the coal, the air-hose writhing like a wounded snake about their ankles.
The driller who had spoken wiped his sweaty face with his hands, his
eyes blinking with the dust. He picked up his greasy coat from beside
the track and wrapped it around his wet shoulders.
'Look out for the gas!' he shouted. 'There is a bit here, up high.'
He raised his lamp slowly to the jagged roof. A quick blue flame
suddenly expanded from the lamp and puffed down at him as he took away
his hand.
In the black end of the tunnel six small holes, each an inch and a half
in diameter and six feet deep, invisible in the darkness and against the
blackness of the coal, marked where the blasts were to be placed. On the
level floor, stretching from one wall of the entry to the other, the
undercut had been ground out with the chain-machines by the machine-men
during the afternoon; and as soon as the blasts were in and the fuses
lighted, the sudden wrench of these charges would tear down a solid
block of coal six feet deep by the height and depth of the entry, to
fall crushed and broken into the sump-cut, ready for the loaders on the
following morning.
Selecting and examining each cartridge, the shooters charged the
drill-holes. Two cartridges of black powder, tamped in with a long
copper-headed rod; then dummies of clay for wads, leaving hanging like a
great white cord from each charged drill-hole a yard of the long, white
fuse.
We turned and tramped down the tunnel and squatted on the track a safe
fifty yards away. Down at the end of the tunnel we had just deserted,
bobbed the tiny flames of the lights in the shooters' pit-caps. There
was a faint glow of sparks. 'Coming!' they yelled out through the
darkness, and we heard them running as we saw their lights grow larger.
For a minute we silently waited. Then, from the far end of the tunnel,
muffled and booming like the breaking of a great wave in some vast cave,
came a singing roar, now like the screech of metal hurled through the
air, and the black end of the tunnel flamed suddenly defiant; a solid
square of crimson flames, like the window of a burning house; and a roar
of flying air drove past us, putting out our lights and throwing us back
against the rails.
'It’s a windy one,' yelled Wild. 'Look out for the rib-shots.'
Like a final curtain in a darkened theatre, a slow pall of heavy smoke
sank down from the roof, and as it touched the floor, a second burst of
flame tore it suddenly upward, and far down the entry, the trappers'
door banged noisily in the darkness. Then we crept back slowly,
breathing hard in an air thick with dust and the smell of the burnt
black powder, to the end of the tunnel, where the whole face had been
torn loose--a great pile of broken coal against the end of the entry.
Often, bits of paper from the cartridges, lighted by the blast, will
start a fire in the piles of coal-dust left by the machine-men; and
before the shooters leave a room that has been blasted, an examination
must be made in order to prevent the possibility of fire.
All night long we moved from one entry to another, blasting down in each
six feet more of the tunnel, which would be loaded out on the following
day; and it was four in the morning before the work was finished.
It was usually between four and five in the morning when we left the
mine. As we stepped from the hoist and left behind us the confining
darkness, the smoky air, and the sense of oppression and silence of the
mine below, the soft, fresh morning air in the early dawn, or sometimes
the cool rain, seemed never more refreshing. One does not notice the
silence of a mine so much upon leaving the noise of the outer world and
entering the maze of tunnels on the day’s work, as when stepping off the
hoist in the early morning hours, when the world is almost still: the
sudden sense of sound and of living things emphasizes, by contrast, the
silence of the underworld. There is a noise of life, and the very motion
of the air seems to carry sounds. A dog barking half a mile away in the
sleeping town sounds loud and friendly, and there seems to be a sudden
clamor that is almost bewildering.
IV
It is natural that a mine should have its superstitions. The darkness of
the underworld, the silence, the long hours of solitary work, are all
conditions ideal to the birth of superstition; and when the workmen are
drawn from many nationalities, it is again but natural that the same
should be true of their superstitions.
One night when Carlson, the general manager, was sitting in his office,
there was a knock at the door, and two loaders, from the Hartz
Mountains, came into the room, talking excitedly, with Little Dick, the
interpreter. Their story was disconnected, but Carlson gathered the main
facts. They had been working in the northwest corner of the mine, in an
older part of the workings, and on their way out that afternoon, as they
were passing an abandoned room, they had noticed several lights far up
at its heading. Knowing that the room was no longer being worked, and
curious as to who should be there, they had walked up quietly toward the
lights. Here their story became more confused. There were two men, they
insisted, and they were certain that they were dwarfs. They had noticed
them carefully, and described them as little men, with great picks, who
were digging or burying something in the clay floor at the foot of one
of the props. A sudden terror had seized them, and they had not delayed
to make further investigation; but on the way out they had talked
together and had decided that these two strange creatures had been
burying some treasure: 'a pot of gold,' one of them argued.
