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MEN AGAINST GRANITE
Roaldus Richmond,
Vermont Writers' Project.
Recorded in
Writer:' Section Files
9 10/71
UP ON TEE HILL
1.
The car passed through crooked streets lined with frame
houses, turned sharply and labored up a steep grade between
great pyramids of waste granite. The valleys below were still
drowned in white mist, but the hilltop stood clear in the early
morning light. The homely wooden houses of Oraniteville and
tebsterville were scattered over the broad summit of Millstone
Hill, their windows catching the long flat rays of the rising
sun. In the distance the mountains stood ranked against the sky.
Five of the six men crowded into the automobile were silent,
still sullen from sleep. The sixth, the youngest and biggest,
was Dominick Mori and he was kidding and laughing through the
smoke of Lie cigarette.
Leroux, the blacksmith, said: "You're too damn cheerful
for so early in the morning, Dom. You're worseln my wife. She's
a Swede and nothing bothers her. She gets up so cheerful it
drives me crazy."
"Uust be because I live right," grinned Dom Mori.
"Hell," said Leroux. "At your age a man don't have to
live right."
At the top of the grade they *heeled round into a row of
parked cars, and the men got out with their dinnerpails. It was
a.
just before sight o'clock. Dom Mori walked past derriokmasts
and across railroad tracks to the wooden guard-rail at the
brink of the quarry. It was a vast open pit some three -hundred
feet deep. The granite had a clean gray look; the walls were
sliced down step by step as with a giant knife. Overhead was a
network of guywires and cables interlaced against the pale blue
sky. On all sides loomed gaunt mounds of grout, giving the en-
tire hill the appearance of a ruined fortress.
Dom Mori joined his friend, Pepe Peres, another strapping
youngster, on the quarry rim. Peres grinned and tossed his black
head. "Another day in the hole, kid." He swore. "If anyone
told me five years ago I'd be in a quarry I'd told him he was
nuts. It's the last thing I ever thought of doing, Dom."
"Bitter than being in the army, Pepe."
"You'll be in the army yet, boy," Perez said. "I've got
a wife and a kid."
"They're going to take married men first. They're more
used to fighting," said Dom Mori. "Well, here we go."
Now the men were climbing down the steep plank stairs into
the quarryhole, French, Italian, Spanish, Irish and Scotch,
carrying lunchboxes and tools. It was a long way down. The
stairs seemed to drop sheer and dizzily under your feet. At
the bottom it was still damp and cold; the sun wasn't high enough
to penetrate the depths. The pump was already sucking water
from the lowest corner. Dominick Mori left Peres and joined
the OldTimer„ Lavelle, a veteran French quarryman with wham
4.
proud of her, he still looked young and handsome, and she was
so understanding and generous and devoted.
"Well, how's the old strike-breaker this morning?" Dom
grinned at his mate.
"Don't be calling me a scab," growled the Old -Timer. "I
told you I came here in 1892 when I was nineteen years old. I
was here before most of you hops. I came down from 4uebec."
"sure," kidded Dominick. "In 1921 when they brought all
you farmers down from Canada to break the strike and take all
the jobs."
"What do you know, a young punk like you?" said the Old
Timer. "I was right here and I helped lick some of them scabs,
too. We had some fun with them new fellers. They was all farmers,
they didn't know nothing, and they worked cheap. I know some
union men helped show them new Frenchmen the trade. That was a
bad tLing. After that big strike I didn't get no work for two
years. Two whole years, by God."
The chatter of the pneumatic drills now made conversation
impossible. Dust clouded up around them as the steel chewed
into the gray stone.
Old -Timer Lavalle was a short stocky man of sixty-seven
with a face like wrinkled leather and red -rimmed eyes. Dust
covered him and lined the deep creases in the back of his neck.
He threw one leg over his jack -hammer and the vibration shook
his entire body. Dom Mori held his own drill steady with power-
ful young arms.
5.
