Adventure, November 1915 — page 202: what you’re looking at

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

“a I eS ee Rr > —. a" yD NE - Mth ©, ier i ¢ - 200 “Cowards!” she stormed. To allow a woman——”’ The younger man leaped at her, whipped the shovel out of her hands and bent swiftly to his task, but his brown eyes turned again and again to her in silent admiration. The older man, touching a sooty forelock with a sootier finger, fell to beside him steadily. - Three hours she stood there, the water sizzling through the door, the spume slap- ping at the window, the tide oozing higher and higher inside the room. Up it crawled until barely an inch remained between it and the draft door of the furnace. The sputter of the steam, wavering before those beds of scorching coal, sang an accompani- ment to the slop-slop-slop which the huge wheel in the neighboring basement had mixed into its purring. “Did ye catch on to thot?” asked the older man anxiously, and the younger whisked around to watch her eye. The water, slapping into the ash-box beneath the fire, began to boil with a peevish fid- geting noise. The man pointed. “T see it,” she answered, and did not drag her skirt one inch out of the swash. “Be a sport!” A moment later her brother poked his head into the door. “Gee,” he chortled, ‘‘you’re going it some tonight, Toots—that’s a fact; but you’ve got to get a move on. They are on the rampage upstairs; they can’t stand this tremolo action a moment longer. The old shack does rock like a shoot-the-chute. Come up and tame ’em, Em; you’re the kid for that.”’ Mrs. Norton flashed on the men at the fire. “Are you with me to a finish?” she questioned. “We're wid ye,” they chorused. She turned and scuttled up the stairs, the dirt from her clothing marking her way. All night long she tramped the floors. of that mill, encouraging, jeering, threaten- ing, flattering, pleading, everywhere bring- ing submission to her unshakable will. Her brother, walking sometimes beside her, sometimes darting off on swift errands, caught the. hot infection of her spirit. Gazing at him, she almost imagined that his jawbone stiffened to the curve of her own. It had not. He had borrowed for the moment from her intensity, that was all. At midnight the water had risen to within three inches of the bed of glowing coals; the **Vellow-livers! al oe a a _— a ~*~ Pee” 262 a ae ™ ee ade Be ee | CO aes S Ye a * = Pe —“— - — le ud ee a —_ ~~ -t ee > - . = ra = ~ a ee ik el / ~ Adventure draft drew hard. At half-past twelve it was stationary. At two it started slightly to recede.. The rain was stopping. When Emma peered down into the furnace-room two jovial faces beamed back at her. “Ye’re th’ stuff, mum,” growled old Mike. ‘‘Ye’d give th’ darnedest boss a-goin’ a run for his money, ye would.” But the girl shook her curls at him wilfully. ““You’ve smacked the Blarney stone too often, Kelly,”’ she tossed back, and flew upstairs again. When the smudge of the increasing dawn dulled the electric lights all over the shop, she stole down into the room where Mac- Kinnon had snored the night away. She entered unobserved, hesitated a moment, ycounted out a quarter of a grain of mor- ‘ phin instead of the half grain she had administered first, and squirted it into the man’s bared arm. He flinched once more in his sleep. Slipping the case back into her pocket, she stepped to the window and, for the first time missing the wail of the storm, allowed her hand to travel upward with the rolling shade. Scarlet fire was burning all the east; and as she leaned at the window a thin line of the flaming sun tipped up across the edge of the hill and the world awoke to glory. The pavements glittered, the twigs of the trees dripped sparkles, the sky was ene wide stretch of blue burning; while the river | waltzed to the music of the morning. The girl passed, almost dancing herself, to the office. An hour later, as the building took on another oscillation beneath the feet of men and women reverberating up and down the steps—for the day gang was relieving the night gang—her brother poked his head in cheerily. “Sit tight, sis,’ he commanded, and wrinkled his face all awry in triumph and disgust. ‘“‘We’re almost at the home-plate; though that sneak hasn’t rushed ’em for a cent this last week. We've gripped right on; we’re in to win. But ’twill be mighty close to midday before we come in; I’ll keep you wise.” ; At eleven o’clock Lapinsky smirked in. That the mill was rushing he knew, that the order was unfulfilled he guessed; but he asked no questions, grinning softly to him- — self, twisting a glaring emerald round and round his finger, solicitous for her husband’s health, overwhelmed by admiration at her GEomichoo CS