Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 7, 1925 — page 155: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A COUNT OF SOME ACCOUNT. Mattie’s reply was direct; the manner of the mill folk contained no subtleties. More, - it held a quality of precision; an exact es- sence of enumeration. For this the girl’s daily task of counting, counting and still counting, was responsible. “ Aw, dishwater! Pete, this makes just twenty-one and a half times you’ve pro- posed to me. The half-time was the first, when you didn’t really mean it. Now lis- ten; get this, again! old reasons: three of ’em. I ain’t marryin’. You’re too fat. You're too old.” “T ain’t only thirty-two. And I might get thinner—” “You're too old for me. And you kid yourself when you talk of gettin’ thinner: . G’wan, huckleboy, and Jeave me count!” Sadly Pete departed, down to the nether regions next the flume where all was damp and dark, where the water went drip, drip, drip, and the soggy swirl of the grinders circled without ceasing, and the vats, like the love dreams of Pete, were full of slush. “Too fat, huh?” thought Slavvery re- sentfully. “Is thatso? Well, Mat, I might show you a trick before long that’d knock 1 ?? ya a twister! He had reached the grinder room, where the spruce wood, hacked by mechanically = contrived knives, resolved itself into a li- quid fiber, ceaselessly rotating in the vats that workmen watched, occasionally stir- ring the contents. But Pete did not linger therein. He passed through a smaller room wherein were a couple of “ pudding” vats temporarily unused, the wood pulp still in them. Once within this room Pete’s actions erew oddly furtive. He pushed back the heavy door behind him. Casting about him elances of bug-eyed caution, he almost tip- toed to the nearest vat. Reaching down his plump arm into the opaque, sleazy mess of pulp to a point above the elbow he drew out a quart bottle. Uncorking it, while he glanced about apprehensively, he grabbed it by the neck and took a deep. swallow of the contents. Jamming in the cork, he replaced the bottle in the “ pud- ding” vat, wiped his lips on the back of a dimpled hand and went out into the main room. 10 A Nothin’ doin’! Same. Truth compels the admission right here that, following his surreptitious draft, Pete’s round eyes acquired an added luster, his rather heavy manner an almost caperish blitheness, while his trudge became a swag- ger. He went about his bossing, amiably enough—for Pete’s men always found him almost. too considerate—while hope and a sly good humor played tag with each other athwart the flushed tallow that enlarged a - most peculiar face. Meanwhile, upstairs in the great machine room, where the Fourdriniers thundered and the steam billowed in spectral forms above the whirling dryer rolls, a conversation was in progress that might well have troubled Slavvery, had he known of it. “Looks bad, Mal, like you say,” Calo- mel Bly was shrieking. above the thunders of the twin machines. “ But Pete must be a human siphon. He’s on the job every day, with never an hour of lost time.” Malachi Gregg, the machine tender stand- ing next to Bly, deepened his great voice a little. Dominating the uproar came his diapason chest tones, produced seemingly without effort to master that terrific din of synchronized lever and cog and rolls of differing size, from slender spindles to mam- moth cylinders. “ Pete’s just got a capacity; that’s all, Cal. QO’ course, if he drank a still dry, ’t wouldn’t matter here, so long as he’s on the job. Trouble is, on the Q T he’s puttin’ your force on the bum, Lot o’ lost time chalked up in the shank of a month,’’ Some man, this young machine tender! Six and three in height, broad shouldered, deep of chest and with muscles rippling under ivory-hued skin as he stood with fold- ed arms up by the head end. A sleeveless cotton undershirt and a sleazy pair of old black trousers comprised his working cos- tume, in July or in December. It was al- ways hot enough in that roaring and steam- laden-_ room where the two machines ran without ceasing day and night, with three shifts of workers, except for the few hours at the week end when they were halted long enough to be tuned up by the mill- wrights. Barefooted on the sloppy birchen floor Stood Mal Gregg, looking with his rather Gomichooks.co