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distance, the sound is still harsh but confused. And it unites with the softened szz-z-z of belts on drums. All this is continuous incessant sound. There are a lot of intermittent ones on top. When a hundred-pound coil drops on the floor twenty yards off, you hear it vaguely; copper bars thrown down by the crane go clang. And occasionally a coil sticks for an instant in the rolls; gives a screech and a shudder, and passes through. The steam lifts that hang over the pickle-tubs scream faintly when the valves open, and trucks loaded with cakes and bar rumble in and out of hearing.

III

Suddenly the monotonous routine of the mill afternoon was interrupted. I was not aware what had happened, but was conscious that a large event had taken place. Helpers began to crane their necks toward the hot rolls, to straighten curved backs if they were sitting down, to wake up if like the rollers they had fallen asleep. I craned too, and twisted on my soap-box to sweep the aisle of rolls with my eyes, and strain them in the direction of steam-clouds and the hot rolls. The state of half coma in which I had been listening to the noises of the mill left me, and I felt alert, almost eager.

'Beeg boss come,' whispered the Lithuanian helper.

Mr. Gordon and Mr. Weller walked down the aisle of the rolls. Mr. Gordon was superintendent of the mill, Mr. Weller an officer of the company. Nobody's movements grew hurried or unnatural, but a subtle current of consciousness ran through the aisle; no heads were turned, but everyone knew that everyone else knew that Mr. Gordon and Mr. Weller were coming down the aisle of the rolls.

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They do not pause anywhere, but pass on and out of the mill through the die department, and leave speculative conversations in little groups all over the mill. I hear the roller next us say, 'Lookin' to see who they can lay off, I guess. Five fellers dropped last pay day.' But my roller, Bill, comes over to the soap-box, and remarks, 'Weller is a good scout. My uncle was a roller in the brass mill when Mr. Weller was a young college feller learnin' the business.'

For some minutes some force seemed to have cut across the drone of machines, bar-swabbing, coil-mounting, stiffened muscles, drip of oil, the interminable ribbon of copper squeezing between iron. It was possible to think vividly and pleasantly about anything at all. I recalled a hurdle race that I had won in high school, and the way the crowd blurred at the tape. I began to think about Leonardo da Vinci and about Mr. Gordon. Somebody had told me he had one ambition - to earn enough to be independent of the mill. He had worked thirty-eight years at it, they said, and was about ready to cut loose. He owned an apple farm in Massachusetts somewhere; in a year or two he would put brass behind him and begin the raising of apples.

But a little later, it became an effort, great and overwhelming, to think of Gordon any more, or of anything else. I mounted coil

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Lifting the swab from my pail of roll-oil, putting it on in regular smears upon the thirty-first coil, watching the metal thicken on the block, winding a little to this side, veering to that

Sometimes the numbness that a job brings is pleasant, like the sensation before sleep, or like the vagueness that

Through the roar of the mill a few rhythm gives. I have had such a

pleasant lessening of consciousness, such lulling, on an easy shovel job, or piling metal, or heaving easily on a rope, or even on this mounting of coils, and swabbing of moving metal. But at other moments, as now, repetition becomes pain, and the growing and piling monotony an exquisite torture. And there are differing elements of pain even in monotony. There is sometimes a sense of ebbing vitality, of the gradual, inevitable withdrawal of life and happy energy from every centre of nerve and mind; a substitution of lethargy, bodily, mental, a hopelessness with no point or poignancy to make it dramatic or bearable. There is at times a feeling in the mind and senses, half like the pressure of a weight, bearing down slowly upon you, and wholly beyond your power to emerge from or cast off, half like an unbearably stale taste, impossible to sweeten or to change.

At such times, it is either impossible to think at all, or, if thoughts do get into the mind, they find it such a smoky, stifling, and ill-smelling place, that they become dark, choked, and malodorous themselves. Even the best of thoughts.

I tried pungent ones, with rich suggestions floating and dangling from them, like my next visit home with a whole happy past to reëxplore, and personalities loved but not seen for long. And I tried the idea of adapting steel inventions and instruments of production to the old-fashioned areas of the brass business—an idea which, with the optimism of ignorance, I loved to speculate upon. No luck at this time. They grow gray or twist themselves into notions of discouragement. And the fact that they seem lifeless now makes me think that they will always be valueless. I remember bitterly how I dreamed that there was life and value in them, whereas, to

speak the truth, they are without core, one-dimensional, deflated, and wholly unpromising, like existence, and like myself. They are like the mill with its dust on the slacking-out tables, and its steam rising from pickle-tubs, seen through the day-weary eye of six o'clock.

