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Roaldus Richmond
OLD-TIMER
The crassgrown road wound upgrade between heaps of waste
granite and past abandoned quarryholes filled with dark green
water* The vicious abetter of jack -hammers sounded on the sun-
lit air ahead. A turn brought the quarry yard into sight*
Sun -blackened men stood with bodies braced to bear the vibration
of the pneumatic hammers as they chewed into the gray stone.
The owner, a young man with a pleasant brown face, was at work
with the others. They were cutting the blocks to size for
trucking down to the sheds* Beyond the great boom and mast
of the derrick was the quarry*
It was only a small quarry, dropping to the edge of an
older hole full of clean water. The sun beat harshly down
into it. Under the dust the workers were burned darkly. Each
man went about his task with a calm assurance. They were stolid
under the heat and racket, quietly efficient, each one doing
his own job. In the granite business there is very little
bossing and no slave -driving tactics. This is true in the
sheds as well as the quarries.
A stocky old man went by carrying two heavy iron bars on
one shoulder. Le was dust -covered with a face like wrinkled
loather and red -rimmed eyes. Tba deep creases in the back of
his neck were dust -lined. 14ith amazing balance and surety the
little old man started the descent into the pit, walking down
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the steep wall of jumbled blocks as if he were walking down a
flight of stairs, the long bars on his shoulder.
Le was drilling out a block, throwing ono leg over the
powerfully vibrating drill which shook his whole body,. The
dust clouded thickly about him, at times nearly abutting him
from sight. In the same corner a husky young man was method-
ically driving a line of plugs into their holes, one stroke
to each plug as he moved along the row. lie swung the sledge
with force and precision. Slowly the line of cleavage appeared,
barely lisoernible at first, than widening.
The old man paused after a time, cleaned the rook and
his clothing with blasts from the air..hoee, and turned to talk
with Use
"The comprescor? It cost 01,900, they say. It helps out
a lot too. Once they had to do everything by hand. Yes, I
been here on the Rill quite awhile," be said, smiling and spitt-
ing to clear the dust. "I came here in 1892 When I was thirteen
years old. We came from olebec. I've worked the 4uarriee ever
since except for six years in the Ely Copper pine. I was there
from 1900 to 1906 six years. That was after the Ely War
the bie strike they had down there. Then I came back to the
Fill again.
"It's not so good any more, though. I didn't work from
'eccirr.ber fifth to Bebruary first. Some of the quarries are
only working three days now, just three days a week. After
that big strike in 1922 I didn't work for two years, two years
without working a day. That's no good.
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"I'm sixty-six now. That's pretty old... I raised a family
here, but there's only one girl home now. She keeps house for
me. The others have all gone away. Hone of my boys are in
the granite business. They didn't want to get in it and I
didn't want them to. I didn't want them in it at all. It's
no place for a young fellow, the quarries.
"It was bad in 1922 all right. We had some fun with those
new fellows though. We bad quite a lot of fun with them just
the same. We made it some uncomfortable for some of those now
fellows. They didn't know what they were coming to. They didn't
know the business. They were farmers mostly. They worked
cheap. Ws call them Scabs, we still don't like them on the
hill. Who I blame though was the Union men that helped those
new fellows, showed them what to do. Yes, we're all Union men
here. Supposed to be anyway. I hope it don't happen again,
a strike like that. There was a little trouble last week but
it didn't amount to much. Vte only stayed out about a week.
3ut it hurts to lose time, any time. Zell, I'm getting old
now, it don't matter much to me any more.
"Don't worry about the boss being mad for talking to me.
he ain't looking anyway..." The old man laughed.
The derrick boom was swinging now as the derriCkman cleaned
up the yard. The block that had been split by sledge on plug
and -feathers was ready to be lifted from the quarry. The brawny
young man climbed out carrying his tools, stopping a moment
to question the sixty-six year old veteran. Together they
inspected the loosened block, bending to peer and point, shake
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their heads* then finally nodding in agreement. The derrick
man appeared on the rim above* a bulky figure* red of face and
arms. "Don't fall off there*" he called down to the two. "Yeah*
that's okay. I can hook onto that all right, but I got to
finish cleaning the yard first."
"We only been here about a year*" the old an went on.
opened this up just about a year ago. We've gone down this
for. L„uite a lot of stone we've taken out of here. sell
it anywhere we can, anywhere they'll buy it. Some or it coes
to Pennsylvania. It's pretty good stone* but there's a lot of
waste. It'll be better as we go down. There's plenty good
stone down in back there. That old quarry there was a big
one. It was Jones Brothers and they got some real Eood stone
out or it. It's probably three hundred feet deep in there.
It was a good one.
"I've done about everything in quarry work. amall quarry
like this, everybody has to do everything. You have to figure
the cleavage* drill* plug -arid -feather, chain the blocks* sharpen
tecls, run a jack -hammer* a channeling machine* the whole bus-
iness. Sometimes you have to use dynamite. In the big ones
each man has his own special work* he don't do nothing else.
But here we do everything that has to be done, you know. Only
six -seven of us working. I like it better than in a big quarry
though.
"I'm still strong. I'll work some more years probably.
Yaybe I'll last as long as the work lasts. I like it all right
living on the Hill. I got a nice little house in Upper Granite-
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villa, In the summer the boys come home with their families.
Yes, I'm a grandfather now... Oraniteville is a quiet place to
live. It didn't use to be so quiet but now it is. You see
families sitting on their porches. It's nice in the long summer
evenings, cool after getting this sun all day in the quarry.
"Well, I better get back to work, I guess. I been on that
stone all day. I'll have it ready to come out by four -thirty
when we quit. I think so anyway. It's slow work. It takes a
full day here. to get a stone ready for the derrick. Probably
in the biE quarries they go faster. They got more men and more
equipment. But it's slow work no matter where. It's quite a
siCht to watch them work a big quarry, down about three hundred
feet probably. Lore dangerous there, more chance of accidents.
Too many men handle the stones. Sometimes somebody gots care-
less. You ought to go ride down that railroad they got up at
Websterville. teep and crooked where they carry the stones
down from the quarries. Now they use trucks more, but they
still use the railroad some. In the big quarries they set a
lot of noise. Just as bad as In the sheds. I'd rather be here.
"In the quarry we don't think much about the finished
pieces. They don't have anything to do with us. Our job is
just getting the stone out to st.,ip to the sheds.
We don't have
to worry after the blocks co out of Ilere. That's up to the
stonecutters down in the City. I wouldn't be in a shed. I
like It better out in the open air. Of course it's hard work,
harder whorl a man gets older. But I'm used to it. I can still
do a goad day's work. When I can't I won't care about living
much more. I'll be ready to go then.
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"We look for three kinds of grains in the rook. Whin it
goes up and down we oall it 'rift,. Crossways, like that, we
oall it 'drift,. ,Eardway, is a grain running at right angles
to the other two, a bad one to work. A light streak in the
rook is 'white horse, or salt horse,. A dark streak we call
'black horse,... I've talked long enough. I got to get
my stone out now.
"Don't worry, I'll take it easy, all right. I'm old enough
to know how to do that."