Lavelle had been in the quarries ever since 1892, except
for six years in the Ely Copper Hine at Vershire. Fie father
had worked the asbestos mines in the Province of cxebec before
coming to Barre. A quarry accident killed him. Lavelle had
been on the Lill a long time and raised a family there. Now
there was only one daughter left at home, and she kept house
for the Old -Timer. Ills wife was dead and all the others had
gone away, married and settled down elsewhere. None of his sons
were in the granite business. Lavelle didn't want them in it.
"No place for a young feller, in the quarriei," be said.
The Old -,Timer had a little hoese of his own in Upper Granite
villa, a quiet pleasant place to live now, lie could remember
when it was like a mining town in full boom; and nothing quiet
about it then. The Bill was a wild raw place in those early
days. The workers were mostly young, unmarried and reckless.
They lived in boarding-houses, spent their money freely, and
did a lot of hard drinking. "Salting the colt," was what they
called driving a horse -and -buggy out into the country to buy a
jug of cider from some farmer. The arrival of the stagecoach
bringing the mail from Barre Was a great event each day at six
P.M.
Was it Black Yike or Red John Who said, "What do we do?
We don't do nothing but work and eat and sleep. On payday we
hire a team, go to Barre, get drunk, smash the wagon, and pay
a fine or go to jail."
Then a derrick was operated by hand -power, two men on the
crank. Later horses were hitched to long sweeps and plodded
6.
about in a circle to generate power for the derrick. A quarry-
man couldn't earn more than 42.25 a day at that time, but money
went a lot farther then That was as good as $7 or 43 a day
now, maybe better.
The Bill had changed all right. It was settled and peace-
ful now, the workers were family men, the boarding-houses were
gone. The Old -Timer seldom went down to the City any more; most
of his friends were dead or gone away. he liked best the long
summer evenings, cool and still on his porch after getting the
sun all day in the quarry. Every evening he set there smoking
his pipe until the shadows deepened and the lights winked on.
The smell of Lreen earth and woodlands was sweet after the hot
stonedust of the daytime. Lavelle missed Larie, his wife, but
he never spoke of her... In the summer his none and daughters
brought their families to v sit, and he was happy playing with
his grand -children.
He was glad he had stayed away from the sheds in Barre.
It was better to be out in the open air. In the sheds he wouldn't
have lasted this long. AJante Mori, Don's father, had been under
fifty when he died. There was more money down there; in the
quarries they lost many days because of bad weather. But he
was satisfied to have it the way it was.
The Old -Timer really preferred a smaller quarry, where six
or eight non •did all the work. There you had to do everything;
here each man had his own special job. But even in a big quarry
like this the bosses didn't bother you much. Each man went about
his task with a calm assurance. There was little bossing and
7.
no slaveedriving. Under the heat and racket the men were stolid,
patient, and efricient.
The sun climbed higher until it WOL3 burning into his back.
Lavelle stopped drilling, cleaned the stone and his clothing
with blasts from the air -hose, inspected the cleavage, and
straightened to rest his aching body. lie was still tough and
strong, but ;:e) tired quicker than he used to. It was hard work,
even for brawny youngsters o' twenty-one like Dom Mori. He
liked the big good-looking boy who worked and laughed beside
him and kidded him so much.
Dom paused to use the hose on himself and the block. The
dust fanned up and thinned in the sunlit air. Dom Mori turned
to face the sun and stretch his limbs in its bright warmth. He
took of his faded blue workshirt. Lis splendid torso was al-
ready burnt darkly by sun and wind, tapering from broad shoulders
and deep chest down to a trim waist. His dark hair curled damp
and close on his -Lead, and his ayes were clear and blue.
Old -Timer Lavalle said: "I bet you got lots of girls, huh?"
Dominick Lori laughed. "sure, hundreds of 'am, Old -Timer."
"You ain't no movie star," Lavalle said, spitting and turn-
ing back to his drill.
"Take it easy now," warned Dam.
"Don't worry, I'll take it easy," said Lavalle. "I'm old
enough to know how to do that."
8.
Up on the surface the riggers were greasing some of the
derricks and hoists, and the yard was alive with the clattering
din of lack -hammers where other workers were cutting blocks
down to size. Scotty Kincaid backed his locomotive up the track
and waited for the flatcars to be loaded.
