bricks.

"It happened this way," said he. "One of the big booms broke under its
load just over where I was standing, and the tackle-block swung around
and caught me back of the head. That knocked me off the false work, and
I went straight down to the ground. Just to show you the force of my
fall, sir, I struck a timber about thirty feet before I landed; it was
eight inches wide and four inches thick, and I snapped it off without
hardly slowing up. After that I lay for a week in the hospital with
bruises, but there wasn't a bone broken, and I've been at work ever
since."

Several times while I was seeking permission to go up on the structure I
was treated to stories like this and to mild dissuasion. It was too
dangerous a thing, they said, for a man to undertake lightly. And I did
not succeed until I met the engineer in charge, Charles E. Bedell, a
forceful, quiet-mannered man, who, after some talk, granted my request.
He did not dwell so much on the danger as the others had, although he
did say: "Of course you take all the risks."

"Do you think they are very great?" I asked.

"Not if you use ordinary caution and are not afraid."

Fear was the fatal thing, he said, and he told me of men who simply
cannot endure such heights. Every day or two some new hand would start
down the ladders almost before he had reached the top, and come into the
office saying he couldn't stand the job.

"But you go ahead," said Mr. Bedell; "you'll come through all right.
Just take it easy and be careful." Then he handed me a permit.

[Illustration: Handwritten:

South Kent St & Kent Ave

Permit Mr. Moffett to visit the work at any time
until further notice.

Charles E. Bedell]

We have seen how I fared on the bridge; let me show now what befell this
brilliant young engineer a couple of months later, and observe how his
own case illustrates the paralyzing effect of fear upon a man. For
months he had gone over the structure daily, as sure of himself at those
giddy heights as on the ground. He never took chances, and he never
felt afraid. But one day a workman fell from far above him and was
crushed to death right before his eyes, and this was more of a shock to
him than he realized.

How much of a shock it had been was shown weeks later, when the hour of
peril came. It was a pleasant day in September, and the bridge was
singing its busy s