Men assembled as at a house-raising. Nobody worked from 11.00 to 12.00 on the day of blowing in Number 9. From all parts of the blast-furnace they came, and arranged themselves about the cinder notch, and on the girders above. The men and their bosses came. There was the labor foreman, and the foreman of all the carpenters, of all the window-glass fixers, all the blowers, the electricians, the master mechanic. Then came the superintendent of the open-hearth and Bessemer, Mr. Towers, and Mr. Brown his boss; and, finally, Mr. Erkeimer, the G. M., with an unknown Mr. Clark from Pittsburgh.
We waited from 11.00 to 12.00 for Mr. Clark to come and drop a spark into the shavings. When he arrived the crowd parted quickly for him, and, with Mr. Erkeimer and Mr. Swenson, he stood talking and smiling for some minutes more at the notch. Mr. Clark was a tall slender person, with glasses and an aspect of unfamiliarity with a blast-furnace environment. No one knew, or ever found out, who he was. Mr. Swenson showed him, very carefully, how to ignite the shavings with a teapot lamp. Twice the photographer, who had come early, got focused for the awful moment, and twice Mr. Clark deferred lighting the shavings and went on talking with Mr. Swenson. Finally, he bent over and lit them. Mr. Swenson rapidly turned to the gang behind him.
"Three cheers for Mr. Clark!" he cried, raising his hand. When it is recalled that none of us knew the man we cheered, it wasn't a bad noise. The furnace smoked lustily in a few minutes, and several helpers rushed around it to thrust red-hot tapping bars in the blow-holes. They ignited at once the petroleum and shavings packed around them.
Immediately after the cheers, Mr. Swenson's bright-looking office-boy hurried through the gang with a box of cigars, another immemorial custom in operation. The more aggressive got cigars, then disappeared. It was a little odd during the afternoon to see a sweat-drenched cinder-snapper at his work with a long black cigar between his teeth. When they were burned out, the department settled back to normal production.
Many years might pass before such another occasion in that place. During that period there would be no slackening of the melting fires, or of the work of the helpers who kept them alive.