King Coal

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The feeders looked up, and saw the widow's weeds thrown back, and their
leader, Joe Smith, gazing out at them. "Boys! I've come with a message
from the union!"

There was a yell; men leaped to their feet, chairs were flung back,
falling with a crash to the floor. Then, almost instantly, came silence;
you could have heard the movement of any man's jaws, had any man
continued to move them.

"Boys! I've been down to Pedro and seen the union people. I knew the
bosses wouldn't let me come back, so I dressed up, and here I am!"

It dawned upon them, the meaning of this fantastic costume; there were
cheers, laughter, yells of delight.

But Hal stretched out his hands, and silence fell again. "Listen to me!
The bosses won't let me talk long, and I've something important to say.
The union leaders say we can't win a strike now."

Consternation came into the faces before him. There were cries of
dismay. He went on:

"We are only one camp, and the bosses would turn us out, they'd get in
scabs and run the mines without us. What we must have is a strike of all
the camps at once. One big union and one big strike! If we walked out
now, it would please the bosses; but we'll fool them--we'll keep our
jobs, and keep our union too! You are members of the union, you'll go on
working for the union! Hooray for the North Valley union!"

For a moment there was no response. It was hard for men to cheer over
such a prospect! Hal saw that he must touch a different chord.

"We mustn't be cowards, boys! We've got to keep our nerve! I'm doing my
part--it took nerve to get in here! In Mrs. Zamboni's clothes, and with
two pillows stuffed in front of me!"

He thumped the pillows, and there was a burst of laughter. Many in the
crowd knew Mrs. Zamboni--it was what comedians call a "local gag." The
laughter spread, and became a gale of merriment. Men began to cheer:
"Hurrah for Joe! You're the girl! Will you marry me, Joe?" And so, of
course, it was easy for Hal to get a response when he shouted, "Hurrah
for the North Valley union!"

Again he raised his hands for silence, and went on again. "Listen, men.
They'll turn me out, and you're not going to resist them. You're going
to work and keep your jobs, and get ready for the big strike. And you'll
tell the other men what I say. I can't talk to them all, but you tell
them about the union. Remember, there are people outside planning and
fighting for you. We're going to stand by the union, all of us, till
we've brought these coal-camps back into America!" There was a cheer
that shook the walls of the room. Yes, that was what they wanted--to
live in America!

A crowd of men had gathered in the doorway, attracted by the uproar; Hal
noticed confusion and pushing, and saw the head and burly shoulders of
his enemy, Pete Hanun, come into sight.

"Here come the gunmen, boys!" he cried; and there was a roar of anger
from the crowd. Men turned, clenching their fists, glaring at the guard.
But Hal rushed on, quickly:

"Boys, hear what I say! Keep your heads! I can't stay in North Valley,
and you know it! But I've done the thing I came to do, I've brought you
the message from the union. And you'll tell the other men--tell them to
stand by the union!"

Hal went on, repeating his message over and over. Looking from one to
another of these toil-worn faces, he remembered the pledge he had made
them, and he made it anew: "I'm going to stand by you! I'm going on with
the fight, boys!"

There came more disturbance at the door, and suddenly Jeff Cotton
appeared, with a couple of additional guards, shoving their way into the
room, breathless and red in the face from running.

"Ah, there's the marshal!" cried Hal. "You needn't push, Cotton, there's
not going to be any trouble. We are union men here, we know how to
control ourselves. Now, boys, we're not giving up, we're not beaten,
we're only waiting for the men in the other camps! We have a union, and
we mean to keep it! Three cheers for the union!"

The cheers rang out with a will: cheers for the union, cheers for Joe
Smith, cheers for the widow and her weeds!

"You belong to the union! You stand by it, no matter what happens! If
they fire you, you take it on to the next place! You teach it to the new
men, you never let it die in your hearts! In union there is strength, in
union there is hope! Never forget it, men--_Union_!"

The voice of the camp-marshal rang out. "If you're coming, young woman,
come now!"

Hal dropped a shy curtsey. "Oh, Mr. Cotton! This is so sudden!" The
crowd howled; and Hal descended from his platform. With coquettish
gesturing he replaced the widow's veils about his face, and tripped
mincingly across the dining-room. When he reached the camp-marshal, he
daintily took that worthy's arm, and with the "breaker of teeth" on the
other side, and Bud Adams bringing up the rear, he toddled out of the
dining-room and down the street.

