text: He'd cleaned the little cabin completely and moved himself into it. It had a cookstove, and Grit used his pay to buy groceries to feed himself. His only other expense was a book he'd seen in Conroy's General Store called Around the World in Eighty Days by a man named Jules Verne.
  
  On Grit's first Sunday off, he'd taken one of the three double-bit axes that he owned and chopped Mrs. McCaskey enough wood to last for a month, and it had taken him a little over an hour. Afterward, he still had some time, and he saw that there were weeds in various parts of the yard, and he got on his hands and knees and pulled them all, making sure the gardens around the house looked clean and neat.
  
  On Monday morning, he'd reported for work at 7 a.m. and had worked until 4:30 drilling into the sandstone to facilitate splitting the stone into large blocks. The quarry had five derricks to move the blocks and place them on railroad flat cars. There was no need to tie down the huge blocks of stone. They were so heavy they weren't going to move until they reached their destinations.
  
  Grit learned that the Berea sandstone was prized all over the country for its ability to withstand huge amounts of weight and not fracture. So it was used in the foundations of many buildings all across the East. One of the men said that the sandstone shelf ran all the way down the state of Ohio, but the sandstone became finer as the shelf trended south and was mixed with clay. The man said the southern stone was outstanding for making fine-textured grindstones to sharpen tools.
  
  Having been a woodcutter, Grit had long ago recognized the importance of having a good grindstone because having a sharp ax made all the difference in downing a tree and limbing it, cutting firewood or splitting rails.
  
  He'd been there two months when he took his noon break for dinner. He'd made no friends other than his partner, Paulie. Grit grabbed the sack he'd brought along, plunged his hand into it and brought out one of his thick roast beef sandwiches. Paulie sat down beside him, reached into his sack and pulled out a handful of sand.
  
  Somebody had taken his sandwich. As he pulled his hand out covered with sand, Paulie heard some of the men nearby laughing at him.
  
  "Hey, boy, you enjoy your lunch?" a hefty man known to Grit only as Turk yelled. Turk was big but Grit could tell he was soft, and he was always slacking off one way or another. Grit wondered why the foreman kept the man and his friends on the payroll.
  
  Paulie got up and started to walk away. Turk ran over and grabbed Paulie's shoulder. "I asked you if you enjoyed your dinner, boy."
  
  "Not much," Paulie said. "Now let me go."
  
  "Or what?" Turk said.
  
  "Leave 'im alone, or you'll deal with me," Grit said, his voice like rumbling thunder.
  
  "You stay outta this," Turk said. "Ain't none of your business."
  
  Paulie tried once more to walk around the man, but Turk stepped in front of him.
  
  Grit stood and said, "I told you to leave him alone. I won't be tellin' ya again."
  
  "Oh really," Turk said. "Hey fellas, he won't be tellin' me again. Ooh, I'm scared, I am."
  
  Turk walked toward Grit, looked back at his men and swung a looping shot at Grit's face. Grit caught the fist in his left hand and started twisting. Turk turned clear around trying to relieve the pressure on his arm, and when he did, Grit brought Turk's arm up behind his back and pressured it severely. He said, "A bit more leverage and I could dislocate your arm. You'd never get over it your whole life. It's something no doctor can ever fix. Don't mess with the boy ever again."
  
  "Ow, ow, ow, okay, I won't!" Turk yelled. Grit shoved him toward his buddies, and he fell to his knees.
  
  "Same goes for all of you. Don't ever mess with the boy again, or you'll regret it."
  
  He grabbed the sack with his sandwiches and said, "Let's go, Paulie." They moved off aways and sat down together.
  
  "Here, Paulie, take this sandwich," Grit said, "I have two."
  
  "You sure, Grit?" Paulie asked. "You work so much harder than I do."
  
  "That's ok. I'm sure. One's plenty for me today."
  
  Grit and Paulie worked all afternoon and when they knocked off at 4:30, Paulie asked, "Would you mind if I walked downtown with you, Grit? I'm a little scared of those men."
  
  "No, I wouldn't mind."
  
  When they walked down the road from the quarry, Grit saw there were three of them waiting, and it looked like they had clubs in their hands. He was tired and not up for a fight, but it was being forced on him, so he said, "Paulie, you stay behind me. Don't try to fight these men. They'll hurt you. Just let me handle it." Paulie did exactly what Grit had told him and hung back a bit.
  
  Grit walked right down the road, and when he came to the three, he said, "Three's not nearly enough. Get out of our way or somebody's gonna get hurt bad."
  
  Turk pulled up the iron pipe about two feet long and started whacking his left palm with it, and the other two men pulled out similar weapons.
  
  '"I reckon three plus these three iron pipes oughta be enough," Turk said.
  
  They came at Grit from different directions, and Grit turned to Turk whose arm was coming down with the pipe. Grit grabbed the pipe in mid-swing, pivoted and jerked Turk between him and the other two assailants. One of the men swung the iron pipe at Grit but instead hit Turk. There was a crunch of broken bone, and Turk screamed in agony and grabbed his collarbone.
  
  While Turk howled, Grit shoved him aside and turned to face the other two. Then Paulie saw Grit do the strangest thing. He slung Turk's iron pipe into the woods and stood with his hands at his side.
  
  "I don't need an iron pipe to whip you two," he said. He rushed at them a few steps, and they dropped the pipes and ran off down the road, scurrying like mice let out of a cage and leaving Turk there by himself.
  
  "There go your friends, Turk," Grit said. "Stop howling and get after 'em."
  
  Grit stomped his foot and glared, and that was all it took. Turk jumped back and scrambled after his friends, holding his right arm close to his body and yelling in pain with every step.