DERRICK STERLING'S SPLENDID REVENGE
The new breaker, in which Paul Evert now worked as a slate-picker, was
in general appearance very much like the old one, but its interior
arrangement was different, and of such a nature as to make life much
easier for those who worked in it. The greatest improvement was the
introduction of a set of machines called "jigs." The coal from the mine,
after being drawn to the very top of the breaker, first passed between
great spiked rollers, or "crushers;" then through a series of "screens,"
provided with holes of different sizes, that separated it into several
grades of egg, stove, nut, pea, buckwheat, etc. From the screens it was
led into the jigs. These are perforated iron cylinders set in tubs of
water, and fitted with movable iron bottoms placed at a slight angle. A
small steam-engine attached to each machine raises and lowers or "jigs"
this iron bottom a few inches each way very rapidly. The contents of the
cylinders are thus constantly shaken in water, and as the slate is
heavier than the coal, most of it settles to the bottom, and is carried
off through a waste chute. The wet coal runs out through other chutes
placed a little higher than that for slate, and extending down through
the length of the breaker to the storage bins at its bottom. Along these
chutes in the new breaker, as in the old one, sat rows of boys picking
out the bits of slate that had escaped the jigs, and among them was Paul
Evert.
When Derrick Sterling entered the new breaker on the afternoon of the
day following that which had brought such memorable adventures, he was
surprised at the comparative absence of coal-dust. It still rose in
clouds from the crushers and screens, but there was none above the
chutes. He understood the theory of jigs, but had never seen them at
work, and now he was so greatly interested in watching them as almost to
forget the errand on which he had come. It was only when Mr. Guffy spoke
to him that he thought of it, and handed the breaker boss the note he
had come to give him.
"All right," said the boss reading it. "I'm sorry to lose him, for he is
a quiet, steady lad, and, could in time be made very useful as a picker.
I doubt, though, if his back would hold out long at the work. Yes, you
may take him along now if you want to."
Stepping over to where his friend sat, Derrick said, "Come, Paul, you're
not to work any more to-day; I want to have a talk with you outside."
When they had left the breaker, Derrick said, "How would you like to go
down into the mine, Paul, and be a door-tender, very near where I work,
and get twice as much money as you can make in the breaker?"
"Of course I should like it," answered Paul, gravely; "but I don't think
they want a cripple like me down there."
"Yes, they do want just exactly such a fellow as you are; they found out
last night what you could do in a mine. Mr. Jones says that if you want
to you can go down with me to-morrow morning, and begin at once without
waiting for the end of the month. You are to go with me to the store
this evening for your mine cap, lamp, and boots. See, here's the order
for them."
Paul stared at the order for a moment as though he could not believe it
was real. Then exclaiming, "Oh goody, Derrick! I'm so glad to get out of
that hateful, back-aching breaker," he gave a funny little twirl of his
body around his crutch, which was his way of expressing great joy.
Derrick shared this joy equally with Paul, and to see them one would
have supposed they had just come into fortunes at least. To a stranger
such rejoicings over an offer of monotonous work down in the blackness
of a coal mine would have seemed absurd, but if he had ever been a
breaker boy he could have fully sympathized with them.
The two boys were standing beside the check-board, near the mouth of the
slope, and after their rejoicings had somewhat subsided Derrick said,
"Let's see who's sent up the most to-day."
The check-board was something like the small black-board that hangs
behind the teacher's desk in a school-room. It was provided with several
rows of pegs, on which hung a number of wooden tags. Each of these tags,
or checks, had cut into it the initials or private mark of the miner to
whom it belonged. When a miner working in the underground breasts or
chambers filled a car with coal and started it on its way to the slope,
he hung on it one of his checks. When the same car reached the top of
the slope the "check boss" stationed there took the check from it and
hung it in its proper place on the check-board. At the end of
working-hours the number of checks thus hung up for each miner was
counted, and the same number of car-loads of coal credited to him.
Acting on Derrick's suggestion, the boys turned to the check-board, and
quickly saw that there were more checks marked M. T. than anything else.
"Why, Monk Tooley has got the most by three loads!" exclaimed Derrick,
counting them.
"He must have worked all through lunch-hour, and like a mule at that. I
wonder what's got into him?"
"Perhaps he's trying to make up for what Bill won't earn now," suggested
Paul, quietly.
"That's so," said Derrick. "I never thought of that, Polly; and I
haven't thanked you yet for going down into the mine to look for me last
night, or told you what a splendid fellow I think you are."