On the shelf where Pepe Perez worked in the quarry they
were roping a block for the derrick. Perez signalled with long
arms to the head derrickmen at the top of the quarry, who re-
layed the signal on to the engineer at the controls in the en-
gine-reom. A whistle shrilled sharply through the general din,
and workmen on the bottom moved out of the way as the huge boom
swung across the pit. Perez stood with hands on hips waiting
for the cable. Chains were made fast, tested, and Perez applied
the big hook. Everyone watched as the block stirred, swayed
free and lifted slowly. Last week a stone had dropped with the
toppling crash of thunder, skidded across the floor and pinned
the Spaniard Yanuel against the wall with a crushed leg. Manuel's
scream had pierced the echoing roar of the hurtling block. Now
they all thought of that as thirty -odd tons of granite swung
clear and up over the quarry.
Steadily the mass of rock went up and vanished over the
far rim. The men in the hole shook the sweat out of their eyes
and went back to work. Big Pepe Perez yelled across: "That's
the way to get tem out fast, Dominick1"
Before noon Dom Wort had his piece free and went about
cutting it in halves. First he used the air drill to bore a
row of holes; then he inserted plugs in the holes and took up
9.
the sledge hammer. Moving along the row he swung the sledge
with force and precision, one stroke to each plug. The line of
cleavage was barely discernible in the beginning. As he re-
peated the process the line widened, The blazing sun was high
and hot now, and Dom's brown body gleamed with sweat. The muscles
flowed and rippled under the skin as he swung the hammer.
The twelve o'clock whistle was welcome. Man climbed down
the ladders to their lunch -boxes on the 4.1X bottom, Old -Timer
Lavelle stayed on his ledge. I ain't got no women to brag
about with you young fellers," he told DM. Some of the,quarry-
men mounted the long steep stairway to the surface, but most
felt that it was too much of a climb. Dom Mori took some drill
points to Leroux, the blacksmith, for sharpening. Steel loses
its edge quickly on the hard-fibred rock.
Allaire Leroux sat near his red -glowing forge, a slender
man with a sharply cut face and whimsical blue eyes. The term
blacksmith seemed incongruous until you noticed his strong hands,
muscular arms and shoulders. Even with the sun's glare and the
heat from the forge Allaire Leroux looked cool.
"I don't sweat no more," Leroux said. II can't sweat. I'm
a sick man, Dom."
"You don't drink enough, Al," Dom told him.
"I don't drink nothing now," Leroux said sorrowfully. "I
can't take a drop. My stomach is all gone. I don't mind not
drinking so much, but I can't eat either. I always liked to eat
and I get goddamn hungry now. but to keep on working I got to
10«
be careful what I eat."
"I thought they fixed you all up at the Veterans' Eospital
in White River."
"Hell, no. That's a nice place they got there, but they
didn't do me much good. I was there about a month and I got
sick of it. I didn't feel any better and I got lonesome for
my wife and kids. :1;() one day I asked for my clothes and got out
of there. I can't stand laying round doing nothing. When I
get home from here I always work round the house or garden.
There's always things to be done, and I feel better doing them."
Dom Yori munched a salaami sandwich and washed it down with
cool red wine, while Allaire Leroux used his tones to adjust
tools heating in the fire.
"How'd you take up tool -Sharpening, Al?" Dom asked.
"I don't know. I tried about everything. My old man was
a farmer and I tried that awhile. All I liked about that was
trading cattle and horses and equipment. I put over some nice
deals, too. I worked in a garage, and I did carpenter work.
T was a *lack of trades, Dom... But when I was a kid I used to
hang round the blacksmith shop in the village. In them days
the stone -cutting tools went to regular blacksmiths to be sharp...
ened. The shop on the Fill was a great place for the old-timers
to hang out. I liked to listen to theme There was Black Mikes
the Irishman; Red John, the SootChman; old Jed Wygant„ the biggest
liar of all; and that giant Swede Svensen. They always had a
bottle to pass round while they told lies about drinking, fight...
11.
