The Iron Puddler: My Life in the Rolling Mills and What Came of It

had bought feather beds again and our little home was a happy one. By hanging around the depot spotting traveling men who need

the mines and iron mills. And when a man was killed, it often meant his wife and babies would face hunger, for the jobs were not the kind for women and chil

inner. He had failed to make provision for such an accident,-no savings in the bank, no life insurance. As soon as the worker was stricken his child

y wife would collect enough insurance to start a boarding-house. My boy would have money enough to learn a trade. Then he could get as good a job as I have." The hotel keeper told me that if he should die his wife could run the

widow and with tears in their eyes reached into their pockets and gave her what cash they had. I never knew a man to hang back when a collection for a widow was being taken. Contributions sometimes were as high as five dollars. It made a heartrending scene: the broken body of a once strong

thus scattered, seldom if ever got together again. When I became an iron worker there were several fellows in our union who didn't know whether they had a relative on earth. One of them, Bill Williams, said to me: "Jim, no wonder you're always happy. You've got so many brother

, whose name was Williams. That was not his name. Before he was seven both his grandparents died and he was taken by a farmer who called him Bill. The farmer d

name is. Maybe they've all got new names now like I have. Maybe I've met my own brothers and we never knew it. I'd give ever

ed to me, this problem stared me in the face when I began carrying those fatal telegram

are scattered to the winds. Brothers and

children are kept together. Their f

to-day. Property pr

rchant in Sharon died, and his children, after the funeral, kept right on going to school. There was no doubting

ttle every day for capital. It was our duty thus to protect oursel