John Henry was still walking under the table, but he was already holding the hammer tightly in his hands. He always dangled under the feet of adults who worked with a hammer and nails, and as soon as he found a nail, even rusty or whole, he would immediately hammer it into the wall of his hut. You could even say John grew up with a hammer in his hands.
John's father and mother were slaves, like all other blacks in America. But when the Civil War ended in 1865 and President Ab Lincoln signed the emancipation of blacks from slavery, John Henry left the plantation and started scrap metal.
He beat and cut old iron left over from the Civil War so that it could be put into use again. His iron went into new hammers, hammers and fancy drills, as well as rails for the railroad.
At first, John Henry worked with a hammer weighing twenty pounds (a pound is a measure of weight, approximately 400 g). As an adult, he was already throwing a thirty-pound hammer over his left shoulder. Then he began to bend and break old iron with a forty-pound hammer. And finally he chopped it with a seventy-pound giant hammer.
Having gone through all this science, John Henry decided to do something more interesting. He now wanted to use one of the new hammers, made from the old iron that he had bent and broken.
He dreamed of hammering spikes into sleepers with this hammer so that the rails made of the iron he crushed would hold more securely.
And John Henry went to work on the railroad. Soon he alone could do the work of an entire team of railway workers. While the crew was driving the spikes into the left rail, he managed to finish the right rail. He had two assistants to serve the crutches and two more to run for food.
One day John Henry told his chief, who was in charge of all the work, to give the brigade a break. Like, he can handle both rails himself.
John took a ten-pound hammer in each hand and walked between the rails along the sleepers.
From left to right, from right to left, his hammers flew over his shoulder, describing a sparkling arc. A blow and the crutch is driven into the sleepers. Another blow, another crutch entered the sleeper.
All day the crew watched John Henry work, and admired and rejoiced. This is a man, they said to one another. A real man!
Needless to say, John Henry was the best railroad worker in the entire South, and to be fair, in the entire country. Swinging a hammer had been his favorite pastime since childhood.
Waving, he sang. The hammer cut the air with a whistle, and the words of the song rang in time with it. Aaah! - the head of the crutch responded when John hit it with a hammer. A-ah! – John grunted, lowering the hammer with a swing.
There is no such hammer - ah! In our mountains - ah! There is no such hammer - ah! In our mountains - ah! There is no such hammer - ah! Singing like mine - oh!
Everyone who worked with John was very proud of him, and therefore sadness lay on their hearts when they heard his new song. It started like this:
Take my hammer - oh!
And it ended:
Well, I went - oh!
He learned that there was more difficult and important work for his hammer in other places.
By that time, the entire country was covered with railways. When they were built, wherever possible they tried to shorten the path. So, instead of building a road through the mountain or around the mountain, it was now carried straight through the mountain through a tunnel.
Usually, in order to make a tunnel in solid rock, an explosion was carried out. But first, the hammermen used hammers and steel drills to cut a hole in the rock, and then they placed explosives or dynamite into this hole.
The longest tunnel was then built on the railroad between the Chesapeake and Ohio.
– This is where it’s worth working! - John Henry decided. “I’m free, and I have more than enough strength,” he rejoiced as he made his way through the mountains to West Virginia, where the famous Big Bend Tunnel was being built between the Chesapeake Bay and the state of Ohio, or, as they said then, “Ch. and O.” “This kind of work is just for me.”
He walked and sang, and his thick bass filled the bottomless canyons, reflecting from their walls with a loud echo:
My hammer sings, sings.
And the white steel sings, sings.
I'll punch a hole, yes, guys.
Big hole, hole.
I'll punch a hole
Big hole, hole.
John Henry had no doubt that he would punch a large hole in the inaccessible rock with his hammer and a steel drill.
When John Henry reached Big Bend, the chief builder took one look at the Negro giant and his muscles and handed him an eight-pound hammer.
“An eight-pound hammer is no good for me,” said John Henry. “If you want me to drill a hole, give me a bigger hammer and let me choose the handle I like for it,” John said.
