King Coal

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"Don't ye remember the time when the air-course was blocked before, and
ye helped to get up the mules yeself? Ye thought nothin' of it then, and
'tis the same now. They'll get everybody out in time!"

She was concealing her real feelings in order to keep him safe; he let
her lead him on, while he tried to think of something else to do. He
would think of the men in Number Two; they were his best friends, Jack
David, Tim Rafferty, Wresmak, Androkulos, Klowoski. He would think of
them, in their remote dungeons--breathing bad air, becoming sick and
faint--in order that mules might be saved! He would stop in his tracks,
and Mary would drag him on, repeating over and over, "Ye can do nothin'!
Nothin'!" And then he would think, What could he do? He had put up his
best bluff to Jeff Cotton a few hours earlier, and the answer had been
the muzzle of the marshal's revolver in his face. All he could
accomplish now would be to bring himself to Cotton's attention, and be
thrust out of camp forthwith.

SECTION 28.

They came to Mary's home; and next door was the home of the Slav woman,
Mrs. Zamboni, about whom in the past she had told him so many funny
stories. Mrs. Zamboni had had a new baby every year for sixteen years,
and eleven of these babies were still alive. Now her husband was trapped
in Number One, and she was distracted, wandering about the streets with
the greater part of her brood at her heels. At intervals she would emit
a howl like a tortured animal, and her brood would take it up in various
timbres. Hal stopped to listen to the sounds, but Mary put her fingers
into her ears and fled into the house. Hal followed her, and saw her
fling herself into a chair and burst into hysterical weeping. And
suddenly Hal realised what a strain this terrible affair had been upon
Mary. It had been bad enough to him--but he was a man, and more able to
contemplate sights of horror. Men went to their deaths in industry and
war, and other men saw them go and inured themselves to the spectacle.
But women were the mothers of these men; it was women who bore them in
pain, nursed them and reared them with endless patience--women could
never become inured to the spectacle! Then too, the women's fate was
worse. If the men were dead, that was the end of them; but the women
must face the future, with its bitter memories, its lonely and desolate
struggle for existence. The women must see the children suffering, dying
by slow stages of deprivation.

Hal's pity for all suffering women became concentrated upon the girl
beside him. He knew how tenderhearted she was. She had no man in the
mine, but some day she would have, and she was suffering the pangs of
that inexorable future. He looked at her, huddled in her chair, wiping
away her tears with the hem of her old blue calico. She seemed
unspeakably pathetic--like a child that has been hurt. She was sobbing
out sentences now and then, as if to herself: "Oh, the poor women, the
poor women! Did ye see the face of Mrs. Jonotch? She'd jumped into the
smoking pit-mouth if they'd let her!"

"Don't suffer so, Mary!" pleaded Hal--as if he thought she could stop.

"Let me alone!" she cried. "Let me have it out!" And Hal, who had had no
experience with hysteria, stood helplessly by.

"There's more misery than I ever knew there was!" she went on. "'Tis
everywhere ye turn, a woman with her eyes burnin' with suffering
wondering if she'll ever see her man again! Or some mother whose lad may
be dying and she can do nothin' for him!"

"And neither can you do anything, Mary," Hal pleaded again. "You're only
sorrowing yourself to death."

"Ye say that to me?" she cried. "And when ye were ready to let Jeff
Cotton shoot ye, because you were so sorry for Mrs. David! No, the
sights here nobody can stand."

He could think of nothing to answer. He drew up a chair and sat by her
in silence, and after a while she began to grow calmer, and wiped away
her tears, and sat gazing dully through the doorway into the dirty
little street.

Hal's eyes followed hers. There were the ash-heaps and tomato-cans,
there were two of Mrs. Zamboni's bedraggled brood, poking with sticks
into a dump-heap--looking for something to eat, perhaps, or for
something to play with. There was the dry, waste grass of the road-side,
grimy with coal-dust, as was everything else in the village. What a
scene!--And this girl's eyes had never a sight of anything more
inspiring than this. Day in and day out, all her life long, she looked
at this scene! Had he ever for a moment reproached her for her "black
moods"? With such an environment could men or women be cheerful--could
they dream of beauty, aspire to heights of nobility and courage, to
happy service of their fellows? There was a miasma of despair over this
place; it was not a real place--it was a dream-place--a horrible,
distorted nightmare! It was like the black hole in the ground which
haunted Hal's imagination, with men and boys at the bottom of it, dying
of asphyxiation!

