I have heard that “guessing pigs” was an old-time sport among farmers. To test their skill, each farmer would guess the weight of a grazing pig. Then they would catch the porker, throw him on the scales, and find out which farmer had guessed nearest the mark. Sunday clothes used to be badly soiled in this sport. But the iron worker does not guess his pigs. He knows exactly how much pig-iron he put into the boil. His guessing skill comes into play when with a long paddle and hook he separates six hundred pounds of sizzling fireworks into three fire balls each of which will weigh two hundred pounds. The balls are rolled up into three resting places, one in the fire-bridge corner, one in the flue-bridge corner, and one in the jam, all ready for the puddler to draw them. My batch of biscuits is now done and I must take them out at once and rush them to the hungry mouth of the squeezing machine. A bride making biscuits can jerk them out of the oven all in one pan. But my oven is larger and hotter. I have to use long-handled tongs, and each of my biscuits weighs twice as much as I weigh. Suppose you were a cook with a fork six feet long, and had three roasting sheep on the grid at once to be forked off as quickly as possible. Could you do it? Even with a helper wouldn't you probably scorch the mutton or else burn yourself to death with the hot grease? That is where strength and skill must both come into play. One at a time the balls are drawn out on to a buggy and wheeled swiftly to the squeezer. This machine squeezes out the slag which flows down like the glowing lava running out of a volcano. The motion of the squeezer is like the circular motion you use in rolling a bread pill between the palms and squeezing the water out of it. I must get the three balls, or blooms, out of the furnace and into the squeezer while the slag is still liquid so that it can be squeezed out of the iron. From cold pig-iron to finished blooms is a process that takes from an hour and ten minutes, to an hour and forty minutes, depending on the speed and skill of the puddler, and the kind of iron. I was a fast one, myself. But you expected that, from the fact that I am telling the story. The man that tells the story always comes out a winner. CHAPTER XIX. I START ON MY TRAVELS Now that I was a master puddler, I faced the problem of finding a furnace of my own. I saw no chance in Sharon. Furnaces passed from father to son, so I could not hope to get one of the furnaces controlled by another family. My father was not ready to relinquish his furnace to me, as he was good for twenty years more of this vigorous labor.