BOUT the middle of the next forenoon, as Billy was going through the gate, Thomas Murphy leaned forward confidentially, and said:
“William, that key was in that door when I went to lock it last night.”
“Yes,” said Billy, hurrying on, “I saw it there when I went home.”
Billy didn’t care to discuss the matter.
The truth was that he thought it very strange that Mr. Prescott should have put the key right back in the lock. Business seemed to him to have some queer places in it.
But it had pleasant places, too, for, when Billy came back, he met Mr. Prescott, just starting on his trip around the mill.
“William,” he said, “when a boy makes practical use of a visit to a foundry, I think it would be a good idea for him to go over a mill, don’t you?”
That was a long speech for Mr. Prescott. There wasn’t any time lost, however, for Billy didn’t answer. He didn’t have to, because his face told, right away, what he thought about it.
Miss King, looking up, nodded and smiled.
Off they went: tall, broad man; boy that was growing taller and slenderer every day.
Billy threw back his shoulders, and drew a long, deep breath. Part of it was satisfaction; the rest was a desire to be strong and broad like Mr. Prescott.
“That,” said Mr. Prescott, as they passed a huge drum which was turning over and over and making a great noise, “is a rattler. There’s some sand left on castings after molding. Put small ones in there with pieces of wood. Rub each other off.”
Mr. Prescott went on, seeming to forget Billy, as he spoke here and there to his men.
Billy followed close, for he knew that Mr. Prescott was likely, any moment, to spring a question on him.
They were half-way over the mill before Mr. Prescott spoke again. Then, stopping suddenly before a large lathe, he said:
“John Bradford makes our best beds and slides. See him?” he asked, turning to Billy.
“He was making something long,” answered Billy.
“We make lathes,” said Mr. Prescott. “Good ones; all kinds.”
In the next room he stopped again.
“Different kinds of iron,” he said. “Some much harder than others, like tool steel. Iron cuts iron. That’s a planing machine: automatic plane cuts any thickness.”
Billy stopped beside the mighty planer, moving over the large casting as easily as if the iron had been wood and the fierce chisel only a carpenter’s plane.
They went on a little further, then Mr. Prescott turned suddenly. “William,” he asked, “how long is an inch?”
He certainly had sprung it on Billy, but Billy’s spring worked too.
“About down to there,” he answered, marking his left forefinger off with his right. “No,” he said, moving his mark up a little higher, “about there.”
“You were nearer right the first time,” said Mr. Prescott. “Now, listen to me. Iron can cut iron to within a fraction of a thousandth of an inch.”
Billy’s eyes opened till they showed almost twice as much white as blue.
“Automatic index registers. Man watches index.
“Look at that,” he said a moment later. “See that machine cutting a screw.”
That seemed to be something that especially interested Mr. Prescott, for he stood a moment to watch the tool that was cutting into the round bar of iron, making, in even and regular grooves, a huge screw. Automatically, too, there came down on it a steady stream of oil.
“Why’s that?” asked Billy.
“The oil keeps the iron from becoming too hot,” answered Mr. Prescott. “Heat expands iron. If we didn’t keep it cool, the screw wouldn’t be the right size when it is done.
“Cold naturally works the other way. Ever hear about the iron bridge where the parts wouldn’t quite come together, so they put ice on to do the job?” he asked, but he kept right on, without waiting for Billy to answer.
Billy saw other machines boring holes and rounding corners. It seemed as if iron could cut iron into any shape that anybody wanted.
Then there were men polishing and polishing, until they could fairly see their faces in the iron. Billy could hardly believe that the gray iron of the foundry could ever have become such silver-shining iron.
Still Mr. Prescott kept on, Billy close behind.
“This,” said Mr. Prescott, stopping in a room almost at the end of the mill, “is the assembly room. Here is where the machines are put together.”
THERE WERE MEN POLISHING AND POLISHING
“Over there,” he said, pointing across the room, “they are putting a lathe together. There will be between sixty and seventy pieces in it when it is done. See, they have arranged all the parts.”
Billy looked wonderingly at the great base and slide, and then at the rods and screws and handles and nuts. He didn’t see how anybody could tell how they went together.
When he asked Mr. Prescott, he said:
“They have drawings that they follow till the men can do it almost without referring to the drawing.”
“What’s that?” asked Billy, pointing to a queer thing over beyond the lathe.
“That,” answered Mr. Prescott, “is one of our special orders. It is a corn canning machine.”
Billy’s eyes grew so bright that Mr. Prescott said:
“Do corn canners interest you more than lathes?”
“That’s what Uncle John was making the day that I went to watch him; he made some of the knives.”
“Here they are,” said Mr. Prescott, “where they were made to go. I think, myself, that this is rather an interesting machine. They put the corn in at one end, and it comes out in cans at the other, and nobody touches it.”
“It’s wonderful,” said Billy, going over once more to look at the parts of a lathe that were assembled, ready to be put together, “how all the parts fit, when so many different people make them.”
“If every man in this world would do his work as faithfully as our men do, things in the world would fit together much better than they do,” said Mr. Prescott.