Suddenly it came to Hal--he wanted to get away from North Valley! To get
away at all costs! The place had worn down his courage; slowly, day
after day, the sight of misery and want, of dirt and disease, of hunger,
oppression, despair, had eaten the soul out of him, had undermined his
fine structure of altruistic theories. Yes, he wanted to escape--to a
place where the sun shone, where the grass grew green, where human
beings stood erect and laughed and were free. He wanted to shut from his
eyes the dust and smoke of this nasty little village; to stop his ears
to that tormenting sound of women wailing: "O, mein Mann! O, mein Mann!"

He looked at the girl, who sat staring before her, bent forward, her
arms hanging limply over her knees.

"Mary," he said, "you must go away from here! It's no place for a
tenderhearted girl to be. It's no place for any one!"

She gazed at him dully for a moment. "It was me that was tellin' _you_
to go away," she said, at last. "Ever since ye came here I been sayin'
it! Now I guess ye know what I mean."

"Yes," he said, "I do, and I want to go. But I want you to go too."

"D'ye think 'twould do me any good, Joe?" she asked. "D'ye think 'twould
do me any good to get away? Could I ever forget the sights I've seen
this day? Could I ever have any real, honest happiness anywhere after
this?"

He tried to reassure her, but he was far from reassured himself. How
would it be with him? Would he ever feel that he had a right to
happiness after this? Could he take any satisfaction in a pleasant and
comfortable world, knowing that it was based upon such hideous misery?
His thoughts went to that world, where careless, pleasure-loving people
sought gratification of their desires. It came to him suddenly that what
he wanted more than to get away was to bring those people here, if only
for a day, for an hour, that they might hear this chorus of wailing
women!

SECTION 29.

Mary made Hal swear that he would not get into a fight with Cotton; then
they went to Number Two. They found the mules coming up, and the bosses
promising that in a short while the men would be coming. Everything was
all right--there was not a bit of danger! But Mary was afraid to trust
Hal, in spite of his promise, so she lured him back to Number One.

They found that a rescue-car had just arrived from Pedro, bringing
doctors and nurses, also several "helmets." These "helmets" were strange
looking contrivances, fastened over the head and shoulders, air-tight,
and provided with oxygen sufficient to last for an hour or more. The men
who wore them sat in a big bucket which was let down the shaft with a
windlass, and every now and then they pulled on a signal-cord to let
those on the surface know they were alive. When the first of them came
back, he reported that there were bodies near the foot of the shaft, but
apparently all dead. There was heavy black smoke, indicating a fire
somewhere in the mine; so nothing more could be done until the fan had
been set up. By reversing the fan, they could draw out the smoke and
gases and clear the shaft.

The state mine-inspector had been notified, but was ill at home, and was
sending one of his deputies. Under the law this official would have
charge of all the rescue work, but Hal found that the miners took no
interest in his presence. It had been his duty to prevent the accident,
and he had not done so. When he came, he would do what the company
wanted.

Some time after dark the workers began to come out of Number Two, and
their women, waiting at the pit-mouth, fell upon their necks with cries
of thankfulness. Hal observed other women, whose men were in Number One,
and would perhaps never come out again, standing and watching these
greetings with wistful, tear-filled eyes. Among those who came out was
Jack David, and Hal walked home with him and his wife, listening to the
latter abuse Jeff Cotton and Alec Stone, which was an education in the
vocabulary of class-consciousness. The little Welsh woman repeated the
pit-boss's saying, "Damn the men, save the mules!" She said it again and
again--it seemed to delight her like a work of art, it summed up so
perfectly the attitude of the bosses to their men! There were many other
people repeating that saying, Hal found; it went all over the village,
in a few days it went all over the district. It summed up what the
district believed to be the attitude of the coal-operators to the
workers!

Having got over the first shock of the disaster, Hal wanted information,
and he questioned Big Jack, a solid and well-read man who had given
thought to every aspect of the industry. In his quiet, slow way, he
explained to Hal that the frequency of accidents in this district was
not due to any special difficulty in operating these mines, the
explosiveness of the gases or the dryness of the atmosphere. It was
merely the carelessness of those in charge, their disregard of the laws
for the protection of the men. There ought to be a law with "teeth" in
it--for example, one providing that for every man killed in a coal-mine
his heirs should receive a thousand dollars, regardless of who had been
to blame for the accident. Then you would see how quickly the operators
would get busy and find remedies for the "unusual" dangers!

