CHAPTER XVIII. ON BEING A GOOD GUESSER

The charge which I have been kneading in my furnace has now “come to

nature,” the stringy sponge of pure iron is separating from the slag.

The “balling” of this sponge into three loaves is a task that occupies

from ten to fifteen minutes. The particles of iron glowing in this

spongy mass are partly welded together; they are sticky and stringy

and as the cooling continues they are rolled up into wads like popcorn

balls. The charge, which lost part of its original weight by the

draining off of slag, now weighs five hundred fifty to six hundred

pounds. I am balling it into three parts of equal weight. If the charge

is six hundred pounds, each of my balls must weigh exactly two hundred

pounds.

I have always been proud of the “batting eye” that enables an iron

puddler to shape the balls to the exact weight required. This is a

mental act,--an act of judgment. The artist and the sculptor must have

this same sense of proportion. A man of low intelligence could never

learn to do it. We are paid by weight, and in my time, in the Sharon

mill, the balls were required to be two hundred pounds. Every pound

above that went to the company and was loss to the men.

I have heard that “guessing pigs” was an old-time sport among farmers.

To test their skill, each farmer would guess the weight of a grazing

pig. Then they would catch the porker, throw him on the scales, and find

out which farmer had guessed nearest the mark. Sunday clothes used to be

badly soiled in this sport.

But the iron worker does not guess his pigs. He knows exactly how much

pig-iron he put into the boil. His guessing skill comes into play when

with a long paddle and hook he separates six hundred pounds of sizzling

fireworks into three fire balls each of which will weigh two hundred

pounds.

The balls are rolled up into three resting places, one in the

fire-bridge corner, one in the flue-bridge corner, and one in the jam,

all ready for the puddler to draw them.

My batch of biscuits is now done and I must take them out at once and

rush them to the hungry mouth of the squeezing machine. A bride making

biscuits can jerk them out of the oven all in one pan. But my oven is

larger and hotter. I have to use long-handled tongs, and each of my

biscuits weighs twice as much as I weigh. Suppose you were a cook with a

fork six feet long, and had three roasting sheep on the grid at once

to be forked off as quickly as possible. Could you do it? Even with a

helper wouldn't you probably scorch the mutton or else burn yourself to

death with the hot grease? That is where strength and skill must both

come into play.

One at a time the balls are drawn out on to a buggy and wheeled swiftly

to the squeezer. This machine squeezes out the slag which flows down

like the glowing lava running out of a volcano. The motion of the

squeezer is like the circular motion you use in rolling a bread pill

between the palms and squeezing the water out of it. I must get the

three balls, or blooms, out of the furnace and into the squeezer while

the slag is still liquid so that it can be squeezed out of the iron.

From cold pig-iron to finished blooms is a process that takes from an

hour and ten minutes, to an hour and forty minutes, depending on the

speed and skill of the puddler, and the kind of iron. I was a fast

one, myself. But you expected that, from the fact that I am telling the

story. The man that tells the story always comes out a winner.