CHAPTER III
A MOUNTAIN OF IRON
HETHER, if it hadn’t been for Billy’s new jack-knife, he and Thomas Murphy would have become friends, no one can say. It seems very probable that something would have made them like each other.
Sitting on a high stool to check time or in a chair to watch the great door had grown so monotonous that Tom really needed to have somebody to talk to.
Then there wasn’t any boy in the mill for Billy to get acquainted with; and Billy saw Tom oftener than he saw any of the other men. So it seems very natural that Billy and Tom should have become friends.
If they hadn’t, things wouldn’t have turned out just as they did; and whatever else might have happened, it was really the jack-knife that brought them together.
Billy had been in the mill about two weeks when, one morning, just as Tom was finishing making a mark after Uncle John’s name, snap went the point of his pencil.
Billy heard it break, and saw Tom put his hand into his pocket. Billy knew, from Tom’s face, before he drew his hand out, that there wasn’t any knife in his pocket.
So Billy put his dinner pail down, and pulling his knife out by the chain, said quickly:
“I’ll sharpen your pencil, Mr. Murphy.”
Billy had been practicing on sharpening pencils. He worked so fast that the men behind had hardly begun to grumble before the pencil was in working order, and the line began to move on again.
Though he did not know it, Billy had done something more than merely to sharpen Tom’s pencil. When he said, “Mr. Murphy,” he waked up something in Tom that Tom himself had almost forgotten about.
He had been called “Tom Murphy” so long, sometimes only “lame Tom,” that Billy’s saying “Mr. Murphy” had made him sit up very straight, while he was waiting for Billy to sharpen the pencil.
Mr. Prescott thought that he really appreciated Tom. He always said, “Tom Murphy is as faithful as the day is long”; but even Mr. Prescott didn’t know so much about Tom as he thought he did. If Billy and Tom hadn’t become friends, Mr. Prescott would probably never have learned anything about the “Mr. Murphy” side of Tom.
After that morning, Billy and Tom kept on getting acquainted, until one day when Uncle John had to go out one noon to see about some new window screens for Aunt Mary, Billy went to the door to see Tom.
Tom, having just sat down in his chair, was trying to get his lame leg into a position where it would be more comfortable.
“Does your leg hurt, Mr. Murphy?” asked Billy.
“Pretty bad to-day, William,” answered Thomas Murphy with a groan. “If it wasn’t so dry, I should think, from the way my leg aches, that it was going to rain, but there’s no hope of that.”
“It’s rheumatism, isn’t it?” asked Billy, sympathetically.
“Part of it is,” answered Tom, “but before that it was crush. I hope you don’t think I’ve never done anything but mark time at Prescott mill.
“I suppose that you think you’ve seen considerable iron in this yard and in this mill; but you don’t know half so much about iron as I did when my legs were as good as yours.
“Out West, where I was born, there are acres and acres and acres of iron almost on top of the ground; and, besides that, a whole mountain of iron.”
Tom paused a moment to move his leg again.
“Was there an iron mine in the ground, too?” asked Billy sitting down on the threshold of the door.
“Yes, there was,” answered Tom. “If I had stayed on top of the ground, perhaps I shouldn’t have been hurt. Might have been blown up in a gopher hole, though, the way my brother was.”
“O-oh!” said Billy.
“Never heard of a gopher hole, I suppose,” continued Tom, settling back in his chair, as though he intended to improve his opportunity to talk.
“That’s one way that they get iron out of a mountain. They make holes straight into a bank. Then they put in sacks of powder, and fire it with a fuse. That loosens the ore so that they can use a steam shovel. Sometimes the men go in too soon.”
“I wish,” said Billy with a little shiver, “that you would tell me about the mine.”
“That’ll be quite a contract,” said Thomas Murphy, clasping his hands across his chest, “but I was in one long enough to know.
“You’ll think there was a mine down in the ground when I tell you that I’ve been down a thousand feet in one myself.
“I went down that one in a cage; but in the mine where I worked I used to go down on ladders at the side of the shaft.”
“Was it something like a coal mine?” asked Billy.
“I’ve heard miners say,” answered Tom, “that some iron is so hard that it has to be worked with a pick and a shovel; but the iron in our mine was so soft that we caved it down.
“If I had been working with a pick, perhaps I shouldn’t have been hurt.
“When you cave iron, you go down to the bottom of the shaft and work under the iron. You cut out a place, and put in some big timbers to hold up the roof. Then you cut some more, and keep on till you think the roof may fall.
“Then you board that place in, and knock out some pillars, or blow them out, and down comes the iron. Then you put it in a car and push it to a chute, and that loads it on an elevator to be brought up. Sometimes they use electric trams; we used to have to push the cars.”
“It must be very hard work,” said Billy.
“Work, William, usually is hard,” said Thomas Murphy. “Work, underground or above ground, is work, William.”
“But you haven’t told me, Mr. Murphy,” said Billy, “how you hurt your knee.”
“The quickest way to tell you that, William, is to tell you that the cave, that time, caved too soon. I got caught on the edge of it.
“After I got out of the hospital, I tried to work above ground; but the noise of the steam shovels and the blasting wore me out. So, one day, I took an ore train, and went to the boat and came up the river.
“Finally, I drifted to Prescott mill, some seasons before you were born, William.”
“Have you ever wanted to go back?” asked Billy.
“No, William, I haven’t. There’s nobody left out there that belongs to me, anyway. My lame knee wasn’t the only reason why I left, William. I heard something about the country that I didn’t like at all; I didn’t like it at all.”
“Weren’t the people good?” asked Billy.
“Very good people,” answered Thomas Murphy firmly. “’Twas something about the mountain that I heard.
“There were always men around examining the mines. I never paid much attention to ’em till one day I heard a man—they said he came from some college—a-talking about volcanoes. He said that iron mountain was thrown up by a volcano, said he was sure of it.
“I never told anybody, William, but I cleared out the very next day. You’ve never heard anything about volcanoes round here, have you, William?”
“No, Mr. Murphy,” answered Billy.
“If you ever should, William——” said Thomas Murphy, leaning anxiously forward.
“If I ever do hear, Mr. Murphy,” said Billy, feeling that he was making a promise, “I’ll tell you right away.”
“Thank you, William,” said Tom. “You won’t mention it, will you?”
“No, Mr. Murphy,” answered Billy.
That was really the day when Billy and Thomas Murphy sealed their compact as friends.