As it was, they knew that no matter how great their culpability, they
could get off with slight loss. Already, no doubt, their lawyers were on
the spot, and by the time the first bodies were brought out, they would
be fixing things up with the families. They would offer a widow a ticket
back to the old country; they would offer a whole family of orphaned
children, maybe fifty dollars, maybe a hundred dollars--and it would be
a case of take it or leave it. You could get nothing from the courts;
the case was so hopeless that you could not even find a lawyer to make
the attempt. That was one reform in which the companies believed, said
"Big Jack," with sarcasm; they had put the "shyster lawyer" out of
business!

SECTION 30.

There followed a night and then another day of torturing suspense. The
fan came, but it had to be set up before anything could be done. As
volumes of black smoke continued to pour from the shaft, the opening was
made tight with a board and canvas cover; it was necessary, the bosses
said, but to Hal it seemed the climax of horror. To seal up men and boys
in a place of deadly gases!

There was something peculiarly torturing in the idea of men caught in a
mine; they were directly under one's feet, yet it was impossible to get
to them, to communicate with them in any way! The people on top yearned
to them, and they, down below, yearned back. It was impossible to forget
them for even a few minutes. People would become abstracted while they
talked, and would stand staring into space; suddenly, in the midst of a
crowd, a woman would bury her face in her hands and burst into tears,
and then all the others would follow suit.

Few people slept in North Valley during those two nights. They held
mourning parties in their homes or on the streets. Some house-work had
to be done, of course, but no one did anything that could be left
undone. The children would not play; they stood about, silent, pale,
like wizened-up grown people, over-mature in knowledge of trouble. The
nerves of every one were on edge, the self-control of every one balanced
upon a fine point.

It was a situation bound to be fruitful in imaginings and rumours,
stimulated to those inclined to signs and omens--the seers of ghosts, or
those who went into trances, or possessed second sight or other
mysterious gifts. There were some living in a remote part of the village
who declared they had heard explosions under the ground, several blasts
in quick succession. The men underground were setting off dynamite by
way of signalling!

In the course of the second day Hal sat with Mary Burke upon the steps
of her home. Old Patrick lay within, having found the secret of oblivion
at O'Callahan's. Now and then came the moaning of Mrs. Zamboni, who was
in her cabin with her brood of children. Mary had been in to feed them,
because the distracted mother let them starve and cry. Mary was worn
out, herself; the wonderful Irish complexion had faded, and there were
no curves to the vivid lips. They had been sitting in silence, for there
was nothing to talk of but the disaster--and they had said all there was
to say about that. But Hal had been thinking while he watched Mary.

"Listen, Mary," he said, at last; "when this thing is over, you must
really come away from here. I've thought it all out--I have friends in
Western City who will give you work, so you can take care of yourself,
and of your brother and sister too. Will you go?"

But she did not answer. She continued to gaze indifferently into the
dirty little street.

"Truly, Mary," he went on. "Life isn't so terrible everywhere as it is
here. Come away! Hard as it is to believe, you'll forget all this.
People suffer, but then they stop suffering; it's nature's way--to make
them forget."

"Nature's way has been to beat me dead," said she.

"Yes, Mary. Despair can become a disease, but it hasn't with you. You're
just tired out. If you'll try to rouse yourself--" And he reached over
and caught her hand with an attempt at playfulness. "Cheer up, Mary!
You're coming away from North Valley."

She turned and looked at him. "Am I?" she asked, impassively; and she
went on studying his face. "Who are ye, Joe Smith? What are ye doin'
here?"

"Working in a coal-mine," he laughed, still trying to divert her.

But she went on, as gravely as before. "Ye're no working man, that I
know. And ye're always offering me help! Ye're always sayin' what ye can
do for me!" She paused and there came some of the old defiance into her
face. "Joe, ye can have no idea of the feelin's that have got hold of me
just now. I'm ready to do something desperate; ye'd best be leavin' me
alone, Joe!"

"I think I understand, Mary. I would hardly blame you for anything you
did."

She took up his words eagerly. "Wouldn't ye, Joe? Ye're sure? Then what
I want is to get the truth from ye. I want ye to talk it out fair!"

"All right, Mary. What is it?"