Hungry men gave up their suppers to behold that sight. They poured out
of the building, they followed, laughing, shouting, jeering. Others came
from every direction--by the time the party had reached the depot, a
good part of the population of the village was on hand; and everywhere
went the word, "It's Joe Smith! Come back with a message from the
union!" Big, coal-grimed miners laughed till the tears made streaks on
their faces; they fell on one another's necks for delight at this trick
which had been played upon their oppressors.

Even Jeff Cotton could not withhold his tribute. "By God, you're the
limit!" he muttered. He accepted the "tea-party" aspect of the affair,
as the easiest way to get rid of his recurrent guest, and avert the
possibilities of danger. He escorted the widow to the train and helped
her up the steps, posting escorts at the doors of her car; nor did the
attentions of these gallants cease until the train had moved down the
canyon and passed the limits of the North Valley stockade!

SECTION 26.

Hal took off his widow's weeds; and with them he shed the merriment he
had worn for the benefit of the men. There came a sudden reaction; he
realised that he was tired.

For ten days he had lived in a whirl of excitement, scarcely stopping to
sleep. Now he lay back in the car-seat, pale, exhausted; his head ached,
and he realised that the sum-total of his North Valley experience was
failure. There was left in him no trace of that spirit of adventure with
which he had set out upon his "summer course in practical sociology." He
had studied his lessons, tried to recite them, and been "flunked." He
smiled a bitter smile, recollecting the careless jesting that had been
on his lips as he came up that same canyon:

"He keeps them a-roll, that merry old soul--
The wheels of industree;
A-roll and a-roll, for his pipe and his bowl
And his college facultee!"

The train arrived in Pedro, and Hal took a hack at the station and drove
to the hotel. He still carried the widow's weeds rolled into a bundle.
He might have left them in the train, but the impulse to economy which
he had acquired during the last ten weeks had become a habit. He would
return them to Mrs. Zamboni. The money he had promised her might better
be used to feed her young ones. The two pillows he would leave in the
car; the hotel might endure the loss!

Entering the lobby, the first person Hal saw was his brother, and the
sight of that patrician face made human by disgust relieved Hal's
headache in part. Life was harsh, life was cruel; but here was weary,
waiting Edward, that boon of comic relief!

Edward demanded to know where the devil he had been; and Hal answered,
"I've been visiting the widows and orphans."

"Oh!" said Edward. "And while I sit in this hole and stew! What's that
you've got under your arm?"

Hal looked at the bundle. "It's a souvenir of one of the widows," he
said, and unrolled the garments and spread them out before his brother's
puzzled eyes. "A lady named Mrs. Swajka gave them to me. They belonged
to another lady, Mrs. Zamboni, but she doesn't need them any more."

"What have _you_ got to do with them?"

"It seems that Mrs. Zamboni is going to get married again." Hal lowered
his voice, confidentially. "It's a romance, Edward--it may interest you
as an illustration of the manners of these foreign races. She met a man
on the street, a fine, fine man, she says--and he gave her a lot of
money. So she went and bought herself some new clothes, and she wants to
give these widow's weeds to the new man. That's the custom in her
country, it seems--her sign that she accepts him as a suitor."

Seeing the look of wonderment growing on his brother's face, Hal had to
stop for a moment to keep his own face straight. "If that man wasn't
serious in his intention, Edward, he'll have trouble, for I know Mrs.
Zamboni's emotional nature. She'll follow him about everywhere--"

"Hal, that creature is insane!" And Edward looked about him nervously,
as if he thought the Slavish widow might appear suddenly in the hotel
lobby to demonstrate her emotional nature.

"No," replied Hal, "it's just one of those differences in national
customs." And suddenly Hal's face gave way. He began to laugh; he
laughed, perhaps more loudly than good form permitted.

Edward was much annoyed. There were people in the lobby, and they were
staring at him. "Cut it out, Hal!" he exclaimed. "Your fool jokes bore
me!" But nevertheless, Hal could see uncertainty in his brother's face.
Edward recognised those widow's weeds. And how could he be sure about
the "national customs" of that grotesque creature who had pinched him in
the ribs on the street?

"Cut it out!" he cried again.

Hal, changing his voice suddenly to the Zamboni key, exclaimed: "Mister,
I got eight children I got to feed, and I don't got no more man, and I
don't find no new man for old woman like me!"

So at last the truth in its full enormity began to dawn upon Edward. His
consternation and disgust poured themselves out; and Hal listened, his
laughter dying. "Edward," he said, "you don't take me seriously even
yet!"

"Good God!" cried the other. "I believe you're really insane!"

"You were up there, Edward! You heard what I said to those poor devils!
And you actually thought I'd go off with you and forget about them!"

