The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-08-04
IN THE ENGINE ROOM.

Ny father was a rich man when left
New York. His partners only daughter
was to be my wife when should return.
l was a student in Vienna hospital
| when I received 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 go on
J board the c., and something would be
! found for me to do.
Two days out l was called to the cap
| 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, "IfS
you really don't want to steal your passage
| go report to the engineer and shovel coal"
This did. My experience l 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 mil
lion eyes when the furnace doors wers
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 felIed 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
backr' supposing that l 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 l 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.
/ My head grew dizzy. Ipanted 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 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 some
what the lurid fantasia amid these scarlet
. skinned, good natured demons, but | can
not. Vertigo struck me down IN less than
a half hour. The next | knew | was be-
ing revived il the companlonway. and the
sea air was so grateful The ships sur
geon asked me if felt able 10 20 TO work
again, and courteOusly recognized that /
was not a laborer / was graceless enough
TO growl out my spleen and reassert that
was no stowsway, 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, ne
walked OF with command to TRY him at
oiling."
Ed b, the head oiler-dear, brave
heart-I often go down TO the dock TO see
him when in port here, but the engine Is
as dear 20 him as a bride, or would long
ago have betJered his fortuaes-he took
me in hand.
We walked along those mere bird cages
Of stairways aud platforms, q labyrinth of
passages in a forest OF steel arms, wheels,
shsfting and steam piping. To lands
man, q young physician now, that endless
maze Of mighty anatomy is a. first simply
awful Il sobers one, this sullen, ceaseless
throb of the monsters heart, the deep
breat hing Of the steam chests, the sigh Of
the creatures spirit as tie pis,ous make
one move and yet one more hereuLean
thrust turning the crank shaft
Each tine, as the piston slowly starts, II
seems as Il I, must be the last, AID infinite
fatigue prevail. But DO, It gees on, night
and day, molten. motion, motion Den:
let ne tire you, reader, eut l do wish
could express 70 you something OF TIE
solemn impression that began % seize apoH
ne. Crawling Ike q ay after I'd. TIE oi!sr
Then The hiss. tee scream, the little Signs
and moars OF here and there Jet o. tr1'sns
steam, al1aos: human sounds, issuing from
tie jungle Of polished steel
shes tiger. she Isl cried Ed Look
outw
heard that kind exclamation t-eqGensly
as We went chr ro0nds- There we're others
doing the same work- but / became chosen
attendant Of ny ca1like friend he had
sp-alred elbow and / helped him pro-es-
sionally. he gos ny story. We were IN
tiuate il two or ghree days, zz4 record Z
with honest satisfaction. lCE - b E~s
gsau.le La