“I’m glad to hear you defend her, Jack,” Mr. Gandiss said quietly. “Certainly no action will be taken without far more conclusive evidence. Now suppose you and Penny amuse yourselves for a few minutes. Mr. Parker and I have a few business matters to discuss.”
Thus dismissed, Penny and Jack wandered outside.
“Want to see the steel plant?” Jack asked indifferently. “They should be pouring about this time.”
At Penny’s eager assent, he led her to another building, up a steep flight of iron stairs to an inner balcony which overlooked the huge blast furnaces. In the noisy, hot room, conversation was practically impossible.
Gazing below, Penny saw a crew of men in front of one of the furnaces, cleaning the tapping hole with a long rod.
In a moment a signal was given and the molten steel was poured into a ladle capable of holding a hundred and fifty tons. An overhead crane, operated by a skilled worker, lifted the huge container to the pouring platform.
Next the molten mass was turned into rectangular ingots or molds.
“The steel will cool for about an hour before it is ready to be taken from the mold,” Jack shouted in Penny’s ear.
Moving on, they saw other ingots already cooled, and in a stripping shed observed cranes with huge tongs engage the lugs of the molds and lift them from the ingots.
“Each one of those ingots weighs twenty thousand pounds,” Jack said, surprising Penny with his knowledge. “After stripping, they are placed in gas-heated pit furnaces and brought to rolling temperature.”
To see fiery ribbons of steel rolled from cherry red ingots was to Penny the most fascinating process of all. She could have watched for hours, but Jack, bored by the familiar sight, kept urging her on.
Leaving the steel plant, they returned to the main factory buildings, and without thinking, sauntered toward the room where Sally worked. A portable lunch cart had just supplied hot soup and sandwiches to the employes. Sally sat eating at her machine. Seeing Jack, she quickly looked away.
“Now she’s really sore at me, and I can’t blame her,” Jack commented. “Who is Joe the Sweeper anyhow? Riff-raff, I’ll warrant.”
Though somewhat amused by the boy’s staunch defense of Sally, Penny was inclined to agree in his second observation. Although she knew nothing of the man who had turned informer, she had not liked the sly look of his face.
Before the pair could approach Sally, the brief lunch period came to an end. A whistle blew, sending the girls back to their machines.
“You’ll have to step on it,” a foreman told Sally. “You’re behind in your quota.”
Her reply was inaudible, but as she adjusted her machine and started it up, she began to work with nervous haste.
“This is no place for Sally,” Jack said, obviously bothered. “She never was cut out for factory work. And that foreman, Rogers, who is over her! He’s a regular slave driver!”
“I thought you didn’t like Sally,” Penny teased.
“I want to see her get a square deal, that’s all,” Jack replied, his face flushing.
Joe the Sweeper sidled over to the couple. “What’s the verdict?” he asked in a confidential tone.
Jack pretended not to understand.
“Is the gal going to get fired?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Jack answered coldly. “Why does it mean so much to you?”
“Why, it don’t,” the sweeper muttered. “She ain’t no skin off my elbow.”
Penny and Jack walked on through the workroom, aware that many pairs of eyes followed them. Sally, bending over a grinding machine, looked up self-consciously. She was grinding pieces of metal, measuring each with a micrometer. There was a streak of grease across her cheek and she looked very tired.
Suddenly as Sally threw the wheel in, there was a loud clattering noise. The foreman came running. He threw the wheel back.
“What did I do?” Sally gasped, shaking from nervousness.
“You forgot to pull this lever.” The foreman said curtly. “Ruined a piece of work too! Now try to think what you’re doing and get down to business.”
Penny and Jack moved away, not wishing to add to the girl’s embarrassment. But a few minutes later, in leaving the workroom, they again passed close to Sally’s machine. This time she did not see them until they were almost beside her.
“How is it going, Sally?” Jack asked in a friendly way.
Sally raised her eyes, and in so doing forgot her work. As she automatically placed the metal in line with the wheel, she held her fingers there without thinking. Another instant and they would have been mangled.
