the city on jobs and were known by their black aprons, their uncanny skills, and their insane devotion to their crafts—at which they became better and better, fulfilling the demands of the age.
He, Mootfowl, wore a Chinese hat to protect his hair from being singed by the forge when he knelt down on the oily floor to inspect the readiness of an excited piece of steel. The way he handled hot metal was a marvel of tenderness and dispatch. He could strike the precise and necessary blow needed to create a strong thing from a seething moltenness. Mootfowl was quite tall. Even when Peter Lake was fully grown, he felt half Mootfowl’s size. And Mootfowl had a rugged face of many handsome planes, sooty and shining, in which rested two sparkling owl’s eyes. Each time he saw those eyes, Peter Lake was reminded of his days with the Baymen, when he would sometimes have for breakfast a hot roasted owl, buttered and sizzling. But those days were long over. Under Mootfowl’s tutelage, he learned to read and write, to use mathematics, to bargain skillfully in the matter of jobs and commissions, and to know the city well enough to find his way about. Since half the boys were Irish, Peter Lake learned to speak in a flexible and true Irish dialect. He liked it well enough—it was like riding the waves—and he found after a few years that he could speak in no other way, except to recall slowly articulated phrases from lays in Bay. Still, he was often saddened by the loss of his original self, whatever that had been. He was not really a Bayman, not really Irish, and only partly one of Mootfowl’s boys, since, unlike the gamy five-year-olds who were to be seen in a corner of the shed, learning to work with miniature tools, he had been apprenticed relatively late. He was not sure to what he had to be loyal. But he assumed that this uncertainty, like the other torments suffered by his fellow “lunatics,” would someday vanish.
Meanwhile, Mootfowl and his group were ever at work as the city’s structures took their places one upon the other, faster than reef-building corals. Each tower had a minute of free view, after which it would spend the rest of eternity contemplating the shins of its competitors. Not so the great bridges. They flowed out over the rivers, and would have airy views and be alone forever. Mootfowl worshiped bridges. He had worked on several, and when he heard that another was to be flung over a wide bend of the East River, toward Brooklyn, he was all feathers and wine for days, since he knew that a bridge of that length would require specially forged components and expert repairs. One of his more holy moments was when he told his boys about the time that he mended some broken ferris joints for Colonel Roebling after the four main cables of the Brooklyn Bridge had been spun across the river. Mootfowl had hung high above the water, as dizzy as a bird in a storm, with a forge hanging by his side. There he did the work, to the delight of thousands crossing below on the Fulton ferry.
“Jackson Mead,” Mootfowl said with reverence and admiration, “has come from beyond the Ohio with a hundred good men and tons of money and steel from God knows where, to start another bridge. They arrived after a storm. The white wall had imprisoned the countryside for days and days. Just as it was lifting, out charged their train, parting the mist on the Erie Lackawanna tracks. It was a great surprise to the farmers, who said that the train hit the bottom of the curtain. They say, boys, that the top of the train was scraped and torn, that it shone from contact with the underside of the wall.
“Be that as it may, Jackson Mead is here, and the bridge will be going up. We should say prayers for it.”
“Why?” asked one of the forge boys, a small adenoidal fellow who was always very skeptical.
Mootfowl glared at him. “A bridge,” he proclaimed, “is a very special thing. Haven’t you seen how delicate they are in relation to their
He, Mootfowl, wore a Chinese hat to protect his hair from being singed by the forge when he knelt down on the oily floor to inspect the readiness of an excited piece of steel. The way he handled hot metal was a marvel of tenderness and dispatch. He could strike the precise and necessary blow needed to create a strong thing from a seething moltenness. Mootfowl was quite tall. Even when Peter Lake was fully grown, he felt half Mootfowl’s size. And Mootfowl had a rugged face of many handsome planes, sooty and shining, in which rested two sparkling owl’s eyes. Each time he saw those eyes, Peter Lake was reminded of his days with the Baymen, when he would sometimes have for breakfast a hot roasted owl, buttered and sizzling. But those days were long over. Under Mootfowl’s tutelage, he learned to read and write, to use mathematics, to bargain skillfully in the matter of jobs and commissions, and to know the city well enough to find his way about. Since half the boys were Irish, Peter Lake learned to speak in a flexible and true Irish dialect. He liked it well enough—it was like riding the waves—and he found after a few years that he could speak in no other way, except to recall slowly articulated phrases from lays in Bay. Still, he was often saddened by the loss of his original self, whatever that had been. He was not really a Bayman, not really Irish, and only partly one of Mootfowl’s boys, since, unlike the gamy five-year-olds who were to be seen in a corner of the shed, learning to work with miniature tools, he had been apprenticed relatively late. He was not sure to what he had to be loyal. But he assumed that this uncertainty, like the other torments suffered by his fellow “lunatics,” would someday vanish.
Meanwhile, Mootfowl and his group were ever at work as the city’s structures took their places one upon the other, faster than reef-building corals. Each tower had a minute of free view, after which it would spend the rest of eternity contemplating the shins of its competitors. Not so the great bridges. They flowed out over the rivers, and would have airy views and be alone forever. Mootfowl worshiped bridges. He had worked on several, and when he heard that another was to be flung over a wide bend of the East River, toward Brooklyn, he was all feathers and wine for days, since he knew that a bridge of that length would require specially forged components and expert repairs. One of his more holy moments was when he told his boys about the time that he mended some broken ferris joints for Colonel Roebling after the four main cables of the Brooklyn Bridge had been spun across the river. Mootfowl had hung high above the water, as dizzy as a bird in a storm, with a forge hanging by his side. There he did the work, to the delight of thousands crossing below on the Fulton ferry.
“Jackson Mead,” Mootfowl said with reverence and admiration, “has come from beyond the Ohio with a hundred good men and tons of money and steel from God knows where, to start another bridge. They arrived after a storm. The white wall had imprisoned the countryside for days and days. Just as it was lifting, out charged their train, parting the mist on the Erie Lackawanna tracks. It was a great surprise to the farmers, who said that the train hit the bottom of the curtain. They say, boys, that the top of the train was scraped and torn, that it shone from contact with the underside of the wall.
“Be that as it may, Jackson Mead is here, and the bridge will be going up. We should say prayers for it.”
“Why?” asked one of the forge boys, a small adenoidal fellow who was always very skeptical.
Mootfowl glared at him. “A bridge,” he proclaimed, “is a very special thing. Haven’t you seen how delicate they are in relation to their
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