he iron is not going up
in vapor. The carbon and the oxygen are. This formation of gas in the
molten puddle causes the whole charge to boil up like an ice-cream soda.
The slag overflows. Redder than strawberry syrup and as hot as the fiery
lake in Hades it flows over the rim of the hearth and out through the
slag-hole. My helper has pushed up a buggy there to receive it. More
than an eighth and sometimes a quarter of the weight of the pig-iron
flows off in slag and is carted away.

Meanwhile I have got the job of my life on my hands. I must stir my
boiling mess with all the strength in my body. For now is my chance to
defeat nature and wring from the loosening grip of her hand the pure
iron she never intended to give us.

CHAPTER XVII. MAN IS IRON TOO

For twenty-five minutes while the boil goes on I stir it constantly with
my long iron rabble. A cook stirring gravy to keep it from scorching in
the skillet is done in two minutes and backs off blinking, sweating
and choking, having finished the hardest job of getting dinner. But my
hardest job lasts not two minutes but the better part of half an hour.
My spoon weighs twenty-five pounds, my porridge is pasty iron, and the
heat of my kitchen is so great that if my body was not hardened to it,
the ordeal would drop me in my tracks.

Little spikes of pure iron like frost spars glow white-hot and stick
out of the churning slag. These must be stirred under at once; the long
stream of flame from the grate plays over the puddle, and the pure iron
if lapped by these gases would be oxidized--burned up.

Pasty masses of iron form at the bottom of the puddle. There they would
stick and become chilled if they were not constantly stirred. The whole
charge must be mixed and mixed as it steadily thickens so that it will
be uniform throughout. I am like some frantic baker in the inferno
kneading a batch of iron bread for the devil's breakfast.

"It's an outrage that men should have to work like this," a reformer
told me.

"They don't have to," I replied. "Nobody forced me to do this. I do
it because I would rather live in an Iron Age than live in a world of
ox-carts. Man can take his choice."

The French were not compelled to stand in the flame that scorched
Verdun. They could have backed away and let the Germans through. The
Germans would not have killed them. They would only have saddled them
and got on their backs and ridden them till the end of time.

And so men are