Watching him make it, and drinking the tea woke me up.
Then the summoning signal for a third-helper rang out--a sledge-hammer pounding on sheet iron. They were "spooning up," that is, making front-wall, on Number 6. All through that stunt I was wide awake, quite refreshed, though with the sense, the conviction, that I had been in the mill, doing this sort of thing, for a week at the inside.
Coming back to Seven from that, I found Fred flat on his back, looking "all in." Jock came up for a drink of water, and looked over at me.
"You look to me," he remarked, "like the breaking up of a bad winter." He laughed.
The sun came into the mill, looking very pallid and sick beside the bright light from the metal. I watched the men on Eight make back-wall, and heard the sounds; I sat on the bench, my legs as loose as I could make them, my head forward, eyes just raised.
"Lower, lower, goddam you, lower!" came a desperate command to the "pull-up" man to close the furnace doors.
"Up, up, goddam it! where are your ears?"
Now they were tapping on Number 6. The melter came out of his shanty; he had had a sleep since the last furnace tapped. He rubbed his eyes, and went out on the gallery. I could hear his "Heow." Four poor devils were standing in the flame, putting in manganese. Thank God, I don't shovel for Six.
When I went for it, the sores on the bottom of my feet hurt, so that I walked on the edges of my shoes. I was so delighted with the idea of its being six o'clock, with no back-walls ahead, that I almost took pleasure in that foot. I stopped in front of a fountain and put my right arm under the water.
The recorder in the Bessemer was asleep. He was a boy of twenty. I woke him up, and grinned in his face.
"You go to hell, with your goddam Number 7!"
I grinned at him again, knew it was just the long turn, knew he'd give me that fifteen thousand pounds; went down stairs again--
Twenty minutes of seven. It's light. Nobody talks, but everyone dresses in a hurry. Everyone's face looks grave from fatigue--eyes dead. We leave at ten minutes of seven.
It's a problem--a damn problem--whether to walk fast and get home quick, or walk slow and sort of rest. I try to go fast, and have the sense of lifting my legs, not with the muscles, but with something else. I shake my head to get it clearer. One bowl of oatmeal. Coffee. "I feel all right." I get up and am conscious of walking home quietly and evenly, without any further worry about the difficulty of lifting my feet. "The long turns, they're not so bad," I say out loud, and stumble the same second on the stairs. I get up, angry, and with my feet stinging with pain. Old thought comes back: "Only seven to eight hours sleep. Bed. Quick." I push into my room--the sun is all over my bed. Pull the curtain; shut out a little. Take off my shoes. It's hard work trying to be careful about it, and it's darn painful when I'm not careful. Sit on the bed, lift up my feet. Feel burning all over; wonder if I'll ever sleep. Sleep.