Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 232, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1914 — THE RIVET – CATCHER [ARTICLE]

THE RIVET - CATCHER

By CRITTENDEN HARRIOTT.

' (Copyright.) Fred Faxon stood on the girder that 'formed the street side of the empty quadrangle that in due time would become the sixteenth floor of the Chimineystack building. Oxer his shoulder was balanced an empty keg. He leaned forward slightlly, with his eyes fixed on a man who was fanning the flames in a portable furnace some distance to the right on the floor below. Suddenly the man dropped the hanfdle of the bellows, caught up a pair of tongs, and snatched a whitehot rivet from the heart of the fire. He leaned back to gather strength; then, with scarcely a glanee, tossed the rivet upward. Fred bent slightly, shifted his keg an inch or two to the left, and the rivet fell squarely into the keg, struck against its sloping inner side, and fell dead to bottom. The moment he felt it strike Fred turned and ran like a squirrel, leaning slightly to balance the thrust of the wind, along the sixinch girder to where two men were riveting a floor beam into place. One of them, the bucker-up, picked the rivet from the keg and thrust it upward, still sparkling hot, through the holes which had been bored for it months before and hundreds of miles away. Then, with his dolly-bar, he bore up against it, holding it firmly in place while the pneumatic-gun man mashed another head upon it with a volley of staccato thuds. Meanwhile, Fred had run back to his post and stood ready to catch another rivet. The wind tore at him, but he heeded it no more than he did the roar of the traffic which rose to his ears from the stony street, 200 feet below. He had been catching white-hot bolts hurled at him from varying distances for more than three years, and, being young and apt, had learned his work so well that it had become mechanical. He caught the rivets and ran along the dizzy spiderweb of girders and floor beams as easily and indifferently as a ball player catches a ball and runs the bases. On this particular day he had other things to think about. His ambition was to be a "gun-man”—to wield the pneumatic hammer that mashed the second heads on the rivets and bound the -floor beams and the girders into a solid whole. Gun-men got better pay than rivetcatchers, and Annie West had promised to marry him the minute he got his promotion; so he wanted both badly. In the ordinary course of events, however, he could not hope for such a post for several years, and by that time anything might happen. Annie might even marry big BiJi McSween, bully and tough though he was. But his chance had come at last. The high wages paid for rebuilding San Francisco after the great earthquake and fire had drained the East of structural iron-workers and made room for scores of younger men who had learned the alphabet of the difficult trade, and the growth of the whole country had prevented the demand from slackening. That very morning, Casey, foreman of construction on the Chimneystack building, had called together the half dozen rivet catchers in his force and had told them that Mr. Fulton, traveling superintendent of the great Fulton Construction company, would be at the building the next day, and would select the most capable youngster he could find to go West with him to help in the gun-work on a new building in Chicago. ’Tis the great opening it is for one of you boys,” declared Casey. “The great opening entirely! Sure, Chicago is where the company lives when its at home, and it’s a fine chance you’ll have to make good with the bosses. “It’s mighty little there is to choose between you, as far as work goes, and I’ll make no recommendations and let Mr. Fulton pick for himself. Think it over today, boys, and let me know tonight whether it’s go or stay here tn New York you’d rather.” Ten minutes later, as Fred climbed the ladders to his post, he felt a touch upon his shoulder, and turned to face big Bill McSween. “Say!” growled Bill. “Say, Faxon, 1 want that Job. See! And 1 smashes the face of anyone that gets it away from me. See! I’m sorry you got engagements that keeps you in New York and gotter decline. See!” Fred rose instantly to the situation. Physically he was no match for Bill, who was two years older, 20 pounds heavier, two inches taller, and was an amateur pugilist besides. Clearly the case was one for diplomacy. “How in the world did you know. Bill?" he demanded smilingly. Bill grunted. “Oh, I reckoned your health wouldn’t let you leave here,” he answered with labored significance. “And don’t you make no mistake, Fred Faxon. When I go, I take Annie West with me. See!" Fred laughed. “Sdre, if you can get her to go,” he answered. “She won’t do it. She’ll stay here and marry me.” “Humph! Hl show you.” “Do!’* Fred grew excited. “Look here, Bill McSween,” he said, “you’re no friend of mine, and I don’t owe you anything. I could get this job if J wanted it. “I’ve got a hunch how to get It, but