Now I try fighting it like an enemy. I resolve upon a new thought-groove, kick new muscles into play, find a new movement for my swab- short quick strokes now, to replace the long and steady. I try the same means that you try to break sleepiness, when you beat back a resistless wave of lethargy by pinching your leg, biting your hand, snapping your head and neck back in its socket. There are means of waking up through mild pain, as now - grinding my right heel into the toe of my left boot.

But an hour later, the fight itself becomes monotonous. I 'm unbelievably bored, putting up a fight and failing, and bored with thinking about fighting and thinking about failing.

Areas of personality that used to get stimulus enough to keep alive seem contracting, going under water. The live part of me is an island, with salt water advancing upon its beaches, reducing the green centre of me to a coral shoal. And each hour that I repeat the colorless motions, recovery becomes more impossible, the edges of personality quite irrevocably sunk.

I have noticed other men in the mill, facing the same thing, making a fight against it, winning through or surrendering. And I am confident that the men who have gone through into more intelligent jobs have either worked at twenty things or, if tied to a routine job, have kept themselves alive only through the most heroic measures.

I stood up and kicked my legs, which were going stiff from long sitting on the soap-box. Thought hard for a

few minutes on supper - thought hard on those noises of the mill, and picked them apart. Why not speak to Bill? It seemed a gigantic, an heroic effort to raise my voice to say, 'Hey, Bill.' And what use if I did: we talked our heads empty the first week.

In ten minutes Bill spoke to me. He came over to my side of the rolls, slowly, looked at me, and looked away. 'Monday is a long day,' he said, 'always.'

He spat very carefully into the gutter that carries the oil away, and spoke with his head still lowered.

'Did I ever tell you how I met my wife the first time?'

'No-o-o,' said I.

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'Feller named Compton, chum of mine, 'n' I used to go to the movies every night at Swarthmore, 'n' then dance - town hall. Worked in the Swarthmore branch then - good place too. Now listen to this. One night, we saw a coupla dames come outer the theatre-good-lookin' as hell. I said to Cal, that 's Compton,

""Let's follow the dames."

"He says, "All right"; so we followed 'em. They knew it, and were sore as hell 'n' tried to walk away, but we walked up on 'em. And off on a street where they'd turned in, we ast if they 'd mind if we 'd walk home with 'em. And one of 'em

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wife said she did n't think so, 'n' the other girl says, "We don't know you"; but she looked as if she 'd like to, so I took the one by the arm who 's my wife now, and we walked the way hell 'n' gone out in the country with 'em, past fields 'n' fields, 'n' finally they ast us our names, 'n' I says Rogers. Which got me in wrong when she found out. But at any rate I went with her every night for most of that summer.'

The end of the bar came out of the rolls with a snap, and Bill went to the other side to help the blocker take

the coil off. I mounted a new one on the reel, dragged the end over to the rolls, shoved it in till the rolls bit, took up the swab, and began smearing oil again. Bill went on. 'We thought we'd get married, 'n' we told our folks we thought we would. Her people took it all right, but my mother was sore as hell, 'n' said I was a fool, 'n' if I did, I need n't come back. She meant it all right. Father did n't care.

'So we decided to get married anyway. I took pop's car. Hell, how sore ma got over that! I thought she'd kill me. Well, I took the car, and we got married by the Swarthmore minister Congregational. A very nice wedding; all my wife's people were there and some of my friends. About pop and ma I was sorry, but I did n't care much.

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'Of course I was scared to go home, 'n' so we stayed at my wife's folks. I was plannin' to get a rent, but they were high as hell and scarce. Finally I said we might as well go 'n' see mother and tell her about it. We went over one Sunday, 'n' tried to be nice about it, but she would n't let us in, though my father ast her to. He said she could n't make us unmarried by keeping us out. We went back to my wife's folks.'

The end of the bar passed through the rolls and wound on the block. I mounted a new coil on the reel, lugged the end to the rolls, shoved it into the bite, and took up my swab.

'It 's funny the way things happen sometimes. I met my wife by following those dames. And we came together with my people in a queer way too. I'd been living at my wife's people's for a couple of weeks, when they had a fire a darn bad one; nobody knows now how it started, but it was probably sparks on the roof- and the house burned down. They had a little insurance but not

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course, all of us were out in the street. My wife's uncle took in her father and mother, but there was n't really room for us. I think this is pretty good; what happened was this. When my mother found out about it, she came over and ast us both, my wife and me, to come and live with her until we got a rent. So we did, of course, and my mother likes my wife now better than my father does. It's funny the way things happen.'

After that Bill felt better, and I know I did. Most of the poisons had gone out of my mind. Of course it was only 4.30, and still hard to finish the turn; but there was nothing deadening and hopeless about the afternoon. I had lost the stale taste in my mind.

