In another five minutes, the engine brought up a ladle for my ten thousand, and the boy dipped it out for me with the miraculous levers.
"All right," I said; and ran down the stairs fast enough to catch a ride back past the furnaces, on the step of the locomotive.
The second-helper grabbed the big hook which came down slowly on a chain from the crane, and stuck it into the bottom of the ladle. As the chain lifted, the ladle tipped, and poured the ten thousand pounds with a hiss. But the craneman was careless, which isn't usual. Fred kept saying, "Whoop, whoop!" but he went right on spilling for quite a spell before he recovered control.
"Dolomite," said the first-helper to me, after the "jigger" was poured.
I went to a box full of the white gravel, at the end of the mill, and yelled at Herb, the craneman. A box of dolomite is about eight feet square and three high. This one was perched on top of a dolomite pile, ten feet off the ground. I struggled up on top, and took the hooks Herb gave me from the crane,--eight-inch hooks,--and put them into the corners of the box, using both hands. Then I slid down, and the box rose and swung over my head.
Herb settled it neatly on our own little dolomite pile in front of Seven. I slipped out the front hooks, and the back ones lifted and dumped the load, with a soft swish, nearly on the low part of the old pile.
There was a little time to sit down after this--perhaps ten minutes. I smoked a Camel, which had spent the last shift in my shirt pocket. It was a melancholy Camel, and tended to twist up in my nose, but it tasted sweet. I sat on Seven's bench, and watched Fred take his rod and move aside the shutters of the peepholes, to give final looks at the furnace. She must be nearly ready. He looked back at me, and I knew that meant "test."
I grabbed tongs, lying spread out by the anvil, clamped hold of the mould, and ran with them to about ten feet from number two door of the furnace. Fred had the test-spoon lifted and shoved into the door; he moved it around in the molten steel, and brought it out full, straining his body tense to hold it level and not lose the test. I shifted the mould a little on the ground, and closed my hands as tight as I could on the tongs, so the mould wouldn't slip and turn. He poured easily and neatly, just filling the mould, and flung the spoon violently on the floor, to shake off the crusting steel on the handle.