inherited all these traits--but that has nothing to do with the
story. Father worked in the Bessemer plant, like any hunkie, and
the women used to bring the men's lunches to them. Mother wasn't
strong, and that duty fell to me; I had my stand where I used to
wait for the whistle to blow. ...

"It was one of the biggest mills in Pennsylvania, and its tonnage
was always heavy because the superintendent was a slave-driver. He
was one of those men who are born without soul or feeling, and he
had no interest in anything except rails and plates. His plant
held the record, month after month, but at last he lost the broom
at the stack. That was the pennant of victory--a broom tied to the
highest chimney. I remember hearing father and the others talk
about it, and they seemed to feel the loss--although, goodness
knows, they had little reason for wanting to keep the broom, since
it meant only more sweat and labor for them, while the glory all
went to the superintendent. But that's the way with men. ...

"One day I took my bucket and joined the line of women and girls
that filed in through the gates. I was twelve then, but stunted
with smoke and thin from poverty. I'll never forget that day; the
sole of one of my shoes was worn through, and cinders kept working
in. I took my stand just outside the Bessemer plant. It was a big
shell of steel girders and corrugated iron, and the side where we
were was open. Away up above were the roaring crucibles where the
metal was fluxed; beneath ran the little flat-cars waiting for the
ingots to be poured. Father saw me and waved his hand--he always
waved at me--then I saw the superintendent coming through--a big,
square-faced man whom everybody feared. We kids used to think he
was an ogre and ate little people. He was raging and swearing and