Fairhaven herald. [volume] (Fairhaven, Wash.) 1890-????, 1891-07-31
IN THE ENGINE ROOM.

NEW 1ork. his partners only daughter
was to be my wife when should return.
l was student in Vienna hospital
when | received a cable from home that
the old house had failed. 1t proved to be
an honest failure and both families were
beggars.
counted my pocketbook from cover to
cover. had just enough to leave free of
debt and get to Liverpool How to CROSSE
Well, swim if necessary.
In the Liverpool steamer office was an
old Harvard college mate. This embar
raised me. He owed me grudge from the
football days at Berkeley Oval An Eng
lishman seldom forgets
Determined to work my passage over,
entered what | supposed was not the office
where my old competitor was manager
did not see him, but he must have caught
sight Of me. | was surprised with the
promptness with which was told to 20 on
board the C, and something would be
found for me to do.
Two days out | was called to the can
tain's own room, insulted with the charge,
at first politely put, of being a stowaway.
and finally stung to madness bitter enough
to obey silently when the officer said ''If
you really don't want to steal your passage
go report to the engineer and shovel coal"
This did My experience want to de-
scribe. 1t is common enough to hundreds
of poor scamps this very moment all over
the seas. But, God pity them, they have
not the tongue to tell, nor, perhaps, always
the sensibilities to feel, what their life
really is.
Dizzy already with the tossings of the
sea, staggered down those series of iron
stairways till | stood at last on the ships
lowest deck. Behind me were the vast
bunkers of coal that glstened from a mil
lion eyes when the furnace doors were
opened, and then faded out of sight. Be
fore me the huge pillows of flames rose,
not silent, but roaring monsters, so hungry
that the pygmies who fed them jumped to
their tasks till the sweat rolled from their
bare backs. The heat was TO one descend
ing from the pure breath Of the Atlantic
something fearful. | was dressed in my
ordinary attire, and even an overcoat at
that, so prec.pitate had been my action.
The smell Of baking lubricants and red hot
iron, the dead air, poisoned with coal gas
and bilge water odors, the DUST despite all
showering, but most of all the sudden
transition from white light to blacklist
darkness, momentarily proceeding, as this
and that furnace door was opened and
shut, almost felled me to the floor
As | stumbled and caught my hold on
the stair rail again, the hardy fellows
shouted, "Give us your shilling and go
back" supposing that | was curious pas
senger seeing the sights of the ship
The voices Of derision reused me. | was
no passenger | was an honest beggar like
the rest, and here was to be imprisoned
for week, watch on and off
In a frenzy | tore off my clothing till
stood in my trousers and shoes like my
fellows | stated my hiring to the fellow
In charge of the watch, and he gave me my
shovel with plying laugh
l was pat at the boiler nearest the stair.
The midships would have been a less
drunken spot, but | leaped at the hardest
of the task.
My head grew dizzy. painted for full
vital breath. The corrugated flooring pol
ished till it was glossy smooth in spots,
tangled my poor feet so that / repeatedly
fell All that sense of whring, whirling,
whirlingl How little the fair folk in the
cabins know of all this plutonian hole be-
meath their carpets.
Really, thought could describe some
what the lurid fantasia amid these scarlet
skinned, good natured demons, but l can
not Vertigo struck me down in less than
a half hour. The next | knew | was be-
lns ,esiYeu III 'ile conipahi0 r, anu .ne
sea air was 50 graIeluL me snlps sur
seon osNeu iiie II ielO aoIe 10 20 10 "ork
asain' anu 1ouroeously recogn,Heu Cnat 1
was noe a iaooiei, was Er. ee enough
~ CIV UuU lmy spiee 1871 ahu ie"sselS Gla.
was wa NJ sV9"a"ay, WIN" '"e soou uoo'or
uiI aoC unu.iS'sLiu
stood Inv and asked him n Give me- n iob
of which 7 might he canable
Tbrnsting bia hands in his pockets he
walled of with n command 70 1trv him at
oilinqn
IA .ho hood oilor--door hroro
-, 'no " - ~ - 49,
80 -, a. IS. no L,t 40 o',,;na is
aa dao, 20 hirI % a hrido or wonIJ Ion,
200 have hettered bis fortpnes~be tool
me- e., hand
W. ,'aiLad o1or,, ,hoso ,,,oro hird cooos
~ s,airravs and ,iotforn,s n Iahvrintb Of
nassagss IN n forest Of steel arms wheels
sbafting and steam Mining To n lands
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