Carlson was interested. The questions and answers grew more definite and
more startling. The two men whom they had seen were certainly
hump-backed. They were wielding enormous picks, and one of the loaders
believed that he had seen them put something into the hole. Then came
their request that they might be allowed to go back that night into the
mine, and with their own tools go to this abandoned room and dig for the
buried treasure. It was against precedent to allow any but the
night-shift into the mine; but superstitions are demoralizing, and the
best remedy seemed to be to allow them to prove themselves mistaken. An
hour later they were lowered on the hoist; and all that night, alone in
the silence of the mine, they dug steadily in the heading of the
abandoned room; but no treasure was discovered. All the next night they
dug; and it was not until seven nights' labor had turned over a foot and
a half of the hard clay of the entire heading that they abandoned their
search.
It is the custom of the men, when they leave the mine at the close of
the shift, to hide their tools; and the imaginations of the loaders,
worked upon by eight hours of solitary work, had doubtless seen in the
forms of two of their companions who were hiding their shovels the
traditional gnomes of their own Hartz Mountains.
In another part of the mine another superstition was given birth that
led to a more unfortunate result. This time it happened among the
Croatians, and, unfortunately, the story was told throughout the
boarding-houses before the bosses learned of it, so that one morning a
great section of the mine was abandoned by the men.
Up in the headings of one of the entries--so the story went--lived the
ghost of a white mule. As the men worked with the coal before them, and
the black emptiness of the tunnel behind, this phantom mule would
materialize silently from the wall of the entry, and with the most
diabolical expression upon its face, creep quietly down behind its
intended victim, who--all unconscious of its presence--would be occupied
in loading his car. If the man turned, and for even a fraction of a
second his eyes rested upon the phantom, the shape would suddenly
disappear; but if he were less fortunate, and that unconscious feeling
of a presence behind him did not compel him to turn his eyes, the
phantom mule would sink his material teeth deep into the miner’s
shoulder; and death would follow. It was fortunate, indeed, that the
only two men who had been visited by this unpleasant apparition had
turned and observed him.
Perhaps it had been the sudden white glare cast from the headlight of a
locomotive far down the entry, or perhaps it had been entirely the
imagination, but, at all events, a man had come from his work early one
afternoon inspired with this strange vision, and the next day another
man also had seen it. The story was noised around, and two days later
the men stuck firmly to their determination that they would not enter
that part of the mine.
Fortunately for the superintendent, a crowd of Bulgarians had just
arrived from East St. Louis, seeking employment. The Croatians were sent
into another part of the mine to work, a mile from the haunted entries,
where there were no unpleasant ghosts of white mules to disturb their
labors; and so long as the mine remained in operation, there is no
further record of the unpleasant ramblings of this fantastical animal;
at least, none of the Bulgarians ever saw it.
With the mule came the ghost of a little white dog; but for some curious
reason, although the dog was reported by many to have run out from
abandoned rooms and barked at the men as they stumbled up the entry, but
little attention was paid to it, and it seemed to possess no
particularly disturbing influence.
There were many Negroes in the mine and they, too, had their 'h’ants'
and superstitions; but these were of a more ordinary nature. In Room 2,
third west-south, a sudden fall of rock from the roof had caught two
miners. Tons of stone had followed, and in a second, two men had been
crushed, killed, and buried. Death must have been instantaneous, and
months of labor would have been required to recover the bodies, which
were probably crushed out of human resemblance; but even years after
this happened, Room 2 was one that was carefully avoided by all the
Negroes, and if it ever became necessary for one of them to pass it
alone, he would always go by on the run; for back under the tons of
white shale that came down straight across the room-mouth the ghosts of
Old Man Gleason and another, whose name was forgotten, still
remained--immortal.
It was to prevent the establishment of such superstitions that the shift
was always called off for the day if a man was killed in the mine; and
in the morning, when the men returned to their work, the boss of the
section in which the unfortunate miner had met his death took particular
care to place several men together at that place, in order that no
superstition might grow up around it.