Edward ignored this. "You're really insane!" he repeated. "You'll get
yourself killed, in spite of all I can do!"

But Hal only laughed. "Not a chance of it! You should have seen the
tea-party manners of the camp-marshal!"

SECTION 27.

Edward would have endeavoured to carry his brother away forthwith, but
there was no train until late at night; so Hal went upstairs, where he
found Moylan and Hartman with Mary Burke and Mrs. Zamboni, all eager to
hear his story. As the members of the committee, who had been out to
supper, came straggling in, the story was told again, and yet again.
They were almost as much delighted as the men in Reminitsky's. If only
all strikes that had to be called off could be called off as neatly as
that!

Between these outbursts of satisfaction, they discussed their future.
Moylan was going back to Western City, Hartman to his office in
Sheridan, from which he would arrange to send new organisers into North
Valley. No doubt Cartwright would turn off many men--those who had made
themselves conspicuous during the strike, those who continued to talk
union out loud. But such men would have to be replaced, and the union
knew through what agencies the company got its hands. The North Valley
miners would find themselves mysteriously provided with union literature
in their various languages; it would be slipped under their pillows, or
into their dinner-pails, or the pockets of their coats while they were
at work.

Also there was propaganda to be carried on among those who were turned
away; so that, wherever they went, they would take the message of
unionism. There had been a sympathetic outburst in Barela, Hal
learned--starting quite spontaneously that morning, when the men heard
what had happened at North Valley. A score of workers had been fired,
and more would probably follow in the morning. Here was a job for the
members of the kidnapped committee; Tim Rafferty, for example--would he
care to stay in Pedro for a week or two, to meet such men, and give them
literature and arguments?

This offer was welcome; for life looked desolate to the Irish boy at
this moment. He was out of a job, his father was a wreck, his family
destitute and helpless. They would have to leave their home, of course;
there would be no place for any Rafferty in North Valley. Where they
would go, God only knew; Tim would become a wanderer, living away from
his people, starving himself and sending home his pitiful savings.

Hal was watching the boy, and reading these thoughts. He, Hal Warner,
would play the god out of a machine in this case, and in several others
equally pitiful. He had the right to sign his father's name to checks, a
privilege which he believed he could retain, even while undertaking the
role of Haroun al Raschid in a mine-disaster. But what about the
mine-disasters and abortive strikes where there did not happen to be any
Haroun al Raschid at hand? What about those people, right in North
Valley, who did not happen to have told Hal of their affairs? He
perceived that it was only by turning his back and running that he would
escape from his adventure with any portion of his self-possession.
Truly, this fair-seeming and wonderful civilisation was like the floor
of a charnel-house or a field of battle; anywhere one drove a spade
beneath its surface, he uncovered horrors, sights for the eyes and
stenches for the nostrils that caused him to turn sick!

There was Rusick, for example; he had a wife and two children, and not a
dollar in the world. In the year and more that he had worked, faithfully
and persistently, to get out coal for Peter Harrigan, he had never once
been able to get ahead of his bill for the necessities of life at Old
Peter's store. All his belongings in the world could be carried in a
bundle on his back, and whether he ever saw these again would depend
upon the whim of old Peter's camp-marshal and guards. Rusick would take
to the road, with a ticket purchased by the union. Perhaps he would find
a job and perhaps not; in any case, the best he could hope for in life
was to work for some other Harrigan, and run into debt at some other
company-store.

There was Hobianish, a Serbian, and Hernandez, a Mexican, of whom the
same things were true, except that one had four children and the other
six. Bill Wauchope had only a wife--their babies had died, thank heaven,
he said. He did not seem to have been much moved by Jim Moylan's
pleadings; he was down and out; he would take to the road, and beat his
way to the East and back to England. They called this a free country! By
God, if he were to tell what had happened to him, he could not get an
English miner to believe it!

Hal gave these men his real name and address, and made them promise to
let him know how they got along. He would help a little, he said; in his
mind he was figuring how much he ought to do. How far shall a man go in
relieving the starvation about him, before he can enjoy his meals in a
well-appointed club? What casuist will work out this problem--telling
him the percentage he shall relieve of the starvation he happens
personally to know about, the percentage of that which he sees on the
streets, the percentage of that about which he reads in government
reports on the rise in the cost of living. To what extent is he
permitted to close his eyes, as he walks along the streets on his way to
the club? To what extent is he permitted to avoid reading government
reports before going out to dinner-dances with his fiancee? Problems
such as these the masters of the higher mathematics have neglected to
solve; the wise men of the academies and the holy men of the churches
have likewise failed to work out the formulas; and Hal, trying to obtain
them by his crude mental arithmetic, found no satisfaction in the
results.

