* * * * *
At Duluth I found that a strike prevailed on the Lakes. I was held in
doubt whether I ought to sail, for I would have to do so as
strike-breaker, which was against my radical code ... but, then, I had
come over-land all the way from Laurel, to voyage the Great Lakes for
the poetry to be found there ... and I must put my muse above such
things as strikes.
I signed on, on a big ore boat, as porter....
That means, as third cook; my task the washing and scouring of greasy
pots, pans, and dishes ... and waiting on the firemen and deckhands at
meals.
The _James Eads Howe_ took on a cargo of rust-coloured iron ore at Twin
Harbours ... the gigantic machinery grided and crashed all night,
pouring the ore into the hold, to the dazzling flare of electric
lights....
Here for the first time I conceived myself to be caught in the great
industrial turmoil. If I were to derive song from this, it would be song
for giants, or rather, for machines that had grown to gigantic
proportions from the insect world ... diminutive men made parts of their
anatomy as they swung levers and operated cranes....
We kicked outward on the long drop down Lake Superior, the largest of
the five Great Lakes. It was like an inland ocean. The water of it is
always so cold that, when a ship is wrecked there, good swimmers who
might otherwise keep up till rescued, often perish of the cold.
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