WOMAN’S SPHERE
BY S. H. KEMPER
'WILBUR, dear,' said Aunt Susan, 'Rosa is very busy with the washing
this morning, and if you will go down into the garden and gather this
basket full of peas and then shell them for her to cook for dinner, I
will--' Aunt Susan paused to reflect a moment, then continued, 'I will
give you a new ball for a birthday present.'
Aunt Susan smiled kindly at the flashing look of intense joy that Wilbur
lifted to her face as he seized the basket she was holding out to him.
'I--I’d just love to have it!' he exclaimed.
He was quite overcome with emotion, and tore away toward the garden at
top speed.
Wilbur’s mother was ill, and Wilbur had been sent to visit Aunt Susan in
order that the house might be quiet. Aunt Susan was really Wilbur’s
father’s aunt. She was grandma’s sister, and she was very old. Grandma
was not old. Her hair was white, but it went in nice squiggles around
her face, and she wore big hats with plumes and shiny, rustly dresses,
and high-heeled shoes. And when she kissed you she clasped you in a
powerful embrace against her chest. Grandma was not old. But Aunt Susan,
with her smooth gray hair and her wrinkled face and spectacles, her
plain black dress and little shawl, and her funny cloth shoes, seemed to
Wilbur a being inconceivably stricken of old. You felt intensely sorry
for her for being so old. You were so sorry that you felt it inside of
you; it was almost as if your stomach ached. And she was always kind and
gentle. You felt that it would be a grievous thing to hurt her feelings
or trouble her in any way.
Wilbur’s birthday came on Thursday and this was only Monday. A long time
to wait. Wilbur needed a ball very badly. He had made friends with a
number of boys here in Aunt Susan’s town, and the baseball season was at
its height. Wilbur’s friends owned several perfectly worthy bats and two
or three gloves, but there was a serious lack of balls.
That afternoon, joining the boys on the vacant lot where they played,
Wilbur informed them with great satisfaction of Aunt Susan’s promise.
'My aunt is going to give me a new ball on my birthday,' he said to
them.
They were more than pleased with the news. Wilbur found himself the
centre of flattering interest. He told them that he guessed it would be
a regular league ball.
Wilbur exerted himself earnestly to be helpful to Aunt Susan and Rosa
all day on Tuesday and Wednesday. He felt that he could not do enough
for Aunt Susan, and also that it would be well to remind her of her
promise by constant acts of courtesy and service, for it was a long time
before Thursday. But it did not seem possible that any one could really
forget an affair so important and so agreeable as the purchase of a
ball.
Wilbur knew where Aunt Susan would get the ball: at Reiter’s store, of
course. Reiter kept a store where books and magazines and athletic goods
were sold. He kept all the standard things; the ball would be of a good
make, Wilbur was sure.
Aunt Susan did not often go down town. Except when busy about her
housekeeping, she was likely to spend the time rocking in her
old-fashioned rocker on the front porch, with a work-basket beside her,
occupying herself with needlework or knitting. She knitted a great deal.
There were many bright-colored wools in her work-basket.
On Wednesday afternoon Wilbur’s heart gave an excited jump when he saw
Aunt Susan coming downstairs tying her little bonnet over her gray hair.
Her black silk shopping-bag hung on her arm. Wilbur did not doubt that
she was going down town with an eye single to Reiter’s store. He assumed
an unconscious air, just as one did when mother went shopping before
Christmas. He watched Aunt Susan out of sight, and afterward hung about
the front yard till he saw her returning. He ran to open the gate for
her and took her parasol and bag, looking up at her with bright,
trustful eyes. The bag seemed quite full of small parcels as he carried
it for Aunt Susan.
Wilbur fell asleep that night wondering whether Aunt Susan would put the
ball on the breakfast-table next morning, where he would see it when he
entered the dining-room. Perhaps she would bring it after he was asleep,
and place it on the chair beside his bed, or perhaps on the
old-fashioned bureau. There were many happy possibilities.
When the window opposite his bed began to grow bright with the pink and
gold of sunrise, Wilbur woke and sat up, looking first at the chair,
then at the bureau. No, it was not in the room. It would be in the
dining-room, then. When he went downstairs he was surprised to find that
Aunt Susan had not yet left her room. In the kitchen Rosa was only
beginning her preparations for breakfast. Wilbur spent a long time, a
restless but happy hour, waiting, idling about the dewy garden and the
front yard, feeding the chickens and playing with the cat.