I don’t,want it; and I do want to get you out of town. So I’m going to turn my huneh over to you—if you want it* Bill glared at Fred suspiciously, but the latter met his eyes so frankly that his misgivings faded. "Wot is it?" he demanded. Fred looked round cautiously. "Listen!” he whispered. “Father used to work under Mr. Fulton, and he told me about him. He's a perfect crank on that new alloy, nickelsteeL When he comes round tomorrow say something to one of the boys about nickel-steel alloys for something or other—rivets will do. Say it so he’ll hear you, and he's dead sure to take notice. “If you get another chance, say something else about it —that it would make rivet-heads mash better* for instance. Do this two or three times if you can, and he’s safe to pick you. He can’t help it. Nickel-steel is like whisky to him. You’ll see." Bill nodded slowly. •* "I’ve heard of nickel-steel,” he declared. “But I don’t know much about it. I’ll try what you say, but” —with sudden fierceness —“don’t you try no tricks, Fred Faxon. If you’re givlh’ me the wrong steer, you better look out for yourself; that’s all." That afternoon Casey, the foreman, scratched his head reflectively as five of the six youngsters to whom he had spoken declined the job on one plea or another. “So yourself’s the only one Who wants to go, is it, McSween?” he pondered. “Well, it’s no fault I have to find with your work, and I’ll tell Mr. Fulton so if he asks me. But I misdoubt but he’ll he wanting more than one to choose among." The next morning Casey was taking Mr. Fulton over the building. From one gang of riveters to another they went, watching the work of each. As they came near Bill McSween, that Individual was passing a rivet down to the bucker-up. “Say!” he remarked loudly. “Say, these bolts don’t hold their heat, see! If they’d put some nickel-steel in them, I bet they’d do better.” The bucker-up stared; but Bill noted that Mr. Fulton had stopped and was regarding him closely, and felt encouraged. A few moments later, when he came back with another rivet and found the superintendent still watching him, and listening earnestly the while to something that Casey was saying, he was delighted. “Them bolt-heads would mash better if they had some nickel-steel in ’em,” he observed to the gun-man, who almost dropped his tool in his amazement „ Unheeding, Bill was about to follow up his words with another remark, when he saw Mr. Fulton nod to Casey and start rapidly away. “Well,” he muttered to himself, “I got in two good licks at him, anyway." When the whistle blew for quittingtime, McSween looked round for Fred, but did not see him; so he hurried down the ladders, eager to know his fate. Casey spied him coming, and called him over.

“Step into the office, McSween,” he ordered, “and get your time. I’ll not* be wantin’ you any more.” Bill stiffened with amazement. “Do I get the Chicago job?” he demanded. “Job? Naw! An’ it’s little likely you are to get one till you get over that fool crank of yours about nickelsteel. Where you picked up that rot I dunno.” “Picked it up?” he yelled. “Me! Wait till I find Fred Faxon, and I’ll show him where I picked it up.” “Fred Faxon, is it?" A slow grin dawned on the Irishman’s face. He thought he saw an explanation of the thing. “And what’s Fred Faxon been say* ing to you?” he demanded. “Aw! tell me now. I want to know.” Furiously, Bill explained. When he had finished, Casey laughed long and loud. “Faith, ‘tis the best joke I’ve heard for many a day, so it is,” he chortled. “Do you know what Faxon did? He come to me this mornin*, an’ be says, says he: ‘Mister Casey,’ says he, ‘l’m sure we all like McSween and want him to get that Chicago job,’ says he. ‘So I want to ask you,’ he says, ‘not to mention nickel-steel to him when Mr. Fulton is round. “Tve known Bill for years,’ says he, ‘and he’s plumb crazy on nickelsteel. He was in the crazy-house for six months once,’ says he, ‘for that very thing; and he’s liable to have to go back, if he gets excited about it The doctor says so,’ says he. . “That’s what Fred says; and then he goes off, an* it’s little I thinks about it till you begins to talk about nickelsteel; an* then I saw mighty plain that I couldn’t put a crazy man off on Mr. Fulton, nor kape him workin’ here, either; and so—" But Bill could keep silent no longer. "I’ll cut his heart out!" he yelled. “1’11—" He dashed toward the door. . But Casey flung himself In the way. “Kape still, ye omadhaun," he rasped, “and listen to me. Sure, it serves you right, so it does. It was a dirty trick for you to buffalo all them lads into refusin’ the job,-so it was; and it’s glad I am you got the worst of it. “But it’s over and done now; and if you come back to work tomorrow quiet and say nothing, I’ll kape the thing to myself. If you try to make trouble, it’s the joke of the trade you’ll make yourself, so you will. “Besides, you can’t hurt Faxon unless you go to Chicago after him, for it’s married he is, and started West on the train with Mr. Fulton an hour ago.”