There was no fun in the last twelve bars we did, but I could get my will into it. It seemed as if there was something to push against. I liked to put one hand on the top of the reel, the other on a spoke, and with my Portuguese helper stiffen my back and legs and right the thing. I did n't like it, but I was willing. I clenched my teeth a little and was willing. Besides, 'Everybody's job is hard when he does it all day - a man goes through with it nothing was ever accomplished in this world without hard work.' These moralities jolted into my brain.

Then there were no thoughts, but just a movement of muscles. We shoved the last coil off the gaugingtable to the truck. I helped the blocker do it. Tired muscles, but a changed movement, refreshment. If you shove quickly, the coil will slide from the table flat and find the right place on the load without unwinding. Pulling truck

no thoughts, or feelings the mill held as if in your fist, to finish the day; the truck jolting on

an uneven floor; attention sharpened for turns and bad floor -- and muscles prepared from old practice to slow down at the muffle furnace.

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I walk back — ten minutes of six slowly, muscles loosening, arms dangling. I shake them a little to relax all I can, and scuffle my field shoes through torn bits of copper in the aisle of the rolls.

'Call it a day,' Bill says.

There have been four months of it, I think; seven to six, hour out for lunch. Hardly a taste though. Harry Pickering on the 'breaking-down' rolls has been at it thirty-eight years.

Whistle: kerosene to cut the dirt from knuckles, cold water. I change into street boots, putting my oily ones in the corner of my locker.

Going out of the mill past the hot rolls, I enter the copper-mill yard and breathe suddenly a sharp winter gust. The ten hours fall away and no longer exist. Easily the mill slips off-the mounting of coils and swabbing roll-oil, the bump of the coupling against a sheathing board, and the quiver of the mill engine. Even the numbness of stiffened brain and nerve lifts as I go through the mill gate. And a glow, made up of relief and thoughts of supper, tenses every man's leg muscles and pumps his blood hard.

At the space where Factory Hill descends and widens into Main Street, I meet the Irishman with face cut into lines, disorderly gray hair, and the look of boyish bewilderment in his face. I forget my supper and for a few wasted seconds think of to-morrow's quota of ten hours and next week's.

Then I push up Factory Hill with my eyes and my mind on Mrs. Badger's side door, and on the supper, which comes on hot at 6.10.

THE MAJOR WANTS A STABLEBOY

BY JOHN ADAMS JOHNSON

No one thought of the Major as a religious man. His large frame, gray whiskers, and long coat were never seen within the walls of a church, and he was known to swear with ardor when hard pressed. Nevertheless, his philosophy of life expressed itself in religious terms. "The Old Marster did it and He knows,' he would say. According to this philosophy all things happened as they should. It was so with the ups and downs in money matters. It was the same, and but the natural working out of the laws of life, when his children married and went away, one by one. It was the same, finally, when an old face turned on her pillow and left him alone.

Not only did all things happen for the best, but all people were doing as well as they could under the circumstances. The Major believed in all men, but particularly in the Pope family, who occupied the White House on his plantation. He believed in Abner Pope as a faithful and efficient assistant, and when the taciturn Abner came back from town on Saturday night in a talkative condition, the Major declared that it was only right and natural for a man to have a bender after a week of hard work. He likewise approved when next day Mrs. Pope bore Abner off to the Baptist Sunday School at Benson.

The Major considered that Mrs. Popeuld prepare meals with the best, in spite of what some might consider evidence to the contrary.

'We are going to have fish for sup

per,' he would say to a guest, 'the best perch you ever ate.'

'No, Major, they ain't nothing but cat.'

'Well, I'm glad Stephen sent cat. The Arkansas River channel cat is the topmost fish food of the world. It gives strength like pork.'

The Major also believed in Zeke. 'Zeke is such a trifling nigger,' Mrs. Pope would say.

'Yes, he is,' the Major would reply. 'He's so ornery and hateful. Ther's no telling what he takes. He don't never hit the truth.'

'Yes,' the Major would agree, 'but then Zeke is a good boy. He is affectionate. He hangs around me and does everything I tell him.'

One day Mrs. Pope came to the Major, who was sitting in the open hallway that ran through the house, and said:

'I got to get a girl. What with cooking and cleaning and milking and getting Abner off to work and darning your socks and

'Well, if you have to have one

'I can get Melissa. The only trouble is she lives over on the bayou on the back side of the place. She's got to live here. I been aiming to tell you this. You can have that room in the yard fixed up for her. It used to be a servant's house.'

'Mrs. Pope,' said the Major, goodhumoredly, stretching out his legs on the chair in front, 'it's just natural for you to lie awake at night and think up some way to interfere with my plans.

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