Horrified, Penny saw what was about to happen.
“Sally!” she cried. Acting instinctively, she reached and jerked the girl’s hand away from the swift turning machinery. The wheel had missed Sally’s fingers by a mere fraction of an inch.
The foreman came running again, obviously annoyed. Shutting off the machine, he demanded to know what was wrong.
Sally leaned her head weakly on the table, trying to regain composure. Her face was drained of color and she trembled as from a chill. “Thanks,” she said brokenly to Penny. “I—I don’t know what’s the matter with me tonight. I’m not coordinated right.”
“Go take a walk,” the foreman advised, not unkindly. “A nice long walk. Get a drink or something. You’ll be okay.”
“I’ll never learn,” Sally said in a choked voice.
“Sure, you will. Everyone has to go through a beginner’s stage. Get yourself a drink. Then you’ll feel better.”
“Let me go with you,” Penny said, taking Sally by the arm.
Without conversation, they made their way between the long rows of machines to the locker room. There Sally sank down on a bench, burying her face in her hands.
“I’m nervous and upset tonight,” she excused herself. “I can’t seem to get the hang of machine work.”
“Why not give it up? Do you really need the money so badly?”
“No,” Sally admitted truthfully. “I’ve set my heart on a college education, but Pop could raise the money somehow. It’s just that he’s had financial troubles the past year, and I wanted to help out.”
“Some persons aren’t cut out to be factory workers,”Penny resumed. “Do you realize that you nearly lost several of your fingers tonight?”
“Yes,” Sally agreed, her freckled face becoming deadly sober. “I’ll always be grateful to you. What Mr. Gandiss said in his office upset me. I wasn’t thinking of my work.”
“I thought that might be it. Well, forget the entire matter if you can.”
Sally nodded and getting up, drank at the fountain. “I’ll have to go back to work now,” she said with an effort. “First, I’ll get myself a clean hanky.”
With a key which she wore on a string about her neck, the girl opened her locker. On the floor lay a leather jacket that had fallen from its hook.
As Sally picked it up, a heavy object slipped from one of the pockets, thudding against the tin of the locker floor.
She stooped quickly to retrieve it, and then, embarrassed, tried to shield the article from view. But she could not hide it from Penny who stood directly behind. The object that had fallen from the jacket was a small coupling of brass!
CHAPTER 8
OVERHEARD IN THE GATEHOUSE
“Why, where did that come from?” Sally murmured as she fingered the piece of metal. “I never put it in my locker.”
Confused, she raised bewildered eyes to Penny. Just then the locker room door opened and a forelady came in. Miss Grimley’s keen gaze fastened upon the brass coupling in Sally’s hand. Awkwardly, the girl tried to hide it in a fold of her slacks.
“What do you have?” the forelady asked, moving like a hawk toward the girls.
“Why, nothing,” Sally stammered.
“Isn’t that a piece of brass?” Miss Grimley demanded. “Where did you get it?”
“I found it in my locker.”
“In yo
ur locker!”
“I don’t know how it got there,” Sally said quickly, reading suspicion in the other’s face. “I’m sure I never put it there.”
Miss Grimley took the brass from her, inspecting it briefly.
“This looks very much like one of the parts that has been disappearing from the stockroom,” she said, her voice icy.
“But I’ve never been near the stockroom!” Sally cried. “In the few days that I’ve been employed here, I’ve barely left my machine.”
Penny tried to intercede in the girl’s behalf.
“I’m sure Sally knew nothing about the article being in her locker,” she assured the forelady. “When she opened it a moment ago and lifted her jacket, the piece of brass fell from a pocket.”
“Someone must have put it there!” Sally added indignantly. “I’m certain I never did.”
“Have you given your locker key to anyone?”
“No.”
“And have you always kept it locked?”
“Why, I think so.”
“I am sorry,” said Miss Grimley in a tone which implied exactly the opposite, “but I will have to report this. You understand my position.”
“Please—”
“I have no choice,” Miss Grimley cut her short. “Come with me, please.”
Penny started to accompany Sally, but the forelady by a gesture indicated that she was not to come. The door closed behind them.
For ten minutes Penny waited, hoping that Sally would return. Finally she wandered outside. Sally was not on the floor and another girl had taken her place at the machine.
Seeing Joe the Sweeper cleaning a corridor, Penny asked him about Sally.
“No. 567?” the man inquired with a grin which showed a gap between his front upper teeth. “You won’t see her no more! She’s in the employment office now, and they’re giving her the can!”
“You mean she’s being discharged?”
“Sure. We don’t want no thieves around here!”
“Sally Barker isn’t a thief,” Penny retorted loyally. “By the way, how did you know why the girl was taken to the office?”
The question momentarily confused Joe. But his reply was glib enough.
“Oh, I have a way o’ knowin’ what goes on around here,” he smirked. “I figured that gal was light-fingered the day they hired her. It didn’t surprise me none that they found the stuff in her locker.”
“And who told you that?” Penny pursued the subject.
“Why, you said so yourself—”
“Oh, no I didn’t.”
“It was the forelady,” Joe corrected himself. “I seen the brass in her hand when she came out of the locker room with that gal.”
Disgusted, Penny turned her back and walked away in search of Jack. It was none of her affair, she knew, but it seemed to her that Joe the Sweeper had taken more than ordinary interest in Sally’s downfall. His statements, too, had been confused.
“I don’t trust that fellow,” she thought. “He’s sly and mean.”
Penny could not find Jack, and when she returned to Mr. Gandiss’ office, a secretary told her that the factory owner and her father expected to meet her at the main gate.
Hastening there, Penny saw no sign of them. Nor was the gateman on duty. However, hearing low voices inside the gatehouse, she stepped to the doorway. No one was in view, but two men were talking in the inner office.
“It worked slick as a whistle,” she heard one of them say. “The girl was caught with the stuff on her, and they fired her.”
“Who was she?”
“A new employee named Sally Barker.”
“Good enough, Joe. That ought to take the heat off the others for awhile at least.”
The name startled Penny who instantly wondered if one of the speakers might be Sweeper Joe. Confirming her suspicion, the man came out of the inner room a moment later. Seeing her, he stopped short and his jaw dropped.
“What you doin’ here?” he demanded gruffly.
“Waiting for Mr. Gandiss,” Penny replied. “And you?”
Joe did not answer. Mumbling something, he pushed past her and went off toward the main factory building.
“He’s certainly acting as if he deliberately planned to get Sally into trouble,” she thought resentfully.
Clayton, the gateman, showed his face a moment later, and he too acted self-conscious. As he checked a car through into the factory grounds, he glanced sideways at Penny, obviously uneasy as to how much she might have overheard.
“Been here long?” he inquired carelessly.
“No, I just came,” Penny answered with pretended unconcern. “I’m waiting for my father.”
The men did not come immediately. However, as Penny loitered near the gatehouse, she saw Sally Barker hurriedly leaving the factory building.
“Ain’t you off early tonight?” the gateman asked as she approached.
“I’m off for good,” Sally answered shortly. Her face was tear-stained and she did not try to hide the fact that she had been crying.
“Fired?”
“That’s right,” Sally replied. “Unjustly too!”
“Shoo, you don’t say!” the gateman exclaimed, sympathetically. “What did they give you the can for?”
Sally, in no mood to provide details, went on without answering. Penny ran to overtake her.
“I’ll walk with you to the boundaries of the grounds,” she said quickly. “Tell me what happened.”
“Just what you would expect,” Sally shrugged. “They asked me a lot of questions in the personnel office. I told the truth—that I knew nothing about that putrid piece of brass that turned up in my locker! Then they gave me a nice little lecture, and said they were sorry but my services no longer were required. Branded as a thief!”
