Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-09-24
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES f. TRACEWELL.
"Take this" he said, "and go and get

"Take this" he said, land go and gel
your board"
So we were introduced to industrial
America. Nobody was going to bring
our board to us, we had to 60 and gel
| it ourself The man said so.
We looked at the yellow sheet in oul
hand, not willing to admit our igno-
rance of the proper procedure, but dim
ly realizing that there was no way out
of it, since we did not know where
to 60. .,,ouo,, WA .,,os .,
nonchalantly as possible.
go around to the south side and
up the steps,"
Sure enough, on the south side was a
wide flight of rickety steps up the side
of the building. Every one has seen
pictures of such steps. Years ago al
flights were exterior.
Holding tightly to our ticket, we
mounted the steps, and came at once
into a din of fly wheels and rapidly
revolving belts, pierced by the shril
whine of saws.
Oh, by the way-as we were coming
along we caught sight of a beautiful
girl in equestrienne costume! She wa:
a pale blonde, tall, with a frank, honest
face, with gray eyes that looked square
ly at you.
To get back to the woodworking place
however Millions of bits of sawdust
floated in the loft where the saws
w!1ined. and big boards resolved them
selves into smaller boards.
We looked around.
There was a pompous gentleman, all
dressed up, standing by the door, with
his back to the sunshine. Innocently
we thought he must be the foreman, OF
something.
We ventured to say that we would
like to get this board" He looked at
us with intense disgust.
There's your man over there" he
said.
We might have known it. How could
man be foreman of a woodworking
shop all dressed up in blue serge and
so on?
The real foreman wore pair of dirty
pants and shirt that was khaki col
ored, so you couldn't tell whether it
was dirty or not, and had upon his
face kindly expression.
Men who work with their hands
often have that kindly quizzical look,
as if to say, well, this is a funny
world, what do you think of it?"
We approached him happily.
He took our yellow order slip without
a word, and, climbing over a pile of
planks in his path, disappeared through
an arched door.
That was the last we were to see of
him. He never appeared again. He
might have been sawed in two for all
we knew. Certainly there were enough
revolving disks of glittering steel to
saw dozen men in half and leave
nothing to tell the tale.
To this day we hope the kindly fore
man suffered no such fate. We are
reasonably sure he did not Perhaps
these ideas were put into our more or
less impressionable mind by big sign
on the wall, What to Do During Hot
Weather"
We gathered that the stricken man
was to be treated kindly, his collar I'M
buttoned and his head lifted. If it
were sunstroke, he was to be bathed
with cold water, but if it were heat
prostration, by no means was he to
have cold water.
Men working in the sun ought to
have gallon and half of water every
day. the sign said. Whew! That's a
lot of water.
At any rate, our man didn't come
back, and we had plenty of time to
look around at the shop. The north
wall was solid brick, but there were
windows on the east and south, the
latter wall containing in addition the
huge entry from the pair of steps.