That sounded like Uncle John. It was the first time that Billy had thought that Mr. Prescott and Uncle John were a little alike.
A moment later, Mr. Prescott pushed back a sliding door, and they both went into the new part of the mill.
“This,” said Mr. Prescott, “is to be the new assembly room. We have needed it for a long time. I shall be glad when it is done.”
Then he turned so suddenly that he almost ran into Billy.
“Any questions, William?” he asked.
Billy’s face must have given his answer again, for Mr. Prescott pushed an empty box toward Billy.
Finding one for himself he turned it over, and, sitting down opposite him, said:
“Fire away.”
“What,” asked Billy, “is the difference between iron and steel?”
“If you were to put that question as it ought to be put,” answered Mr. Prescott, pushing his box against the wall, and leaning back with his hands in his pockets, “you would ask what is the difference between irons and steels.
“If I were to talk all day, I couldn’t fully answer that question; but perhaps I can clear things up for you just a little.
“In the first place, every mining region produces its own variety of ore—so there are a great many kinds of iron to start with. In the next place, the kind of iron that you get from the ore depends largely on how you treat it.
“I suppose that you have seen a blacksmith shoe horses, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” answered Billy. “I knew a blacksmith up in the country.”
“Well,” said Mr. Prescott, “how did he work?”
“He heated the shoe red-hot on the forge, and then hammered it into shape on the anvil.”
“Blew bellows, didn’t he?” queried Mr. Prescott.
“Sure,” answered Billy. “Sometimes he used to let me do that.”
“Well, then,” said Mr. Prescott, “just remember three things: fuel, blast, and hammer—power, of course, behind the hammer. It’s the different variations that men have been making on those three things that have brought iron where it is to-day.
“Iron ore has so many things besides iron in it that the problem has always been how to get the impurities out.
“The old blacksmiths used to put it in the fire and hammer it; put it back in the fire and hammer again, until they worked most of the other things out. They made what is called forge iron.
“Then an Englishman, named Cort, found a way to burn and roll the impurities out. The thing they particularly wanted to get rid of was carbon, because that makes iron too brittle to use for a great many things.
“They worked away till a man—Sir Henry Bessemer—found a way to burn out all the carbon, and to make a kind of steel called Bessemer steel.
“Steel is, technically, an alloy of iron and carbon. The point is to have the carbon added to the iron in just the right proportion to make the kind of steel that you may happen to want.
“Bessemer—he was an Englishman, too—invented a converter to put carbon back into iron, that is, to make iron into steel.
“When it comes to telling you about steels, I can’t do that to-day; there are too many kinds.
“You may not know it, William, but you are living in the age of steel. Industry depends on iron, for almost all the tools in the world are made of steel.
“Cast iron, like ours, is more brittle than steel, because it has much more carbon in it; but it is useful for many things. I shall stand right by cast iron.”
Then he said, half to himself:
“Sometimes I wish the other fellows hadn’t discovered quite so much. I should have liked to have a hand in it myself.”
Then Billy put the question that he had been trying to find a chance to ask.
“Mr. Prescott,” he began, but stopped a moment, as though he were having some difficulty in getting his question into shape. “Do volcanoes ever throw up mountains of iron?”
“Trying to get back to the beginning, are you?” asked Mr. Prescott. “Planning to be a geologist?”
But seeing that Billy was too serious, just then, to be put off lightly, Mr. Prescott went on:
“That’s a good question. The geologists tell us, and I suppose that they are right, that there was once a chain of active volcanoes up in the Lake Superior region, and that is why there is so much iron up there now.
“There are some volcanoes in the world now, but the volcanoes that the geologists talk about became extinct—dead, you know—long before the earth was ready for man. Nobody knows how many thousands of years ago.
“Noon!” he exclaimed, as the whistle blew. “What a short morning this has been!”
As soon as Billy could get to Uncle John he told him where he had been.
“I thought,” said Uncle John, nodding his head, “that that chance would come some day, Billy. Watch for a chance, and it generally comes.”
Not until Billy went out the gate that night did he have an opportunity to speak to Thomas Murphy.
He let Uncle John go on a few steps ahead, then he said in a low tone:
“Mr. Murphy, there were volcanoes out there J-ologists say so; but they’re dead; been dead thousands of years.”
Thomas Murphy, listening with eager ears, looked gravely into Billy’s eyes.
“All of ’em, everywhere?” he asked earnestly.
“Those old volcanoes,” answered Billy, so impressed with Tom’s seriousness that he made each word stand out by itself, “are all dead, everywhere.”
The look of relief that came into Tom’s face almost startled Billy.
Then, seeing that Uncle John was waiting for him, Billy said quickly:
“Just as soon as I can get a chance, Mr. Murphy, I want you to tell me some more of the things that you know about iron.”
Thomas Murphy, suddenly freed from his fear, straightened up as, with the air of an expert, he said:
“That’s a large subject, William.”
“You and Tom Murphy,” said Uncle John, when Billy overtook him, “seem to be pretty good friends.”
“I promised to tell him something,” said Billy.
But that was all he said, for just as truly as Thomas Murphy knew that work is work, did Billy Bradford know that secrets are secrets.