Ingo women, and how strong they were. hey gave me my first
drink," Allaire Leroux grinned boyishly. "I guess I started
growing my stomach ulcers right there."
It all came back to him as he talked. The clanging music
of hammer and anvil, the smoke and heat, the smell of hot iron
and leather, horses and men. There he had learned about fires,
forges, and putting an edge on steel tools.
"You still run that roller-skating place, Al?"
"Yeah, three nights a week," Leroux said. "I go home from
the quarry, take a bath, change and eat supper. On this diet
of mine it don't take long to eat. then I drive my wife down
to the rink and we work until midnight. It makes a long day,
but I don't mind it. I like to keep busy, and it means a little
extra money." lie drew a chisel from the coals and placed it
on the anvil.
"Howls your girl, Dominick? Why don't you bring Angela
round to the house sometime? I'm not drinking but I keep a
little stuff on hand. I'd like to see yolir brother "ldo and his
wife, too. We don't see iildo much since he got married and moved
down to the City."
"I don't either," said Dom Mori. "But bring them all
over sometime, Al, Well, back to the chain -gang it is." The
whistle was blowing, and men started clambering back to work.
The afternoon passed swiftly enough for Dom Mori, working
and joking with Old -Timer Lavalle.
They got their pieces ready to go out, and Dom signalled
12.
to the derrickman, drawing his hand across his stomach for the
inch -and -a -half rope, and a slicing palm -to -palm motion for the
half -inch chain. Ihe Old -Timer was an expert with ropes and
chains. 'he blocks were made secure one by one, hooked to the
derrick, and lifted steadily up and out. Dom Mori and the Old
Timer watched them go with quiet satisfaction.
"Good pieces," Old -Timer Lavelle said. "Damn good stone."
"Good enough to hold somebody under the ground," Dom said
cheerfully.
The Old -Timer shook his dusty head. "You don't want to
talk like that, son. It's bad luck."
The boss signalled to Dom Mori, pointing out a new man and
tapping the fingers of one hand on the outstretched palm of the
other. "You're right," Dom grinned at the Old -Timer. "No rest
for the wicked.* He descended the ladder to help the channel
bar operator on the quarry floor. The man was nervous and hav-
ing trouble guiding the long vibrating bar. Dom Mori laid hold
and steadied it for him. The bottom was in shadow now as the
sun lowered, and Don's sweaty body cooled rapidly.
The danger whistle sounded and the vicious clamor of pneu-
matic tools stopped. They were ready to blast at the far end
of the pit, and men moved out of the way and took cover. The
explosion shocked the eardrums and reverberated from wall to
wall. Fragments of rock flew wildly and clattered as they fell.
"Hey, Mori' The Greeks are comingt" Pepe Perez shouted as
the noise faded, and Dom grinned good-naturedly when the men
13.
laughed at him. He had no more sympathy for Mussolini and ?as-
cii= in Italy than he had for Hitler and the Nazis.. Like most
of the Italians of Barre Dom Mori had been shamed and sickened
when Mussolini declared war on already -beaten ?rano.. And the
conduct of the Italian troops in Albania and Egypt had shown
that the Italian people as a whole did not want war.
Then it was four o'clock, the seven working -hours were
ended, and the quarriers started the long climb up towards the
blue oloud-bannered sky.
"Row about a bottle of beer, Dom?" Pepe Perez asked.
Dam Mori shook his head. "Some other time, Pepe. I've
got to stop in Websterville."
"Ain't love wonderful?" jeered big Peres. "Well, we'll
have to go out to my camp some Sunday. See you tomorrow, boy."
A train of flatcars loaded with granite blocks stood on
the tradk. Dom Mori pulled on his high school football jacket
and boarded the engine with old Scotty Kincaid. "Bow about a
ride, Chief?"
Scotty Kincaid's seamed red face twisted and he spat to-
bacco juice through his stained gray moustache. "That girl
again, is it? I used to think you'd grow up to amount to some-
thing." Ee scratched his gray head and tugged his sooty blue
cap back into place. "How are you, 'addle?"