SECTION 28.

Hal wanted a chance to talk to Mary Burke; they had had no intimate talk
since the meeting with Jessie Arthur, and now he was going away, for a
long time. He wanted to find out what plans Mary had for the future,
and--more important yet--what was her state of mind. If he had been able
to lift this girl from despair, his summer course in practical sociology
had not been all a failure!

He asked her to go with him to say good-bye to John Edstrom, whom he had
not seen since their unceremonious parting at MacKellar's, when Hal had
fled to Percy Harrigan's train. Downstairs in the lobby Hal explained
his errand to his waiting brother, who made no comment, but merely
remarked that he would follow, if Hal had no objection. He did not care
to make the acquaintance of the Hibernian Joan of Arc, and would not
come close enough to interfere with Hal's conversation with the lady;
but he wished to do what he could for his brother's protection. So there
set out a moon-light procession--first Hal and Mary, then Edward, and
then Edward's dinner-table companion, the "hardware-drummer!"

Hal was embarrassed in beginning his farewell talk with Mary. He had no
idea how she felt towards him, and he admitted with a guilty pang that
he was a little afraid to find out! He thought it best to be cheerful,
so he started to tell her how fine he thought her conduct during the
strike. But she did not respond to his remarks, and at last he realised
that she was labouring with some thoughts of her own.

"There's somethin' I got to say to ye!" she began, suddenly. "A couple
of days ago I knew how I meant to say it, but now I don't."

"Well," he laughed, "say it as you meant to."

"No; 'twas bitter--and now I'm on my knees before ye."

"Not that I want you to be bitter," said Hal, still laughing, "but it's
I that ought to be on my knees before you. I didn't accomplish anything,
you know."

"Ye did all ye could--and more than the rest of us. I want ye to know
I'll never forget it. But I want ye to hear the other thing, too!"

She walked on, staring before her, doubling up her hands in agitation.
"Well?" said he, still trying to keep a cheerful tone.

"Ye remember that day just after the explosion? Ye remember what I said
about--about goin' away with ye? I take it back."

"Oh, of course!" said he, quickly. "You were distracted, Mary--you
didn't know what you were saying."

"No, no! That's not it! But I've changed my mind; I don't mean to throw
meself away."

"I told you you'd see it that way," he said. "No man is worth it."

"Ah, lad!" said she. "'Tis the fine soothin' tongue ye have--but I'd
rather ye knew the truth. 'Tis that I've seen the other girl; and I hate
her!"

They walked for a bit in silence. Hal had sense enough to realise that
here was a difficult subject. "I don't want to be a prig, Mary," he said
gently; "but you'll change your mind about that, too. You'll not hate
her; you'll be sorry for her."

She laughed--a raw, harsh laugh. "What kind of a joke is that?"

"I know--it may seem like one. But it'll come to you some day. You have
a wonderful thing to live and fight for; while she"--he hesitated a
moment, for he was not sure of his own ideas on this subject--"she has
so many things to learn; and she may never learn them. She'll miss some
fine things."

"I know one of the fine things she does not mean to miss," said Mary,
grimly; "that's Mr. Hal Warner." Then, after they had walked again in
silence: "I want ye to understand me, Mr. Warner--"

"Ah, Mary!" he pleaded. "Don't treat me that way! I'm Joe."

"All right," she said, "Joe ye shall be. 'Twill remind ye of a pretty
adventure--bein' a workin' man for a few weeks. Well, that's a part of
what I have to tell ye. I've got my pride, even if I'm only a poor
miner's daughter; and the other day I found out me place."

"How do you mean?" he asked.

"Ye don't understand? Honest?"

"No, honest," he said.

"Ye're stupid with women, Joe. Ye didn't see what the girl did to me!
'Twas some kind of a bug I was to her. She was not sure if I was the
kind that bites, but she took no chances--she threw me off, like that."
And Mary snapped her hand, as one does when troubled with a bug.

"Ah, now!" pleaded Hal. "You're not being fair!"

"I'm bein' just as fair as I've got it in me to be, Joe. I been off and
had it all out. I can see this much--'tis not her fault, maybe--'tis her
class; 'tis all of ye--the very best of ye, even yeself, Joe Smith!"

"Yea," he replied, "Tim Rafferty said that."

