admission, and the family was taken from the departing ship just
before it sailed. I told the mother that the baby in her arms
might be secretary of labor forty years hence.



CHAPTER VII

HARD SLEDDING IN AMERICA


It had been our plan to go from New York to Pittsburgh, but the
mill that father was working in had shut down. And so he had sent
us tickets to Hubbard, Ohio, where his brother had a job as a
muck roller--the man who takes the bloom from the squeezer and
throws it into the rollers. That's all I can tell you now. In
later chapters I shall take you into a rolling mill, and show you
how we worked. I believe I am the first puddler that ever
described his job, for I have found no book by a puddler in any
American library. But I wanted to explain here that a muck roller
is not a muck raker, but a worker in raw iron.

When we boarded the train for Ohio, mother had nothing to look
after except the six children. When the porter asked her where
her baggage was, she smiled sadly and said that was a question
for a wiser head than hers to answer. She was glad enough to have
all her babies safe. Everything we owned was on our backs. Our
patient father had toiled for months in Pittsburgh and had sent
us nearly every cent to pay our transportation from the Old
World. Now he was out of a job, and we were coming to him without