"Please don't, Derrick," interrupted Paul, with a troubled expression;
"you mustn't thank me for anything I tried to do for you. Don't I owe
you more than anything I can ever do will pay for? Didn't you bring me
out of the burning breaker? and don't I love you more than most anybody
on earth?"
"Well, you're a plucky fellow anyway," said Derrick, "and I'd rather
have you down in the mine if there was any trouble than half of the men
who are there. Let's stop and see how Bill Tooley's getting along on our
way home."
"All right," assented Paul; "only if his mother's there I shall be
almost afraid to go in."
As the boys walked away from the vicinity of the check-board, a man who
had come up the slope but a few minutes before, and had been watching
them unobserved, stepped up to it. He was Job Taskar the blacksmith,
known to the men who met in the chamber at the bottom of the air-shaft,
in the old workings, as Body-master of Raven Brook. The check boss had
asked him to stop there a minute, and look out for any cars that might
come up, while he stepped inside the breaker.
Casting a hurried glance around to see that no one was looking, Job
Taskar slipped three of Monk Tooley's checks from their peg, thrust them
into his pocket, altered the chalked figure above the peg, and resumed
his place.
When Derrick and Paul reached the Tooleys' house it seemed to them even
more noisy than usual. Several women sat gossiping with Mrs. Tooley in
the door-way, while a dozen children and several dogs ran screaming or
barking and quarrelling in and out of the room where the sick boy lay.
They asked his mother how he was, and what the doctor had said of his
condition.
"Ye can go in and see for yourselves how he is," was the reply, "there's
naught to hinder. Doctor said he was to be kept perfectly quiet and have
nussin', but how he's going to get either with them brats rampaging and
howling, and me the only one to look after them, is more than I know."
Accepting this invitation, the boys stepped inside, and picking their
way among the children and dogs to the untidy bed on which Bill lay,
spoke to him and asked him if there was anything they could do for him.
He was conscious, though very weak and in great pain, and on opening his
eyes he whispered, "Water."
For more than an hour he had longed for it, until his parched tongue was
ready to cleave to the roof of his mouth, but nobody had come near him,
and he could not make himself heard above the noise of the children.
Taking the tin dipper that lay on a chair beside the bed Derrick went
out to the hydrant to fill it with the cool mountain water that flowed
there.
Paul drew a tattered window-shade so that the hot western sun should not
shine full in the sick boy's face, loosened his shirt at the neck,
smoothed back the matted hair from his forehead, and with a threatening
shake of his crutch, drove a howling dog and several screaming children
from the room.
These little attentions soothed the sufferer, and he looked up
gratefully and wonderingly at Paul. When Derrick returned with the water
he lifted his head, and stretched out his hand eagerly for it. At that
moment Mrs. Tooley came bustling to the bedside to see what the boys
were doing. Catching sight of the dipper she snatched it from Derrick's
hand, crying out that it would kill the boy to give him cold water, "and
him ragin' wid a fever." This so frightened the boys that they hurriedly
took their departure, and poor Bill cast such a wistful, despairing
glance after them as they left the house that their hearts were filled
with pity for him.
At the supper-table that evening Derrick asked:
"Does it hurt people who have a fever to give them water, mother?"
"No, dear; I do not think it does. My experience teaches me to give
feverish patients all the cooling drinks they want."
Then Derrick told her what he had seen and learned of Bill Tooley's
condition that afternoon. He so excited her pity by his description of
the dirt, noise, and neglect from which the sick lad was suffering that
she finally exclaimed, "Poor fellow! I wish we had room to take care of
him here!"
"Do you, mother, really? I wanted to ask you, but was almost afraid to,
if he couldn't come here and have my room till he gets well. You see
he's always treated Polly worse than he has me, and yet Polly risked his
life for him. It isn't anywhere near so much to do as that, of course;
but I'd like to give up my room to him, and nurse him when I was home,
if you could look after him a little when I wasn't. I can sleep on the
floor close to the bed, and be ready to wait on him nights. You know I
always liked the floor better than a bed, anyway, and I believe he'll
die if he stays where he is."
They knew each other so well, this mother and son, that a question of
this kind was easily settled between them. Though both fully realized
what a task they were undertaking, it was decided that if his parents
would consent Bill Tooley should be brought to their house to be nursed.
When Monk Tooley came up from the mine that evening and examined the
check-board to see how the numbers to his credit compared with the tally
he had kept, he became very angry, and accused the check boss of
cheating him. The latter said he knew nothing about it. There were the
checks to speak for themselves. He had hung each one on the peg as it
came up.
"Den dey've been stolen!" exclaimed the angry man, "an' if I catch him
as done it, I'll make him smart for it, dat's all."
