Tombstone epitaph., 1917-06-17

nothing to Abbott. The bridge was everything. That is not to say he was heartless. but the eridge and its cree. ton were supreme in his mind.
 The material was arriving and every. thing was going on with such a swing and vigor that he would fain have kept them at work an hour or two longer. The men themselves did not feel that way. Some of thu employees of tLe higher grades had got the obsession of the bridge. but to most of them 1t was the thing they worked at, by which they got their daily bread-nothins more.
 Those who worked by the day were already laying aside their tools. and preparing for their departure. They always would get ready so that at the I signal all that was left to do was to stop. The riveters. who were paid by the piece, kept at 1t always to the very last minute.
 Abbott had been standing near the outer end of the cantilever and he turned and walked toward the bank. The pneumatic riveters were rat-tat- tatting on the rivet heads with a per fectly damnable iteration of insistent sound. A confused babel of voices. the ciatter of hammers. ringing sounds of swinging steel grating against steel. clanking of trucks, grinding of wheels, the deep breathing of locomotives, mingled in an unharmonious diapason of horrid sound.
 Abbott was right above the pier head now. He looked down at 1t through the struts and floor beams and braces, fastening his gaze on the questioned member. There 1t stood satisfactorily, of course. Yet. something impelled him to walk out on the nearest floor beam to the extreme edge of the truss and look down at 1t once more. leaning far out to see 1t better. He could get a better view of 1t with nothing between It and him. It st1il stood bravely. It was all right, of course. He wished that he had never said a word about 1t to anyone. He did not zee why he could not regard 1t with the indifference that it merited. As he stared down at 1t over the edge of the truss the whistle for quitting blew.
 Every sound of work ceased after the briefest of intervals, except here and there a few riveters driving home final rivet kept at 1t for a few sec ond, but only for a few seconds. Then. for a moment a silence like death It. self intervened. It seemed as if the ever blowing wind had been momen- tarily stilled. That shrill whistle and the consequent cessation of the work always affected everybody the same way. The was inevitably and in- variably a pause. The contrast be- tween the noise and Its sudden stop page was so great that the men in- stinctively waited a few seconds and drew a breath before they began to light their pipes, close their tool boxes, pick up their coats and dinner pails, and resume their conversation as they strolled along the roadway to the shore.
 It seemed to Abbott that 1t had never been so silent on the bridge before. There was almost always a breeze, sometimes a gale. blowing down or up the gorge through which the river flowed, but that afternoon not a breath was stirring.
 Abbott found himself waiting in strained and unwonted suspense for the next second or two. his eyes fixed tho rpnyfnhar The of the afternoon sun illuminated 1t clearly. In that second immediately below him, far down toward the pier head he saw a sudden flash as of breat- ing steel. Low. but clear epc.sn In the intense silence, he Dcard a poppiux sound like the snar of a great finger. Then the brigt. gleam of freshly broken metal taught his excited glance. The lac'.s was giving why. Meade was rignt. The member would go with It. The first pop or two was succeeded by a little rattle as of revolver shots heard from a distance, as the lacings gave way in quick succession. Abbott was a man with a powerful voice and he raised 1t to its limit.
 The idle workmen, just beginning to laugh and jest. heard a great cry:
 "On the bridge, for Gods sakeI"
 Two or three. among them wilch- ings, who happened to be within few feet of the landward end, without un- 'derstanding why. but impelled by the agony. the appeal, the horror in the great shout of the master builder, leaped for the shore. On the bridge itself some stepped forward. some stood still staring. others peered down. ward. The great sixty-foot webs of steel wavered like ribbons in the wind. The bridge shook as If In an earth quake. There was a heavy. shuddering. swaying movement and then the coo foot cantilever arm plunged down. ward, as a great ship falls into the trough of a mighty sea. Sharp-keyed sounds cracked out overhead as the truss parted at the apex. the outward half inclining to the water. the inward half sinking straight down.
 Shouts. oaths. screams rose, heard faintiy above the mighty beiI-like re- quiem of great girders. struts and ties smiting other members and ringing in the ears of the helpless men like doom.