Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1880-06-17
THE GIANT THAT EATS STRAW
PUDDING.


with my mother in little house eight
miles from Santa Cruz in California.
Every time we go to town we go through
Sequel, and every time we go through
Sequel we 60 by block of wooden
buildings that have been shut up and
deserted for a long time.
Some bad boys broke every pane of
glass in the windows, and that made
me think of a man with his eyes put
out; excepting l mostly thought of a
ruined castle. l did not like it SO still
and lonesome there, but my mother
said: 4r.
Never mind, have heard that Old
Giant Machine is coming there to live,
and they say he eats straw pudding
and splits brown paper all day long"
"Oh, dear, dearr' says 1; "Isn't
that good! always wanted to see a
giant, and now I'll have chance. Will
he let us in, do you supposeP'
"Yes, indeed; he has ever so many
men working for him, and they sell the
paper to the butchers to wrap around
our beefsteak."
The next time we went by the de-
serted castle the doors were wide open,
and l could hear the sound of saws,
planes and hammers, and could see the
workmen passing back and forth, pre-
pairing the rooms for Old Giant Machine.
He had ever SO many men at work for
him. Some were building fume FROM
away up the Sequel Creek to carry
water down to the castle. Some were
at the chair-factory, three miles away,
two great redwood tanks,
ten feet across their tops, to make the
Giants pudding in.
Other men were hauling straw from
all about the country and making stacks
and stacks, some fifty feet long and
some a hundred feet long. They put
roofs over the stacks to keep the rain off.
The roofs were made of boards, not
shingles; but the best one was made of
shakes.
Shakes are something like shingles.
only good deal longer.
Oh, but l didn't tell you--there were
some more men cutting, hauling and
piling up cords and cords of wood to
heat the Giants furnace.
Well, it kept growing more and more
like real fairy story, for one morning
we came riding along, and as quick as
we got in sight of the castle saw the
smoke coming out of the smoke stack.
1 didn't tell you about the smoke stack,
either-it is as much as twenty or forty
feet high, should think, but 1 can't
measure very well when a thing goes
up in the air like that.
We heard a rumbling and rafting and
a thud. thud. that just about seemed to
shake the ground. and 1 says to my
mother:
Hafo opv,aps
Eyes, the Old Giant has come; shall
we go and see himP' she asked. laugh
ing.
Glitch my horses and down I goi
Hitch my horses and down 1 gop' /
said. 1 couldn't say "up 1 CO." be-
cause it's down hill to the castle door.
There were plenty of men hurrying
about. but they let us walk right in
without trying to stop us. / looked
around quick for the Giant.
"There is Old Giant Machine" said
my mother. HE is second cousin to
Old Giant Weaver, who made the cloth
for your coat"
"Well, he's pretty good Giant" I
said, "though he don't look just pre-
cisely and exactly as | thought he
would; but he makes a dreadful grum-
bling and grooming, and the paper flies
out of his mouth fast enough for any
thing. How much comes out in day,
l wonderp"
"Five thousand pounds" said one of
the men, cor about forty feet every
"How much straw do you have to
feed itP'' asked.
cit takes in about 5000 pounds q
day now, but we shall have to feed it
more when 1t gets in good working
order"
1--WE would like to see how you pre-
pare the straw from the beginning"
said my mother.
"An right" said the man. "Come
this way"
Then he took us to the other end of
the building, up a short fight of stairs,
and there was one of the immense red
wood tanks half full of straw.
snow, Jack, listenr' said my moth
er.
So listened with all my might. and
can tell you just pretty near every
word the man said.
"This straw is well saturated with q
mixture of lime and water, and here it re-
mains for eighteen hours, during which ]
time steam Is forced in, so as to pene-
trate the whole mass and aid in the
process"
He talked q good deal like the piano.
roma man up in Santa Cruz.
"How much wood do you burn in o
dayP" my mother asked him.
'Not great deal, only four cords,
two cords in twelve hours" said he.
:. Now come this way, and you will see
where the straw goes next. through this
cylinder, where It is washed by con-
tinual stream of water. Those bent
teeth force it through as the cylinder
revolves.
"Next the straw is pitched into these
Two watts where for six hours it is ground
Till reduced to q pulp"
"Where 10 the machinery that re-
duces it to pulpr' asked mother.
The man went 70 . wooden cover
shaped like half cylinder; it was three