The check boss tried to show him how perfectly useless it would be for
anybody to steal another's checks. "You know yourself it wouldn't do him
any good, Tooley," he said. "He couldn't claim anything on 'em, or make
any kind of a raise on 'em; besides I've been right here every minute of
the day, barrin' a couple when I ran inside the breaker on an errand.
Then I left Job Taskar, as honest a man as there is in the colliery, to
keep watch, and he said nothing passed while I was gone."
"Well," answered Monk Tooley, "I'm cheated outer three loads, and you
know what dat is ter a man what's worked overtime ter make 'em, an' has
sickness and doctor's bills at home. But I'll catch de thief yet, an'
when I do he'll wish he'd never know'd what a check was."
As he was walking down the street after supper, smoking a pipe and
thinking of his sick boy, who seemed to have grown worse since morning,
and of his lost checks, Monk Tooley was accosted by Derrick Sterling,
who said,
"Good-evening, Mr. Tooley. How's Bill this evening?"
"None de better fer your askin'," was the surly answer, for the man felt
very bitter against Derrick, to whom he attributed all his son's
trouble.
"I'm sorry to hear that he isn't any better," continued the boy,
determined not to be easily rebuffed.
"Well, I'm glad yer sorry, an' wish yer was sorrier."
This did not seem to promise a very pleasant conversation, but Derrick
persevered, saying,
"It must be very hard for Mrs. Tooley to keep so many children quiet,
and I believe the doctor said Bill must not be troubled by noise, didn't
he?"
"Yes, an' if ye'd muzzle yer own mouth de whole place would be quieter."
"My mother wanted me to say to you that if you'd like to send Bill over
to our house for a few days, it's so quiet over there that she thought
it would do him good, and she'd be very glad to have him," said Derrick,
plunging boldly into the business he had undertaken to manage.
"Tell yer mother ter mind her own brats an' leave me ter mind mine, den
de road'll be wide enough for de both of us," was the ungracious answer
made by the surly miner to this offer, as he turned away and left
Derrick standing angry and mortified behind him.
"That comes of trying to do unto others as you would have others do unto
you," he muttered to himself. "Seems to me the best way is to do unto
others as they do unto you, and then nobody can complain. I declare if I
had as ugly a temper as that man has I'd go and drown myself. I don't
believe he's got one spark of human feeling in him."
Monk Tooley was not quite so bad as Derrick thought him, but just at
that time everything seemed to go wrong with him, and he was like some
savage animal suffering from a pain for which it can find no relief. He
began to repent of his ugliness to Derrick almost as soon as the latter
had left him, saying to himself, "Maybe de lad meant kindly arter all."
Going back to his untidy, noisy home, he entered the house, and standing
by his son's bedside gazed curiously at him. The boy was evidently
growing worse each minute, as even the unpractised eye of the miner
could see. He was tossing in a high fever, calling constantly for the
water which in her ignorance his mother would not give him, nor did he
appear to recognize any of those who stood near.
"I fear me his time's come," said one of the neighbor women, several of
whom, attracted by curiosity, came and went in and out of the house.
Although the remark was not intended for his ears, Monk Tooley heard it,
and apparently it brought him to a sudden determination. Without a word
he left the house and walked directly to that of the Sterlings. Entering
the open door-way without the ceremony of knocking, which was little
practised in that colliery village, he found the family gathered in
their tiny sitting-room, Derrick poring intently over a plan of the old
workings of the mine, Helen reading, and their mother sewing.
Bowing awkwardly to Mrs. Sterling, he said, "Derrick tells me, missus,
dat you're willin' to take my poor lad in and nuss him a bit. His own
mither has no knowledge of de trade, an' he's just dyin' over yon. If
yer mean it, and will do fer him, yer'll never want for a man to lift a
hand fer you and yours as long as Monk Tooley is widin call."
"I do mean it, Mr. Tooley, and if you can only get him here, I'll gladly
do what I can for him," said Mrs. Sterling.
"I'll bring him, mum, I'll go fer him now;" and Monk Tooley, with
another awkward pull at the brim of his hat, left the house.
In five minutes he was back, accompanied by another miner, and between
them they bore a mattress on which lay the sick boy.
He was undressed, bathed, and placed in Derrick's cool, clean bed.
Within an hour cooling drinks and outward applications had so reduced
the fever and quieted him that he had fallen into a deep sleep.
Within the same time all the village knew, and wondered over the
knowledge, that Monk Tooley's sick lad was being cared for in the house
of the widow Sterling.