"They're all very good to me about here. They've give me something to
do, and Ruby, here, takes care of the baby like a little woman while I'm
in the mine at work."
"Why, what can you possibly do?"
"Oh, a good many little odd jobs,--throwing the lumps out of the
passages, and doing whatever comes to hand,--helping to load sometimes.
I'm very glad to get it.
"They talk of raising me some money to buy a bit shanty," she added. "I
can pick up a little to do, perhaps, then, that'll keep me out of the
mine. It don't seem to be a woman's place, somehow. Not but what they're
all very respectful and kind."
"Are there other women there?"
"Not many in this mine. Over on the hill where the men struck once or
twice, there's a-many, and some of 'em do men's work; but a woman had
better be home if she's got a home."
The sentiment found an echo in my heart as I looked on the pale,
sorrowful face, so commonplace, yet so interesting, from its very
sadness.
Down in the Mines.
"Wouldn't you like to go in?" she asked. "Ladies do, sometimes."
She placed the child in the arms of the girl,--a quiet little thing, and
I followed her into the side of the hill, already thickly covered with
working men, with the star of light burning on their foreheads, so faint
and blue in the sunshine, so bright in the darkness.
I shall never forget the sensations of that hour. In and on, with a
sense of continually descending; on each side, the great glistening
black walls of anthracite; here and there small streams of water
trickling down; now and then a dull thud of pick; a muffled, low roar,
ringing in one's ears wherever there was a passage in which people were
at work.
[Illustration (mine-2) Coal Cars]
There were great hollows that looked like caves on one hand, and
precipitous banks on the other; little bursts of sound, coming upon one
suddenly, of miners talking or laughing below the mule tracks; patient
mules, laboring on in the darkness; patient or impatient men, toiling
from morning till night; even women denied the fair sunshine of the
outer world.
Here were carts being loaded. Here were men making great fissures in the
coal; the air was filled with a shimmering dust, oddly gleaming in
plates as the light struck it. It filled the nostrils and the throat,
and I wondered how the miners dared open their months to talk.
"You can't think how bright it all seems outside, after I get through,"
said the young woman, whose name, I learned, was Matilda Vernon.
"Sometimes I think it's almost worth while to be shut up, things look so
different. You live in two worlds like."
I had a terrible sensation of dread in going out,--more palpably felt
than when I entered. What if these horrible jagged masses should fall on
or in front of me, obstructing my path! I could see myself flying before
me, and my breath grew so short that it was something like agony as I
toiled up and up, led by a miner so bulky that he almost filled the
passage at times.
I could have shouted for joy when at last I saw the faint far glimmer of
the beautiful glad light,--the light of the blessed sun. I could not
wonder that the miners asked for the boon of the eight hours law. It
certainly seems long enough, and too long, to be imprisoned in the
bowels of the earth.
Back again to the station, ready for the journey West,--I could hardly
believe that it was not yet ten o'clock in the morning.
GARRY MOSS.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *