John Henry

Part One · A Hammer in His Hand

The night John Henry was born, the hills rang like a bell. He was the biggest baby anyone had ever seen, with a voice like thunder, and he ate four breakfasts and then asked for a fifth. Before he could walk, he picked up a small hammer and grinned. "That boy was made for iron," said his father. By the time he was grown, John Henry stood taller than any doorway, so he had learned to duck politely.

He traveled west to work on the railroad, where thousands of men were building tracks across the country. Whenever a mountain stood in the way, the workers had to carve a passage right through the solid rock. John Henry became a steel driver. He swung a heavy hammer to pound long steel spikes deep into the stone, and then the blasters filled the holes with powder and exploded the rock apart.

John Henry swung two hammers at once, one in each hand, and each hammer weighed twenty pounds. The sound echoed across the valley, clang, clang, clang, while sparks jumped from the rock like fireflies. The other workers sang to keep time. "This old hammer rings like silver," they sang. "Shines like gold, boys, shines like gold." John Henry could drill farther in one day than any three ordinary men.

The crew was digging an enormous tunnel through Big Bend Mountain, and it was sweltering, dusty, exhausting work. The men could not see the sun. The air tasted like stone. But John Henry always had a smile and a song, and whenever a man's arms ached, he borrowed his hammer for an hour. "A hammer is just a friend that hits back," he told them. The men loved him for it.

Part Two · The Steam Drill

One morning, a stranger arrived with a peculiar machine, a steam drill, shiny and black, with a tall chimney that puffed gray smoke. The stranger was a salesman in a suit so clean that it squeaked. "This machine can drill faster than ten men," he said. "Soon your hammers will not be needed at all." The workers went quiet. They looked at the machine, and then they looked at their own tired hands.

The boss rubbed his chin. If the steam drill was faster, he might send his workers home, and the men were terrified, because they had families and the railroad was their only job. Then John Henry stood up straight, and the whole tunnel seemed to grow smaller around him. "I'll tell you what," he said. "Let the machine and me have a race. If I lose, I'll go. If I win, every man here keeps his job."

The salesman laughed, but he agreed. The race was set for the next morning at the mouth of the tunnel. That night, John Henry sat by the fire with his wife, Polly Ann, and his little boy. "Daddy, are you scared?" the boy asked. John Henry shook his head. "A man ain't got nothing to be scared of when he's doing right," he said. "I'm swinging for all of us tomorrow." Then he slept and dreamed of silver hammers.

Part Three · The Race

At sunrise, the whole camp came to watch, and workers, cooks, and children crowded around the rock. The steam drill hissed and shook like a kettle about to boil. John Henry stepped up with a hammer in each hand and a sweatband around his head. The boss raised his arm. "Ready, set, go!" he shouted. The steam drill roared and the hammers rang, and the great race began.

At first, the steam drill pulled ahead, chugging and rattling as it bit into the rock. The salesman clapped his hands. But John Henry only hummed and kept swinging. Clang, clang, clang! His hammers fell so fast that the crowd could not see them, and the steel sang against the stone. The men began to sing along, and soon the whole mountain was singing. John Henry's song was louder than the machine.

Hour after hour, the race went on. The sun climbed high, and the dust rose in enormous clouds. Sweat poured down John Henry's face, but his arms never slowed. The steam drill coughed and spat. One of its pipes shook loose, and the salesman's fancy hat blew off in the steam, and nobody went to get it. "A man is nothing but a man," said John Henry, "but I will beat that drill or die with this hammer in my hand."

Then, high above the tunnel, the rock gave a long, slow creak. Dust trickled down. The crowd gasped, and Polly Ann grabbed the boy's hand. John Henry did not look up. He just swung harder, and the hammer rang a little louder. The creaking stopped, as if the mountain itself had decided to hold its breath and watch. He drove one more spike, and then another.

Part Four · The Song

When the sun began to set, the boss blew his whistle. The men measured the holes. The steam drill had finished one hole, seven feet deep, but John Henry had finished two, each one nine feet deep. He had won! The whole camp cheered so loudly that the mountain seemed to tremble. The salesman packed up his machine without a word, and every man there would keep his job.

But John Henry had given the race every bit of his strength. His hands were trembling and his chest felt tight, so he smiled at the crowd and sat down slowly on a flat rock. Polly Ann hurried to his side, and the men gathered around them. "I'm just tired, Polly Ann," he whispered. "I want to rest a while." He looked up at the sky, which was gold and pink, the prettiest he had ever seen.

John Henry laid down his hammer and closed his eyes. His great, kind heart had given out at last, because he had done exactly what he promised. The men took off their hats. Nobody spoke for a long time. Then, softly, one of them began to hum the hammer song, and another joined him, and another, until the whole camp was singing together in the evening light.

They buried John Henry near the mouth of the tunnel, with his hammer beside him. Trains rumbled through the mountain for years afterward. People say that on quiet nights you can still hear a ringing sound, clang, clang, clang, from deep in the hills. The steam drill rusted away long ago. But folks everywhere still sing about the steel-driving man, and the song has never needed any oil.