At last Rosa rang the bell and Wilbur went into the house. Aunt Susan,
seated at the breakfast table, greeted him affectionately.
'Many happy returns, dear!' she said, holding out her hand.
She drew him to her and kissed his cheek. Now, surely-- But the ball
was not on the table beside his plate. He could not see it anywhere in
the room.
The breakfasts at Aunt Susan’s were always good. There would be fried
chicken and waffles, or muffins, and squashy corn bread. Indeed all
meal-times at Aunt Susan’s would have been periods of unmixed joy if
Aunt Susan had not felt obliged to keep up a steady conversation. Aunt
Susan made small talk laboriously. It distracted your mind. She had a
strange delusion that one was avidly interested in one’s schoolbooks.
She constantly dwelt upon the subject of school. It made things
difficult, for school was over now and all its rigors happily forgotten.
This morning, what with Aunt Susan’s talk and his excitement, Wilbur
could hardly eat anything.
Breakfast was over. Aunt Susan and Rosa were in the pantry consulting on
housekeeping matters. Wilbur sat down in a rocking-chair on the front
porch and waited. He waited and waited, rocking violently. And then at
last he heard Aunt Susan calling him.
He was out of his chair and in the hall like a flash.
'Yes’m,' he answered. 'Yes’m. What is it, Aunt Susan?'
Aunt Susan was coming down the stairs.
'Here is the ball I promised you, dear,' she said. She placed in his
outstretched hand--
Wilbur had visualized it so vividly, had imagined the desired thing with
such intensity, that it was as if a strange transformation had taken
place before his eyes. He was holding, not the hard, heavy, white ball
he had seemed actually to see, with its miraculously perfect stitching
and the trim lettering of the name upon it: a curious, soft thing lay in
his hand, a home-made ball constructed of wools. There seemed to be
millions of short strands of bright-colored wools, all held together in
the centre by some means and sticking out in every direction. Their
smoothly clipped ends formed the surface of the ball.
It was the kind of thing you would give a baby in a go-cart.
Wilbur stood and gazed at it. The kind of thing you would give a baby in
a go-cart! Then he looked up at Aunt Susan, and suddenly the sense of
his great disappointment was lost in that immense, aching pity for her.
She was so old, and she had made it herself, thinking it would please
him.
'It’s--it’s awful pretty!' Wilbur stammered.
He felt inexpressibly sorry for Aunt Susan. How could any one be so
utterly without comprehension!
Aunt Susan patted his cheek.
'You have been a good boy,' she said. 'I hope you will enjoy playing at
ball with your little friends.'
Wilbur went cold. The other fellows! He foresaw well enough their
attitude toward his misfortune. To them it would seem a subject for
unsparing derision. The kind of thing you would give a baby in a
go-cart! And he had said, 'I guess it will be a regular league ball.'
Aunt Susan went away upon her housekeeping activities, and Wilbur, after
standing for a while turning the woolly ball in his hands, went upstairs
to his room. He hid the ball under the neatly folded garments in the
upper drawer of the bureau. It was a relief to get it out of sight. He
had a heavy, sickish feeling in his chest. The more he thought over his
trouble, the greater it seemed. A great dread of having the other boys
know about it possessed him. He felt that he could not possibly bear the
ignominy.
The morning dragged itself heavily away. Wilbur remained indoors. He
could not go out for fear the other fellows might see him. He winced
painfully at the thought of meeting them.
Rosa baked a fine cake for him, decorating it tastefully with nine pink
candles, but Wilbur regarded it wanly.
At dinner Aunt Susan noticed his lack of appetite and fussed over him
anxiously, dismaying his soul with dark hints of doses of medicine.
'I don’t feel a bit sick, Aunt Susan,' he protested; 'honest, I don’t.'
He felt almost desperate. He was heavy-hearted with his disappointment,
oppressed with the fear of discovery; and now he must be harried and
pursued with threats of medicine.
It was a miserable afternoon. Wilbur undertook to write a letter to his
mother. Usually Aunt Susan was obliged to urge him to his duty, but
to-day it offered an excuse to remain indoors, and Wilbur seized it
gladly. Writing a letter was a business that took time and effort. After
a while, as Wilbur sat in the attitude of composition, with his legs
wrapped around the legs of his chair and his shoulders hunched over the
table, Aunt Susan’s anxious eye detected the fact that he was not
writing but was absently chewing his pencil.