But her defiance had vanished suddenly. Her eyes dropped, and he saw her
fingers picking nervously at a fold of her dress. "About us, Joe," she
said. "I've thought sometimes ye cared for me. I've thought ye liked to
be with me--not just because ye were sorry for me, but because of _me_.
I've not been sure, but I can't help thinkin' it's so. Is it?"

"Yes, it is," he said, a little uncertainly. "I _do_ care for you."

"Then is it that ye don't care for that other girl all the time?"

"No," he said, "it's not that."

"Ye can care for two girls at the same time?"

He did not know what to say. "It would seem that I can, Mary."

She raised her eyes again and studied his face. "Ye told me about that
other girl, and I been wonderin', was it only to put me off? Maybe it's
me own fault, but I can't make meself believe in that other girl, Joe!"

"You're mistaken, Mary," he answered, quickly. "What I told you was
true."

"Well, maybe so," she said, but there was no conviction in her tone. "Ye
come away from her, and ye never go where she is or see her--it's hard
to believe ye'd do that way if ye were very close to her. I just don't
think ye love her as much as ye might. And ye say you do care some for
me. So I've thought--I've wondered--"

She stopped, forcing herself to meet his gaze: "I been tryin' to work it
out! I know ye're too good a man for me, Joe. Ye come from a better
place in life, ye've a right to expect more in a woman--"

"It's not that, Mary!"

But she cut him short. "I know that's true! Ye're only tryin' to save my
feelin's. I know ye're better than me! I've tried hard to hold me head
up, I've tried a long time not to let meself go to pieces. I've even
tried to keep cheerful, telling meself I'd not want to be like Mrs.
Zamboni, forever complainin'. But 'tis no use tellin' yourself lies! I
been up to the church, and heard the Reverend Spragg tell the people
that the rich and poor are the same in the sight of the Lord. And maybe
'tis so, but I'm not the Lord, and I'll never pretend I'm not ashamed to
be livin' in a place like this."

"I'm sure the Lord has no interest in keeping you here--" he began.

But she broke in, "What makes it so hard to bear is knowin' there's so
many wonderful things in the world, and ye can never have them! 'Tis as
if ye had to see them through a pane of glass, like in the window of a
store. Just think, Joe Smith--once, in a church in Sheridan, I heard a
lady sing beautiful music; once in my whole lifetime! Can ye guess what
it meant to me?"

"Yes, Mary, I can."

"But I had that all out with meself--years ago. I knew the price a
workin' girl has to pay for such things, and I said, I'll not let meself
think about them. I've hated this place, I've wanted to get away--but
there's only one way to go, to let some man take ye! So I've stayed;
I've kept straight, Joe. I want ye to believe that."

"Of course, Mary!"

"No! It's not been 'of course'! It means ye have to fight with
temptations. It's many a time I've looked at Jeff Cotton, and thought
about the things I need! And I've done without! But now comes the thing
a woman wants more than all the other things in the world!"

She paused, but only for a moment. "They tell ye to love a man of your
own class. Me old mother said that to me, before she died. But suppose
ye didn't happen to? Suppose ye'd stopped and thought what it meant,
havin' one baby after another, till ye're worn out and drop--like me old
mother did? Suppose ye knew good manners when ye see them--ye knew
interestin' talk when ye heard it!" She clasped her hands suddenly
before her, exclaiming, "Ah, 'tis something different ye are, Joe--so
different from anything around here! The way ye talk, the way ye move,
the gay look in your eyes! No miner ever had that happy look, Joe; me
heart stops beatin' almost when ye look at me!" She stopped with a sharp
catching of her breath, and he saw that she was struggling for
self-control. After a moment she exclaimed, defiantly: "But they'd tell
ye, be careful, ye daren't love that kind of man; ye'd only have your
heart broken!"

There was silence. For this problem the amateur sociologist had no
solution at hand--whether for the abstract question, or for its concrete
application!

SECTION 31.

Mary forced herself to go on. "This is how I've worked it out, Joe! I
said to meself, 'Ye love this man; and it's his _love_ ye want--nothin'
else! If he's got a place in the world, ye'd only hold him back--and
ye'd not want to do that. Ye don't want his name, or his friends, or any
of those things--ye want _him_!' Have ye ever heard of such a thing as
that?"

Her cheeks were flaming, but she continued to meet his gaze. "Yes, I've
heard of it," he answered, in a low voice.

"What would ye say to it? Is it honest? The Reverend Spragg would say
'twas the devil, no doubt; Father O'Gorman, down in Pedro, would call it
mortal sin; and maybe they know--but I don't! I only know I can't stand
it any more!"