Then the chief handed John Henry a ten-pound hammer and a whole pile of handles to choose from. John Henry chose the thinnest of them and trimmed it even thinner. He needed a handle that was strong but flexible, so that it would bend but not break when he hit the steel drill with a hammer.
But John decided to check whether it was flexible enough and, placing the hammer on the handle, he lifted it and held it in his outstretched hand until the heavy hammer on the flexible handle bent to the ground. That's when John Henry was satisfied.
- And so that my shaker is of the highest class! - said John Henry.
A shaker was a worker who rocked and turned a steel drill in a hole. The sharp end of the drill had to dance all the time, breaking off piece by piece of solid rock, and not stand still, otherwise it would completely jam.
The chief looked around at everyone and chose among the white workers a giant almost as tall as John Henry.
“Come on, Little Bill,” the chief told him, “follow John Henry into the tunnel with the drill in your arms.” You have the honor of being his shaker!
Well, Little Bill was ready to work as a shaker for such a glorious hammerman. He told John Henry how they were going to cut this great tunnel by hand. In those days, no one knew what a drilling machine was.
Two teams immediately set to work from opposite ends of the mountain. Hammermen walked ahead, piercing the tip of a steel drill into the solid rock. They punched a hole into which they then placed dynamite and blew up the rock. The result was a narrow tunnel - the “main” one. Then they drilled the floor of the “main” tunnel and used dynamite to expand it to the required size so that a train could pass through the tunnel.
Railway company "Ch. and O." was in a hurry to build the great Big Bend Tunnel, which is why they began to break through the mountain from both ends at once. Both brigades were to meet in the middle of the mountain.
Little Bill told John Henry that tunneling was hard work. The kerosene tanks lighting the path create such fumes that you can’t breathe. And the dust! And from explosions and from crumbling rock under the tip of the drill.
But John Henry only chuckled at all this, continuing to crawl forward along the “main” and biting deeper into the rock.
Just for fun, John Henry even came up with new words for his song:
My poor assistant
I feel sorry for him. My poor assistant
I feel sorry for him. My poor assistant, I feel sorry for him.
Every day, every day it takes one.
They had already passed almost the entire “main” tunnel. Little Bill held the drill with both hands, drilling into the rock under the blows of John Henry. And to the rhythm of the beats John Henry continued to sing:
Rocks and mountains loomed over us, Rocks and mountains loomed over us, Every day, every day Here one is buried.
And on the other side of the mountain, drillers from the oncoming team leaned against the wall in the middle of the tunnel and listened with bated breath to the rumble and sound of John Henry's thick bass.
My Hammer Friend
sings like a diamond. My Hammer Friend
crumbles into silver. My Hammer Friend
glitters like gold.
John Henry was happier than ever.
– Who has the most accurate blow to the drill head? John Henry's! - Little Bill was proud and boasted. -Who drills the deepest holes in the rock? John Henry! Who can work the fastest with a hammer? John Henry, John Henry!
Every one of the thousands who have made their way through the great Big Bend has heard of John Henry. He was familiar to almost everyone.
When the drillers crawled out of the narrow “main” outside, escaping from the next explosion, they, all as one, said that John Henry hit his hammer so hard and fast that Little Bill did not always have time to shake and turn the steel drill, and it, overheating, began to melt.
Little Bill was given advice: stock up on a dozen barrels of ice to cool the drill. Why, there were barrels of ice, he also had to stock up on hammers in order to change them several times a day, since in the hands of John Henry they overheated too quickly and also became soft, like wax.
When curious spectators approached the tunnel, they were simply frightened. It seemed to them that the entire mountain was shaking to the ground and a violent wind was rushing into the depths of the tunnel in a clear rhythm. What if it's an earthquake coming? However, the drillers explained that it was just the blows of the hammer in the hands of John Henry on the head of the steel drill.
Everyone who worked the great Big Bend was proud of John Henry. He did with his hammer everything that a man can do with a hammer.
And the chief builder was proud of him too. He immediately called John Henry to his place when an engineer one day showed up at Big Bend and offered to put a new machine into operation.
well - a steam drill. She worked with steam and could replace three hammers and three drillers at once.