“Don’t take it so hard, Sally,” Penny said kindly. “Someone probably planted the brass in your locker.”
“Of course! But I can’t prove it.”
“Why not appeal to Mr. Gandiss? He likes you and—”
“No,” Sally said firmly, kicking at a piece of gravel on the driveway, “I’ll ask no favors of Mr. Gandiss. He would have me reinstated, no doubt, but it would be too humiliating.”
“Do you know of anyone in the factory who dislikes you?”
Sally shook her head. “That’s the funny part of it. I’m not acquainted with anyone. I just started in.”
“How about Joe the Sweeper?”
“Oh, him!” Sally was scornful. “He caught me in the hall the other day and tried to get fresh. I slapped his face!”
“Then perhaps he was the one that got you into trouble.”
“He’s too stupid,” Sally dismissed the subject.
“I’m not so sure of that,” returned Penny thoughtfully.
The girls had reached the street and Sally’s bus was in sight.
“What will you do now?” Penny asked hurriedly. “Get a job at another factory?”
“I doubt it,” Sally replied, fishing in her pocketbook for a bus token. “I’ll help Pop on the River Queen. If I do take another job it won’t be until after the sailboat races.”
“I’d forgotten about that. When is the race?”
“The preliminary is in a few days—next Friday. The finals are a week later.”
“I hope you win,” said Penny sincerely. “I’ll certainly be on hand to watch.”
The bus pulled up at the curb. Swing-shift employes, arriving at the factory for work, crowded past the two girls. Impulsively Sally turned and squeezed Penny’s hand.
“I like you,” she said with deep feeling. “You’ve been kind. Will you come to see me sometime while you’re here?”
“Of course! I’ve not brought back those clothes I borrowed yet!”
“I’ll look for you,” Sally declared warmly. “I feel that you’re a real friend.”
Squeezing Penny’s hand again, she sprang aboard the bus and was lost in the throng of passengers.
CHAPTER 9
/> SALLY’S HELPER
Several days of inactivity followed for Penny at Shadow Island. For the most part, Jack was friendly and tried to provide entertainment. However, he was away much of the time, supervising the work of repairing and getting the Spindrift into condition for the coming trophy race.
Sally Barker’s name seldom was mentioned in the Gandiss household, though it was known that the girl intended to enter the competition regardless of her disgrace at the factory. Once Penny asked Jack point-blank what he thought of the entire matter.
“Just what I always did,” he answered briefly. “Sally never took anything from the factory. It wouldn’t be in keeping with her character.”
“Then why isn’t she cleared?”
“Father did take the matter up with the personnel department, but he doesn’t want to go over the manager’s head. The brass was found in her locker and quite a few employes learned about it.”
“The brass was planted!”
“Probably,” agreed Jack. “But it’s none of my affair. Sally wasn’t a very good factory worker and the personnel director thought he had to make an example of someone—”
“So Sally became the goat! I call it unfair. Did the thefts cease after she left?”
“They’re worse than ever.”
“Then obviously Sally had nothing to do with it!”
“Not just one person is involved. The brass is being taken by an organized ring of employes.”
“I suppose it’s none of my affair, but in justice I think Sally should be cleared. I don’t know the girl well, but I like her.”
“You may as well hear the whole story,” Jack said uncomfortably. “Father wrote her a letter, inviting her to come in for an interview. She paid no attention.”
“Perhaps she didn’t get the letter.”
“She got it all right. I met her on the street yesterday, and when I tried to talk to her, she threatened to heave a can of varnish in my face! Furthermore, she gave me to understand she intends to defeat me soundly in the race tomorrow.”
“I’ll be there to watch,” grinned Penny. “The contest should be interesting.”
While Jack was out on the river practicing for the approaching competition, Penny accompanied her father to the mainland to mail letters and make a few purchases Mrs. Gandiss had requested. In returning to the waterfront, they wandered down a street within view of the Gandiss factory.
The Penny Parker Megapack: 15 Complete Novels Page 138