Tears sprang to her eyes, and she cried out suddenly, "Oh, take me away
from here! Take me away and give me a chance, Joe! I'll ask nothing,
I'll never stand in your way; I'll work for ye, I'll cook and wash and
do everything for ye, I'll wear my fingers to the bone! Or I'll go out
and work at some job, and earn my share. And I'll make ye this
promise--if ever ye get tired and want to leave me, ye'll not hear a
word of complaint!"

She made no conscious appeal to his senses; she sat gazing at him
honestly through her tears, and that made it all the harder to answer
her.

What could he say? He felt the old dangerous impulse--to take the girl
in his arms and comfort her. When finally he spoke it was with an effort
to keep his voice calm. "I'd say yes, Mary, if I thought it would work."

"It _would_ work! It would, Joe! Ye can quit when ye want to. I mean
it!"

"There's no woman lives who can be happy on such terms, Mary. She wants
her man, and she wants him to herself, and she wants him always; she's
only deluding herself if she believes anything else. You're over-wrought
now, what you've seen in the last few days has made you wild--"

"No!" she exclaimed. "'Tis not only that! I been thinkin' about it for
weeks."

"I know. You've been thinking, but you wouldn't have spoken if it hadn't
been for this horror." He paused for a moment, to renew his own
self-possession. "It won't do, Mary," he declared. "I've seen it tried
more than once, and I'm not so old either. My own brother tried it once,
and ruined himself."

"Ah, ye're afraid to trust me, Joe!"

"No, it's not that; what I mean is--he ruined his own heart, he made
himself selfish. He took everything, and gave nothing. He's much older
than I, so I've had a chance to see its effect on him. He's cold, he has
no faith, even in his own nature; when you talk to him about making the
world better he tells you you're a fool."

"It's another way of bein' afraid of me," she insisted. "Afraid you'd
ought to marry me!"

"But, Mary--there's the other girl. I really love her, and I'm promised
to her. What can I do?"

"'Tis that I've never believed you loved her," she said, in a whisper.
Her eyes fell and she began picking nervously again at the faded blue
dress, which was smutted and grease-stained, perhaps from her recent
effort with Mrs. Zamboni's brood. Several times Hal thought she was
going to speak, but she shut her lips tightly again; he watched her, his
heart aching.

When finally she spoke, it was still in a whisper, and there was a note
of humility he had never heard from her before. "Ye'll not be wantin' to
speak to me, Joe, after what I've said."

"Oh, Mary!" he exclaimed, and caught her hand, "don't say I've made you
more unhappy! I want to help you! Won't you let me be your friend--your
real, true friend? Let me help you to get out of this trap; you'll have
a chance to look about, you'll find a way to be happy--the whole world
will seem different to you then, and you'll laugh at the idea that you
ever wanted me!"

SECTION 32.

The two of them went back to the pit-mouth. It had been two days since
the disaster, and still the fan had not been started, and there was no
sign of its being started. The hysteria of the women was growing, and
there was a tension in the crowds. Jeff Cotton had brought in a force of
men to assist him in keeping order. They had built a fence of barbed
wire about the pit-mouth and its approaches, and behind this wire they
walked--hard-looking citizens with policemen's "billies," and the bulge
of revolvers plainly visible on their hips.

During this long period of waiting, Hal had talks with members of his
check-weighman group. They told what had happened while he was in jail,
and this reminded him of something which had been driven from his mind
by the explosion. Poor old John Edstrom was down in Pedro, perhaps in
dire need. Hal went to the old Swede's cabin that night, climbed through
a window, and dug up the buried money. There were five five-dollar
bills, and he put them in an envelope, addressed them in care of General
Delivery, Pedro, and had Mary Burke take them to the post office and
register them.

The hours dragged on, and still there was no sign of the pit-mouth being
opened. There began to be secret gatherings of the miners and their
wives to complain at the conduct of the company; and it was natural that
Hal's friends who had started the check-weighman movement, should take
the lead in these. They were among the most intelligent of the workers,
and saw farther into the meaning of events. They thought, not merely of
the men who were trapped under ground at this moment, but of thousands
of others who would be trapped through years to come. Hal, especially,
was pondering how he could accomplish something definite before he left
the camp; for of course he would have to leave soon--Jeff Cotton would
remember him, and carry out his threat to get rid of him.

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