"Tim said too much--but a part of it was true. Ye think ye've come here
and been one of us workin' people." But don't your own sense tell you
the difference, as if it was a canyon a million miles across--between a
poor ignorant creature in a minin' camp, and a rich man's daughter, a
lady? Ye'd tell me not to be ashamed of poverty; but would ye ever put
me by the side of her--for all your fine feelin's of friendship for them
that's beneath ye? Didn't ye show that at the Minettis'?"

"But don't you see, Mary--" He made an effort to laugh. "I got used to
obeying Jessie! I knew her a long time before I knew you."

"Ah, Joe! Ye've a kind heart, and a pleasant way of speakin'. But
wouldn't it interest ye to know the real truth? Ye said ye'd come out
here to learn the truth!"

And Hal answered, in a low voice, "Yes," and did not interrupt again.

SECTION 29.

Mary's voice had dropped low, and Hal thought how rich and warm it was
when she was deeply moved. She went on:

"I lived all me life in minin' camps, Joe Smith, and I seen men robbed
and beaten, and women cryin' and childer hungry. I seen the company,
like some great wicked beast that eat them up. But I never knew why, or
what it meant--till that day, there at the Minettis'. I'd read about
fine ladies in books, ye see; but I'd never been spoke to by one, I'd
never had to swallow one, as ye might say. But there I did--and all at
once I seemed to know where the money goes that's wrung out of the
miners. I saw why people were robbin' us, grindin' the life out of
us--for fine ladies like that, to keep them so shinin' and soft! 'Twould
not have been so bad, if she'd not come just then, with all the men and
boys dyin' down in the pits--dyin' for that soft, white skin, and those
soft, white hands, and all those silky things she swished round in. My
God, Joe--d'ye know what she seemed to me like? Like a smooth, sleek cat
that has just eat up a whole nest full of baby mice, and has the blood
of them all over her cheeks!"

Mary paused, breathing hard. Hal kept silence, and she went on again: "I
had it out with meself, Joe! I don't want ye to think I'm any better
than I am, and I asked meself this question--Is it for the men in the
pits that ye hate her with such black murder? Or is it for the one man
ye want, and that she's got? And I knew the answer to that! But then I
asked meself another question, too--Would ye be like her if ye could?
Would ye do what she's doin' right now--would ye have it on your soul?
And as God hears me, Joe, 'tis the truth I speak--I'd not do it! No, not
for the love of any man that ever walked on this earth!"

She had lifted her clenched fist as she spoke. She let it fall again,
and strode on, not even glancing at him. "Ye might try a thousand years,
Joe, and ye'd not realise the feelin's that come to me there at the
Minettis'. The shame of it--not what she done to me, but what she made
me in me own eyes! Me, the daughter of a drunken old miner, and her--I
don't know what her father is, but she's some sort of princess, and she
knows it. And that's the thing that counts, Joe! 'Tis not that she has
so much money, and so many fine things; that she knows how to talk, and
I don't, and that her voice is sweet, and mine is ugly, when I'm ragin'
as I am now. No--'tis that she's so _sure!_ That's the word I found to
say it; she's sure--sure--_sure!_ She has the fine things, she's always
had them, she has a right to have them! And I have a right to nothin'
but trouble, I'm hunted all day by misery and fear, I've lost even the
roof over me head! Joe, ye know I've got some temper--I'm not easy to
beat down; but when I'd got through bein' taught me place, I went off
and hid meself, I ground me face in the dirt, for the black rage of it!
I said to meself, 'Tis true! There's somethin' in her better than me!
She's some kind of finer creature.--Look at these hands!" She held them
out in the moonlight, with a swift, passionate gesture. "So she's a
right to her man, and I'm a fool to have ever raised me eyes to him! I
have to see him go away, and crawl back into me leaky old shack! Yes,
that's the truth! And when I point it out to the man, what d'ye think he
says? Why, he tells me gently and kindly that I ought to be sorry for
her! Christ! did ye ever hear the like of that?"

There was a long silence. Hal could not have said anything now, if he
had wished to. He knew that this was what he had come to seek! This was
the naked soul of the class-war!

"Now," concluded Mary, with clenched hands, and a voice that
corresponded, "now, I've had it out. I'm no slave; I've just as good a
right to life as any lady. I know I'll never have it, of course; I'll
never wear good clothes, nor live in a decent home, nor have the man I
want; but I'll know that I've done somethin' to help free the workin'
people from the shame that's put on them. That's what the strike done
for me, Joe! The strike showed me the way. We're beat this time, but
somehow it hasn't made the difference ye might think. I'm goin' to make
more strikes before I quit, and they won't all of them be beat!"

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