'Wilbur, dear,' Aunt Susan said, 'you are staying in the house too much.
Put your letter away now and run out of doors. I think you need the
fresh air. You can finish your letter to-morrow.'
'Oh, I would rather finish it now, please,' Wilbur said; 'you know poppa
is coming to see us this evening, and if I get it done I can give it to
him to take to mamma.'
He hastily stuck out his tongue and, breathing heavily, began to write.
Throughout the afternoon Wilbur contrived by one excuse or another to
remain in the house. After the early tea Aunt Susan sat down in one of
the porch rockers with her knitting and Wilbur sedately took another.
With great effort he sustained the conversation which Aunt Susan
considered necessary. Presently, with a throb of alarm, Wilbur saw
Henry, the boy who lived next door, climbing the fence dividing the two
yards. With fascinated dread Wilbur watched him approach. He stood still
at the foot of the porch steps.
'Hello,' he said in his deep and husky voice.
'Hello,' Wilbur replied coldly.
'Good evening, Henry,' said Aunt Susan; 'sit down and make us a visit.
How is your father? How is your mother? When is your married sister
coming home for a visit?' And so on.
Henry sat down on the steps, answering Aunt Susan with weary civility.
Wilbur rocked and rocked with nervous violence. Sitting in a chair like
a grown person, he felt a certain aloofness from Henry on the steps. It
was a poor enough security, but he clung to it. And then suddenly Aunt
Susan was saying,--
'Wilbur, get the ball I gave you and play a game of ball with Henry.'
The moment of discovery had come. And Wilbur found himself wondering
dully what Aunt Susan’s idea of a ball game could be like. His mind
seemed to fumble stiffly with the unimportant thought. He rose heavily.
Henry had snapped up briskly from his place on the steps as Aunt Susan
spoke.
'That’s right!' he said. 'Let’s get out there in the road and warm up.'
Wilbur turned to enter the house.
'I’ll go with you,' Henry said.
They ascended the stairs, Wilbur lagging on every step and Henry
breasting forward like a homeward-bound horse. They crossed the little
upstairs hall and stood at the door of Wilbur’s room. The woolly ball
lay on the bureau, its many colors garish in the sunset. Wilbur had
left it in the drawer, but Rosa had been in the room putting away his
freshly ironed clothes, and had taken it out and placed it on top of the
bureau for all the world to see.
Wilbur shut his eyes and waited for a bitter outcry from Henry. There
was, however, a moment of silence, and then Henry demanded
impatiently,--
'Well, where is it at?'
Wilbur opened his eyes and regarded Henry stupidly. Henry then did not
even recognize the strange, bright object on the bureau as a ball.
Probably he took it for a pincushion. The shock of the unexpected
reprieve made Wilbur feel faint and confused.
'It’s here--it’s right in this room,' he stammered.
'In the bruy-yo?' Henry asked, pointing toward the old-fashioned bureau.
'I--I left it in the top drawer of the bruy-yo.'
Henry went and opened the drawers one by one and rummaged in them.
'It ain’t here!' he exclaimed; 'I bet somebody’s stolen it from you! The
colored girl! I bet she’s stolen it!'
'Aw, she wouldn’t steal! She’s nice!' Wilbur exclaimed; but even as he
spoke, he saw his mistake. Henry had made the descent to a course of
deceit, of hideous disloyalty to a dear friend, fearfully easy! Wilbur
descended. 'Maybe,' he faltered,' maybe she needed a ball awfully and
just had to take it! Maybe she needed it awfully!'
'Well, ain’t you going to try to get it back from her?'
'Oh, no!' Wilbur cried in horror. 'I won’t say a word about it. It would
hurt her feelings. She’s nice--'
'Well, I bet if it was my ball and anybody stole it I would raise an
awful row!'
'I won’t say anything about it,' Wilbur repeated. 'It would hurt her
feelings. And I guess you better go home now, Henry. Maybe your mother
is wondering where you are.'
Wilbur adopted the formula with which other boys' mothers were wont to
put him on the social inclined plane. He felt a desperate need to be rid
of Henry. Henry departed without resentment.