Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 287, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1911 — The SLAVE of the Steel God [ARTICLE]

The SLAVE of the Steel God

THE rows of slender chimneys, piercing the blackened roofs ol the stupendous shacks known as “the work,” vomited their dense masses ol poisoned atmosphere, and steam pipes spurted' vfcioiisly here and there below; half , a dozen cupolas flared with red and violet against the darker drift or faded in a pale glow as a reckless wind puffed the settling clouds away. "-?-y Inside the works a thousand o> more pairs of hands gripped lever, bar, shovel handle, hammer, rammer OI cable as the mighty muscles behind them strained and relaxed unceasingly to a multitudinous clangor of metal *bn metal and the creak and scream and whirr of wheels and pulleys. In one of a thousand and more shacks that were no! stupendous eave In their griine and bare ugliness, the .blinds were down in that room facing the main avenue of cinders. It was Late Spinney’s shack. “Lafe’ Is, of course, the familiar abbreviation of Lafayette, who, ft will be remembered, risked bls life and spent his money, in the cause of American freedom. Somebody in the Spinney family must have admired him at th% time the christening took placet-it there was a christening. A few hours before, Lase Spinney had been one of the thousand or more toilers iu the works. He bad started in at one end of a line of naked to the waist, raking, seining and feeding tlreir searing fires until he reached the other end, and then back again. Twelve hours of it at a shift, and if you don’t like the job} why this is a free country and you know what , you can do. The blinds were down, but Mr. Spinney was not dead. Far from it. He was only 36 years old and, bar accidents, good for another 10 years of it. His eyp was closed and his mouth was open and from that mouth proceeded a rhythmic snore, broken at regular intervals by a choke and a, gasp.

In the adjoining kitchen, Mrs. Spinney busied herself at the stove, tried to restrain the activity of four children in semi-clean dresses and ribbons and looked a good deal at the clock. As the noon whistle blew Mrs. Spinney pushed the coffee pot to the back of the stove, took an odorous herring from the oven, looked at the clock again and sighed. “I hate to wake him,” she said. ”1 don’t think we ought to wake him at that.” ’ ■ c _ Four shrill voices were raised in protest. “Welk then, hush your racket,” said the mother. She put brehd on the table wjtb- the herring and surveyed the food disparagingly. “Hunkies’ grub it is,” she grumbled. /“But it. might be worse easy enough. Now, if I can turn my back for a minute without you mixing up your duds, I’ll go wake him up.” It was no easy matter to wake him. He muttered and swore, half arose and rolled back again, and would have slept but for his wife’s persistence. At last he lurched half his bulk from the bed, sat up, and nodded drowsily at his shoes. ‘ Come,” said his wife sharply, but with a- pitying look. “The lunch is all put up, and your brlkfus is ready and the children is crazy to be a-goin’.’’ - * “Going?” repeated Late; . “A-going where?”

“To the park/’ snapped the woman “Don’t you know? Wake up jow!" Presently he came clumping into the kitchen, a tall, ungainly figure, with a scarred face and an empty eye socket, his shoulders bowed and his hair grizzled by the stress of his 36 years. Without a word, he seated himself at the table and devoured the food wolfisbly. Then he turned his one eye on bls family in a not unkindly regard. “Well, you all ready?” be asked. There was a chorus of assent anu he smiled horribly, for, owing to the exigencies of the steel business,' he couldn’t Agile any other way. “We're all a-wa:ting on you,” said his wife. “Hurry, now, and get ready." He hurried and soon he was at the head of a small procession that straggled along the cinder path tdward 'the car line. A neat patch was over the empty eye-socket and he was in his black best, with a celluloid collar torturing his sinewy neck. It would take too long -to tell the events of the street car ride that took the Spinneys from the gloom and oppression of “the works” into the sunlight and air of the park. There were events, an when the conductor tried to charge full fare for hjrelyn, and when Lase Junior nearly fell out of the window in his eagerness to observe an asphalt gang. In fact, the trlpjtself was an event, and a big event. But the point is that they got to the park, that it was possible for a man to work a 12-hour night-shift and yet have time to take his family on a little excursion, before returning to work. We have seen that Lase Spinney slept, and that he ate. No* M was passing spare time loafing around on the grass with his pipe in his mouth and the debris of a lunch scattered about him. He might, if he had yhoaen. havo spent the same time studying, improving hia stupid mind and qualifying himself for a higher poMtiMk * ■ ,