appeared, black and threatening. In fact it swept down like a
tornado. The men decided to strike.

A strike! Of all things! We owned about the only jobs in
Indiana. Our strike wouldn't last long--for the mills. For us it
would last forever. The day we walked out, others would walk in.
And it would be so small a part of Coxey's army that the main
body would march on and never miss it. I had just gone through
that long, soul-killing period of idleness and had barely managed
to find a job before I collapsed. Now that we were to strike I
would have to push that job aside and sink back into the abyss.

In reaching Elwood, I had tramped from Muncie, Indiana, to
Anderson, a long weary walk for one whose feet, like mine, were
not accustomed to it. From Anderson I tramped to Frankton, and
there I caught a freight and rode the bumpers to Elwood. The
train took me right into the mill. It was summer and the mill had
been shut down by the hard times. The boss was there looking over
the machinery. They were getting ready to start up. I faced him
and he said: "Do you want a job?"

"Yes," I said.

"What at? Greasing up to-night," he said. Weary and hungry as I
was from my hoboing, I went right to work, and all night I, with
a few others, greased the bearings. The next day he gave me a job
as a catcher. A catcher is one who seizes the rolled plate as it
comes out and throws it back to the roller. It has to be rolled
many times. The boss who gave me this much-wanted job was Daniel
G. Reid, who afterward became one of the big men in the tin