"Vine, Scotty, and how's the Chief? Did you hear that one
about the Scotchman who found the twenty-five cent piece?"
"Aye, he married it," said the engineer gravely.
14.
"You always hear the Scotch jokes before I do," complained
Dom, grinning.
"I'm the man that makes them up," Scotty Kincaid said.
he started the locomotive and they wound slowly down the
steep track between high walls of granite blocks. Coming out
into the open they saw the hazy blue -gray barrier of mountains
on the western skyline. The slanting sun made patterns of lav-
ender shade on the nearer slopes and valleys, and farm clear-
ings were open patches in the forest. below the railroad track
were the roofs of Websterville, and Dom Uori picked out the trim
white house where Angela lived.
Dom kori took the shortcut toward his own home in Granite
vine, with a singing in his breast and a strong swinging stride.
he looked forward to his afternoon swim in the abandoned quarry
hole, but it had been better when he and '1.1do swam there to-
gether. Lverything was better with ado. Without Aldo he felt
not quite whole somehow, yet when he thought of the girl he had
just left he couldn't be lonely. Angela had the fair hair and
skin, the clean gray eyes of northern Italy. "ngela was lovely,
Angela was his.
he turned once to look back over the jumble of shingled
roofs that was otbsterville. hids were playing ball in an open
lot and their cries came to him thinly. Dom Mori wanted to
play ball again himself. Most of all he wanted to play foot
If he could have gone to college... Dunkirk, the Gray
15.
Eagle, said Dom could have mnde any 2cllege club in the country.
That's where he should be instead of in the quarry. Be spat
and set his bronzed face homeward. Across the ridge were the
chimneys and church steeples of Graniteville lying under the
shadow of mountains of grout, a straggling village of ugly clap-
board houses built hastily in the boom days. But most of the
.homes were nicely furnished and well kept inside.
The path twisted through underbrush and thickets and on
into the calm green depths of the woods. The sky beyond sheer
granite walls and jagged piles of grout was painted in flame by
the sinking sun, and an early twilight stillness was on the
wooded heights. Dom Mori halted on the brink of the deserted
Barclay i„Alarry. It was
the dark water. On the
leaned in a lacework of
were coils of cable and
lay overgrown
outer slopes,
chunking of a
a hundred feet down to the surface of
opposite side derrick masts and booms
guywires. Half -buried in the ground
hooks of rusted iron. A long boiler
with bushes and vines. Birds called along the
and from the watery chasm below came the deep
bullfrog.
It was a scene of lonely grandeur and sinister beauty.
Dom Yori thought of the men who had worked here to cut this
gorge through a mountain or solid granite. His own father had
worked here once, before going into the shed. It had been one
of the biggest quarries on the Hill. Dominick remenbered one
night in a thunderstorm when he had seen this grim picture il-
luminated with green -white flares of lightning. Ihat was the
weirdest thing he had ever known,
16.
As 7om Mori moved along the rim he felt as always a strong
compulsion to hurl himself into the immense water -filled chasm.
lie wondered if suicides knew that feeling before their final
leap. It was said that a man had thrown himself in there years
ago, after his wife and children were burned to death. But no
body had been recovered. Just the look of the place was enough
to keep anyone from swimmlng there. Then Dom saw ahead of him
the familiar tall figure of jock Gilligan, staring down at the
quarry he had worked twenty -odd years ago. Ihey greeted one
another and Don prouced a pack of cigarettes.
"Its quite a sight, Dominick," said old Jock Gilligan.
"It does sometling to a man. Especial'y a man who worked it.
There was some good men worked in that hole, Dom, and your father
was one of them. There's a lot of good stone left in there yet."
Jock Gilligan was Scotch -Irish, long of14.imb and wide of
shoulder, well over sixty now but still loan and hard. Eis thin
face was red and graven with harsh lines, his narrow blue eyes
crinkled when he smiled, and his jaw had an arrogant thrust.
In his younger days he had knocked around all over the country,
working in coal and copper nines, following the harvesters.
"What happened here, Jock? Why did they quit working it?"
