Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1891-12-04
IN THE ENGINE ROOM.

AAAA 14 AhAANA 4tOOA4s
My father was a rich man when | left
New York. 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.
Icounted my pocketbook from cover to
| cover. had just enough to leave free OF
debt and get to Liverpool. How to cross:
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. l 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 cut / was called to the cap
tain's own room, insulted with the charge,
| at first politely put, of being stowaway.
and finally stung to madness bitter enough
to obey silently when the officer said, eff
you really don't want to steal your passage
go report to the engineer and shovel coal. ("
This did. My experience I 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 glistened 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 precipitate 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
backp' supposing that l was curious pas
senger seeing the sights of the ship.
- Il
no passenger. was an honest beggar like
the rest, and here was to be imprisoned
for week, watch on and off
In frenzy tore off my clothing till
stood in my trousers and shoes like my
fellows l stated my hiring to the fellow
in charge of the watch and he gave me my
shovel with plying laugh.
was pat at the boiler nearest the stair.
The midships would have been less
drunken spot, but leaped at the hardest
of the task.
Ny head grew dizzy. painted for q 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 whirling, whirling,
whirling! How little the fair folk in the
cabins know of all this plutonian hole be-
meath their carpets.
Really thought could describe GONE
| what the lurid fantasia amid these scarlet
skinned, good patured demons, but l can
not Vertigo struck me down in less than
half hour. The next | kpeW was be-
ing revived in the companonway, and the
sea air was SO grateful. The ships SUI
geon asked ne If felt able to go to work
again, and courteously recognized that
was Tot a laborer. | was gfaeelass enough
to growl out my spleen and reassert that
was no stowaway, which the good doctor
did not understand.
] turned to the assistant engineer, who
stood by. and asked him to give me job
of which might be capable.
Thrusting his hands in his pockets, he
walked off with command to ''try him at
oiling."
Ed b., the head oiler-dear, brave
heart-I oftea go down to the dock to see
him when in port here, but the engine is
as dear to him as bride, or would long
ago have hettered his fortunes-he took
me in hand.
We walked along those mere bird cages
of stairways and platforms, a labyrinth of
passages in forest of steel arms, wheels,
shRftipg and steam piping. To lands
man, a young physician now, that endless
maze of mighty anatomy is at first simply
awful. 1t sobers one, this sllllen, ceaseless
throb of the monsters heart, the deep
breat hing of the steam chests, the sigh of
the creatures spirit as the pistons make
one move and yet one more hercHlean
thrust turning the crank shaft.
Each time, as the piston slowly starts, it
seems as il it must be the last, and infinite
fatigue prevail. But no, it goes on, night
and day, motion, motion, motion. Don't
let me tire you, reader, but | do wish
could express to you something of the
solemn impression that began to seize upon
me, crawling like fly after Ed, the oiler.
Chen the hiss, the scream, the little signs
and moans OF here and theps q jet Gf truant
steam. almost human sounds, issuing from
the jungle of polished STEEL
"She's q tiger, she isl' GRAD Ed. Look
Quit"
heard that kind exclamation frequently
rs VIC went our rounds. There were others
doing the same work, but becamea chosen
attendant of my catlike friend. He had a
sprained elbow and | helped him profes-
sionally. He got my story. We were in
innate in two or three days, and record it
with honest satisfaction, for Ed B was
genuine man.
1t was one day off the Banks that we
stopped. The chief got a notion that the
shaft was not sound, and the next voyage
1t proved so, for a hair line along and
around that polished arm of poRer turned
out an incipient fracture. But it was on
investigation decided this voyage that there
the breast of the swells for more than two
Il nd. Il.