As a preliminary to unloading, we had to carry to the car some heavy wooden blocks to serve as supports to an inclined plane by which the machines could be slid to the ground. It sometimes required four and even six men together to lift these blocks, and repeatedly I found myself next in line to the new-comers. Their linen collars were wilting with the sweat of labor, and it had apparently not occurred to them to take them off. Their shirts, of delicate color, were turned up above their elbows with gold link-buttons dangling from the cuffs. The rough wood was fretting their bare white arms cruelly. I had a chance presently to speak to one of them, and I showed him how he could get a hold which would not be so chafing. In a moment of leisure he came up and thanked me frankly, and volunteered the information that his friend and he were but a week over from England and, having failed utterly to find other work in Chicago where they had supposed that employment was plentiful, they were glad enough in an extremity to accept this means of living. Most pluckily have they stuck at it. I have never again been associated with them in a job, but, I see them almost every day, and through rain and shine they have been the steadiest members of their gang. Places better suited to them will be found, no doubt, as the general work progresses; and that will not be long, I hope, for just now the boys are at a considerable disadvantage. It was only two or three mornings ago that I happened to meet them again near Mr. Dutton’s office, where they had been sent to fetch some tools. The fairer boy wore a bandage which covered his left forearm and most of the hand. I asked him what had happened, and he explained to me how that in handling some old sleepers he had missed his hold in one case, and, with the fall of the heavy timber, a rusty iron nail tore down through his arm and the palm of his hand, leaving a ragged wound open nearly to the bone. He had had it dressed promptly by a good surgeon, who reassured him as to danger of complications. But it had taken all his companion’s savings and his own to pay the original fee, and they were in arrears for the daily dressing. Luckily, however, he was still able to work, and Mr. Russell kept him employed, he told me, in ways which brought his injured arm very little into play.