Hearing about such a miracle, John Henry laughed. Loud peals of laughter shook the air, and now it was the turn of those who worked in the tunnel to be frightened. They decided that an earthquake had started and jumped out of the tunnel to see what had happened. And having learned what the engineer said about the new drilling machine, we laughed along with John Henry.
Why? Yes, because whoever, and they knew well that John Henry could cope with the work of not three, but four drillers, that’s how!
Then the engineer got angry and challenged John Henry to a competition. We chose the strongest rock that was clearly visible from everywhere. Little Bill brought the best steel drills, some even more than twenty feet long. A lot of people gathered. John Henry's wife, Polly Ann, also came in an elegant blue dress.
John Henry demanded a twenty pound hammer. He tied a bow to its handle and sang:
A man is only a man.
But if I can't overcome
Your steam drill,
May I die with a hammer in my hand.
The chief placed John Henry on the right side of the mountain, and the engineer with his steam drill on the left. Then he raised his gun and fired. The competition has begun.
The twenty-pound hammer arced upward, over the shoulder, then, whistling, cutting through the air, down again - boom! - along the head of a steel drill And up again, sparkling like a comet, over the shoulder, behind the back and down again. Up - down, up - down. John Henry worked and sang:
My hammer rings, rings, And the steel sings, sings. I'll knock a hole in the rock, a hole. Hey guys, there's a hole in the rock, I'll knock a hole in the rock.
But the steam drill did not lag behind him. Rat-a-tat-tat!.. – the car thundered. Psh-sh-sh-sh... - the steam hissed, hiding both the rock and the car from view. At first, no one could even make out, because of the steam, whether the work was in full swing or standing still, or whether the rock was crumbling or not. However, Little Bill knew his business and, when necessary, exchanged the short drill for a longer one, because the hole in the rock was getting deeper under the mighty blows of John Henry. And then everyone saw that the engineer was also changing the drill tips, choosing longer and longer ones. His car had already made a hole twelve inches deep in the rock. Well, what about John Henry? No, so far he has only gone ten inches into the rock. Only for ten!
But he did not lose heart, my friend John Henry. He hammered and sang.
He beat and sang. He hammered all morning without stopping and sang, stopping only to call out to his wife Polly Ann. And she immediately threw a bucket of cold water onto John Henry’s back to make him cooler and more fun to work with.
At noon, John Henry saw that a steam drill had drilled ten feet deep into the rock. How much did John Henry himself make? Ah, only nine!
So what's wrong with that? John was not worried, he sat down to dinner calmly and ate everything that Polly Ann brought him. But he didn't say a word and didn't sing anymore. He was deep in thought.
After lunch the competition continued. John Henry began to adjust his hammer. And the shaker began to work faster. John Henry asked his Hammer friends to sing his favorite song, the Hammer Song.
- Just sing faster! - he asked. - As quickly as possible!
And they began to sing, and John Henry could only join in - a-ah!
...such a hammer - ah! In our mountains - ah! There is no such hammer - ah! Singing like mine - oh!
Slowly but surely, John Henry began to gradually catch up with the steam drill. When evening fell and the end of the competition was approaching, Little Bill took his longest drill. Both holes in the rock were then nineteen feet deep. John Henry was very tired. Even the sweat stopped pouring from him like hail, he was completely dry, and the breath came out of his chest with a whistle, like steam from a drilling machine.
But what can I say, the car is also tired. She knocked, and rattled, and trembled, and staggered. It no longer worked without pops and blows.
When John Henry raised his hammer over his head with the last of his strength, the hammermen standing next to him heard his hoarse, muffled voice:
I'll knock a hole in the rock, a hole. Hey guys, there's a hole in the rock, I'll knock a hole in the rock.
And he knocked out a hole. The chief fired his gun to tell everyone that the competition was over. And then everyone saw that John Henry had drilled a hole in the rock exactly twenty feet deep. And the steam drill is only nineteen and a half.
John Henry wins!
But before the chief had time to announce the winner, John Henry’s tired body crouched to the ground.
“A man is only a man,” he whispered and died.
John Henry. That was the Man!
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru