The Washington times., 1911-05-11
CHAPTER TX [continueN.

s ] watched my fellow workmen a.
much as possible and piled them witt
questions. / wanted to know where th'
cement came from and in what proper
ton IL was mixed with sand and grave
and stone for different work.
wanted to know where the sand and
gravel and stone came from and how /
was graded. Wherever II w. possible
secured rough prices for different ma
terials. I wanted to know where the
lumber was bought, and l wanted t(
know how the staging was Duilt, anC
why II was built.
Understanding that ! did not f1attel
myself that ! was fast becoming {
mason, carpenter, an engineer, and {
contractor all in one and all at once.
knew that the most of my information
was vague and loose.
Half the men who were doing tn,
work didn't know why they were doinE
Il, and a lot of them didn't know how
they were doing it. They worked by in
a clannish lot and jealous lot.
They resented my questioning, how
ever delicatsly might do 1t. and Otter
refused to answer me. But. in spite o.
with the fund of really valuable knowl
edge ] acquired.
In addition to this acquired
sources Of information. fount
out where to go for the real facts.
/ learned, for instance, who. for this
particular job, was Supplying for the
contractor his cement and gravel and
crushed stone-though.f as il happened
this contractor himself either owned ol
controlled his own plant for the pro.
duction of most of his material.
However, l learned something when
learned that. For a man who had ap.
parently been in business all his life
] was densely ignorant of even the
fundamentals of business.
This idea of running the business
back to the sources of the raw materia
was a new idea to me. / had not
thought of the contractor as owning his
own quarries and gravel pits, obvious
as the advantage was.
] wanted to know where the tools
were bought and how much they cost
from the engines and hoisting cranes
and carrying system down to pick axes
crowbars, and shovels.
l made a note of the fact that many
of the smaller implements were not
cared for properly, and even tried tC
estimate how, with proper attention, ths
life Of a pick ak could be prolonged.
enjoyed particularly in every such op.
portunity as this, no matter how trivial
II appeared.
It was Just such details as these
which gave reality to my dream.
/ figured out how many cubic feet
of earth per day per man WIS being
handled here, and how this varied under
different bosses. | pried and listened
and questioned and figured even when
digging.
I worked with my eyes and ears wide
open. 1t was wonderful how quickly in
this way the hours few. A day now
didn't seem more than four hours long.
Many the time I've felt actually sorry
when the signal to quit work was given
at night, and have hung around for hall
an hour while the engineer fixed his
boiler for the night and the old man
lighted his lanterns to string along the
excavation.
don't know what they all thought of
me, but know some of them set mo
down for a college man doing the work
for experience. This, TO say the least,
was fattering to my years.
As say, a lot of this work was
vested energy in the sense that l ac-
ouired anything worth while, but none
OF it was wasted when I recall the joy
Of it. 80.
II l had actually been college boy in
the first flush of youthful enthusiasm.
l could not have gone at my work more
enthusiastic or dreamed wilder or
Even after many of these bubbles
were pricked and had vanished. the
mood which made them did not vanish.
have never forgotten and never
can forget the sheer delight or those
months I was eighteen again. with
lot besides that / didn't have al
Nv work along another line was
more practical and more successful.
What / learned about the men and the
best way to handle them was genuine
capital.
tunity to make myself as solid as
possible with Dan Rafferty,. This was
not altogether from purely sSlhsh
motive either. / liked the man. IN a
way / think he was the most lovable
~
a lady-like term to apply to so rugged
But below his beef and Drawn, be-
low his aggressiveness. below his
coarseness, below even peculiar moral
biuntness about a good many, things,
there was a strain of something fine
about Dan Rafferty,.
had a glimpse of 1t when he pre-
ferred going back 10 the. sewer gas
rather than let a man like the old
where the latter could fire him.
But that was only one side of him.
He had a heart as big as woman 8
and one as keen to respond to sym
pathy. This in its turn inspired in
others a feeling toward him that to
save my life 1 can only describe as
fove-love in its big sense.
He'd swear like a pirate at the Da-
goes, and they'd only grin back at him
where'd they'd feel like knitting any
Otn6T
that Anton had lost his boy he sent
down to the house a wreath of flowers
half as big as cart wheel.
There was scarcely a day when some
old lady didn't manage to see Dan at
the noon hour and draw him aside
with q mumbled plea that always made
him dig into his pockets.
He caught me watching him one day
and said in explanation, She's me
grandmither."
After I'd seen at least a dozen diff
ferent ones approach him ] asked him
n they were all his grandmothers.
Sure, he said, livery ould woman
Those same grandmotherS stood him
In good stead later in his life, for every
single grandmother had some forty
and half of these ha
votes. But Dan wasn't looking that
far ahead then. Two facts rather dis
tinguished him at the start; he didn
either drink or smoke.
He didn't have any opinions upon the
subject, but he was one Of the rare
Trishmen born that way. Now and
then you'll find one, and as
likely as not he'll prove one OF
the good fellows you'd expect to see in
the Q5ler crowd.
and leading me to score him some fifty
points in my estimate of him as a good
workmen, I was indifferent to this side
of his character The thing that i'm
pressed me most was a quality of
leadership he seemed to possess.
There was nothing masterful about 1t.
You didn't look to see him lead in any
good or great cause, but you
could see readily enough that whatever
cause he chose, It would be possible for
him to gather about him a large per-
sonal following.