for this new work. In tin making a piece of wrought iron is rolled thin
and then covered with a thinner coating of pure tin. After this is done
the plate remains soiled and discolored, and the next process is to
remove the stain and polish the tin until it shines like silver.

To have a job and eat pie again made me happy. Our union contained
several hundred members, so I had a lot of prospective friends to get
acquainted with. I was then nearly twenty-one and a pretty good mixer;
I liked men and enjoyed mingling with them and learning all I could from
what they told me. When they drifted into a saloon I went along for the
company. I did not care to drink, so I would join some impromptu quartet
and we would sing popular songs while the other fellows cheered us with
the best will in the world. A drink of beer or two heightens a man's
appreciation of music, and the way the boys applauded my singing
makes me rather regret the Volstead Act. It queered my act. Since beer
disappeared nobody has asked me to sing. Prohibition may be good for the
health but it is sure death to art.

Those were happy days. But just when all my troubles seemed ended and
the rainbow of promise in the sky, a new cloud appeared, black and
threatening. In fact it swept down like a tornado. The men decided to
strike.

A strike! Of all things! We owned about the only jobs in Indiana. Our
strike wouldn't last long--for the mills. For us it would last forever.
The day we walked out, others would walk in. And it would be so small
a part of Coxey's army that the main body would march on and never miss
it. I had just gone through that long, soul-killing period of idleness
and had barely managed to find a job before I collapsed. Now that we
were to strike I would have to push that job aside and sink back into
the abyss.

In reaching Elwood, I had tramped from Muncie, Indiana, to Anderson, a
long weary walk for one whose feet, like mine, were not accustomed to
it. From Anderson I tramped to Frankton, and there I caught a freight
and rode the bumpers to Elwood. The train took me right into the mill.
It was summer and the mill had been shut down by the hard times. The
boss was there looking over the machinery. They were getting ready to
start up. I faced him and he said: "Do you want a job?"

"Yes," I said.

"What at? Greasing up to-night," he said. Weary and hungry as I was from
my hoboing, I went right to work, and all night I, with a few others,
greas