"It was no good after Langhurst took it over," Jock Gilli-
gan said. "Langhurst didn't know the business; .he was just
crazy for quick money. he started selling off the land, a piece
at a tine. Then he ;70t a junk man in and sold all the machinery.
70 sold that new steam -shovel they got from the World's Fair in
Chicago. They came in with blow -torches and cut everything
apart and luu:ed it away. he sold thousands of dollars worth
of stuff for about eight hundred bucks. By God, it was a crimei
If he'd left the machinery some other company'd be working it
today. But Langburat was no granite man.
"I tried to open a little quarry here myself, about three
months ago. See that hand -derrick up by the last waterhole.
But it was too much work by hand. (lierrying is slow enough with
machinery. I tried to get Old -Timer Lavelle to cone in with me.
T3ut I guess he's smart to stay in the quarry where he's got
steady work. he granite business gets worse all the time,
Dom. I can't get a job anywhere. I'm a good quarry man, too.
"I was head-derrickman here for years. lhat shack over
there was the engine -house. I was running the derrick the day
that signal boy fell to the bottom, about three hundred feet.
You could hear it on top when he landed. The worst one I ever
saw though was when we were blasting. I was a powder man, too.
The charge didn't go off. A crazy Frenchman crawled in under
the ledge and just than it blew. It fired him out like a cannon-
ball. Pe was still alive and screaming and swearing. It makes
me sick to think of it now. It blew the skin right off him,
but it took him a long time to die. Things like that you don't
forget."
Jock Gilligan flipped his cigarette and watched it drop
toward the water. "Dom, I been wondering some about you. What
you going to do, stay all your life in the quarries? You ought
to break away, see some of the world. When I was your age I'd
worked my way across the country three times. I left home in
New Brunswick when I was sixteen. There's lots of things to
see and do, Dominick. I rode harvesting trains packed with a
couple thousand men, All night the gravel from the prairies
was like hail on the roof. They didn't dare stop those trains
in a town. There was a copper mine in Vancouver high up in the
mountains, they carried us up to it in buckets strung on a
cable, some places riding the buckets we went over canyons
hundreds of feet deep, and overhead was the mountains, all rock
and snow and looking ready to come roaring down on you...
"You're young, Dominick. You don't want to spend all your
life down in that hole."
"1 don't intend to, Jock," said Dom Mori. "1111 get away.
but I don't want to leave my mother alone now."
Jock Gilligan was still brooding on the quarry rim when
Dom Mori left him and walked on his way. The sun was gone and
the woods were dusky. It was late for swimming but Dom went to
the little abandoned (juarryhole that was near his house. He
was thoughtful and troubled after listening to old Jock, and
he was always lonely for Aldo When he came here to swim. Aldo
had that quality of making everything seem richer and finer and
more fun.
He knew Aldo was in love with Nina, yet sometimes he thought
Aldo was not fully satisfied and happy. Aldo had grown grave
and serious lately. Dom wondered if, after all, he should be
so anxious to marry Angela. That would chain him to the quarry
as it had Old -Timer Lavelle, Pepe Peres, Allaire Leroux, and
old Jock Gilligan. Dominick wanted more out of life than that.
Fe was only twenty-one.
Ee stripped off his dusty clothes and stood poised on a
ledge twenty feet above the water. Aldo and he had dared one
another here playing follow -the -leader. Domis toes gripped the
edge of the rock and he sprang up and out in the twilight, flash-
ing down in a long clean arc, cutting straight into the water
and gliding to cold dark depths. It was pure springwater, fresh
and clear. he swam to shore, scrubbed himself with the soap
hidden there, and plunged in again, exulting in the flying thrill
of the dive. Then he lit a cigarette and let his body dry in
the air.
The cold water cleansed mina RS well as body. Dom Mori
hurried down the path across stony pastureland, vaulted the
fence and jogged toward home. Lights twinkled in the houses
of Graniteville now. In the distance farmer Nat Yulburt was
calling his cows and the faint tinkle of a cowbell sounded.
The upland air was sweet to breathe. Dom Mori was aware of a
keen hunger for the rupper his mother would have waiting for
him. Pe sang Angela Mia as he went,