flew open to the sharp ram of our truck, and we followed into a large room which was flooded with sunlight from its serried windows. There appeared to be hundreds of “binders” in the room, all painted white and extending in long, straight rows on wooden supports which held them a few feet from the floor. Among these rows moved the men who “stripe” the binders. Their hands and clothing were daubed with paint, and even as we passed we could see the slender, even lines of brilliant color appearing as by magic along the white surface of the machines under the swift, sure stroke of these skilled painters.
This is their sole occupation. Along a side-wall of the room moves slowly, on a ceiling-trolley, a long line of steel binders, all grimy from the hands of the men who join the different parts. In one corner is a tank of white paint, and by a system of pulleys each binder, as it passes, is lowered to the bath, completely immersed, and then drawn dripping back to the trolley. Presently it is lowered to a support, and is there allowed to dry. The stripers move down the lines, following close upon the drying of the paint, and the machines, soon ready for shipment from their hands, are transferred to the packing-rooms, the vacant places being quickly occupied by binders fresh from the bath. This is one phase of the endless chain of factory production under high division of labor.
Barry and I passed on through a communicating door to another room of about equal size and of equal light and airiness with the last. The temperate air was pungent with the smell of varnish and new paint. It passed with a pleasant sense of stinging freshness down into our lungs. We had reached our destination; for large sections of the room were closely stacked with tongues of various sizes, all standing on end in an ingenious system of grooves on the floor and ceiling. Some were newly come from the turning-mill; others had been painted, and now awaited varnishing; some had passed both of these processes, and were ready for the stripers; while in one corner stood those which had been painted and varnished and striped, and which were dry and ready to be taken to the platform, where Crist had ordered Barry and me to stack them.
IN THE FACTORY.