Coal Camp Girl

by Lois Lenski

  “Jeff’s right,” said Daddy. “Jeff’s got a way with them ponies. He can get ’em to do whatever he wants, without any trouble, just by coaxing and sweet-talkin’.”

  Jeff’s pale face glowed as he talked of the pony he had loved and lost.

  “He was smoke-colored,” said Jeff, remembering. “He was the same color as Trigger, Roy Rogers’ horse. He was forty-six inches, came up just chest high, to the second button on my shirt.… I hated it when he had to be killed … and you burned him up …” The boy’s voice broke.

  “Who told you we did that?” asked Uncle Chick sternly.

  “I saw it,” said Jeff. “I watched it. I was hiding in the bushes.”

  No one spoke for a time.

  “It’s the law, son,” said Daddy slowly. “You got to dispose of the carcass in a sanitary way.”

  “Oh, but you should see Bright Eyes!” said Uncle Chick, in an effort to change the subject. “You’ll like Bright Eyes …”

  “You’ve got a new pony called Bright Eyes?” asked Tina, eagerly.

  “Yes, we rode clear over to Virginia and bought two new ponies,” said Uncle Chick. “Their names are Bright Eyes and Diamond.”

  Tina clapped her hands. “What pretty names! Oh, I want to ride Bright Eyes. Will he be staying at Gramp’s? Can I have him for a pet?”

  “Yes, until we start to work him,” said Uncle Chick. “You wouldn’t want Diamond—he’s pretty wild.”

  “Mama, can I go spend the night at Grandma’s?” asked Tina.

  “Not tonight, it’s way past your bedtime,” said Mama. “It’s too late to be ridin’ ponies. Ronnie’s sound asleep. You go and hop in and be quick about it. Jeff, time for bed.”

  Soon the children called good night and Mama switched off the bedroom lights.

  One by one the lights went out in the little houses, and darkness covered the little coal camp in the valley.

  Chapter Two

  COAL

  “Hi, Uncle Jack!” called the children.

  Tina and Jeff ran to meet him as he drove up in his car. Uncle Jack was their favorite uncle. He was young and good-natured, and made a fuss over the children.

  “Jack, you’d better get my house coal before snow flies,” said Mama. “Winter will be here before we know it.”

  “No time like the present,” said Uncle Jack. He turned to the children. “Want to go for a ride?”

  “Yes, yes.” Tina and Jeff jumped in the car.

  Daddy and Uncle Jack were not working today. The whistle did not blow at six the night before, and that meant the mine would not operate today. The men had only three days of steady work a week now.

  “We’ll get some house coal for your mother,” said Uncle Jack. “I’ve got some tubs and sacks in the back trunk.”

  The car went chugging down the road, with the children bouncing in the back seat. But instead of going up the mountain, Uncle Jack drove down past the big tipple and parked near the entrance to Linden Number 3 mine.

  “We can’t get coal here,” said Jeff.

  “No,” said Uncle Jack. “We’ll go up on the mountain later. I have to get something first. Want me to show you around?”

  Tina had never been there before. Uncle Jack pointed out the lamp house, the bathhouse and the mine foreman’s office. In the office, he showed them the fire boss’s reports, time sheets and injury charts. On the wall was a large map of the mine interior, with all hallways, break-throughs and crosscuts marked. Uncle Jack told the children the mine was laid out like a big city, with main streets, side streets and alleys. He showed them where his section was working—three miles into the side of the mountain, directly under the town of Mapleton.

  Then they came out and went into the lamp house. They saw all the miners’ lamps hanging up for recharging. They saw the board with numbered hooks for the miners’ identification checks. Uncle Jack gave Tina and Jack each a bank camp with a light. He fastened the batteries to their belts.

  “Now I’m a miner!” cried Jeff. “Give me a pick and a shovel!”

  “Oh, the battery’s heavy,” said Tina. “Don’t you get tired carrying it all day long?”

  Uncle Jack laughed. “No,” he said. “I’m so used to it, I never notice it. Come along with me.”

  “Where are we going?” asked Tina timidly.

  “I have to do a little work inside,” said Uncle Jack. “Want to go along?”

  “Sure!” said Jeff. “All the way in?”

  “Can I go too?” asked Tina. She had never been allowed to go near the big mine before. “Will it hurt me?”

  “Of course not,” said Uncle Jack. “It might be good for you to see how your daddy and Uncle Jack have to go under the ground where it is dark to make a living.”

  “I’ve been in plenty of mines before,” bragged Jeff. “I’m going to be a miner when I grow up.”

  “Keep your lamps on then,” said Uncle Jack, “and come along. Just be careful and go only where I tell you to. See that overhead wire? Don’t walk under it. That’s a live wire strung along the ceiling. It carries the electricity for the trolley which runs the train of coal cars in and out. The electric engine that pulls it is called a motor. When the men ride the ‘man-trip’ to go in to work, they sit on only one side of the car, so no one will be under the live wire. That’s for safety.”

  All her life Tina had wanted to go inside a mine, to see where Daddy worked, but now that she had the chance, she was not so sure she wanted to go.

  “Do we have to walk?” she asked. “Is it a long way?”

  “We’ll walk first,” said Jeff, “but pretty soon we’ll crawl.”

  “Crawl?” asked Tina.

  “Yes, when we get to the low coal,” said Jeff.

  Tina clung tightly to Uncle Jack’s hand as they went in. They walked upright in the main hall, then Uncle Jack had to bend over, and finally even the children had to go on hands and knees. Uncle Jack kept talking as Jeff asked questions, but Tina paid little attention.

  “Cousin Trig and I went in Sunrise Mine once,” said Jeff. “We pretended we were miners. We found an old mine car and pushed it in. We pretended to load it. We rode the motor and played it broke down and we had to fix it.”

  “You stay out of the abandoned mines,” said Uncle Jack. “The law requires that the drift-mouth be closed so people and animals can’t get in. Don’t ever let Trig take you in an old mine again, Jeff. There might be pockets of gas in some of those old working places, and it would kill you. It’s very dangerous.”

  They came to Uncle Jack’s section.

  “Here we are right under Mapleton dime store!” laughed Uncle Jack. “Now wait a minute till I find my tools.”

  Tina let go of Uncle Jack’s hand. She heard him explaining to Jeff about the coal saws and noisy electric drills that loosen the coal by blasting, and the “joy” machine that loads it. Uncle Jack’s work was timbering. He told how the big beams called “headers” held up the roof, and single posts or a pile of “crib-blocks” held up the headers.

  Tired of crawling now, Tina sat down to rest. It was so black inside the mine she could see nothing except the small circle of light from her lamp. In front of her the coal wall looked shiny, black and wet. She saw water running down. She turned her head to shine her light on Jeff, but he was not there.

  “Jeff, where are you?” Tina asked in a whisper.

  Jeff did not answer. There was not a sound. Tina listened carefully. Then she heard a roaring. It sounded like Grandma’s pretty sea shell when she held it up to her ear. Was the inside of the earth like the sea? Tina heard water dripping—then a rustle—something was moving close by. She bent her head and the light shone down. What was it? A strange sound, a little squeak …

  “A rat! A rat!” Tina cried.

  She started to get up, bumped her head on the top and fell over in a puddle of water. The next minute Jeff and Uncle Jack came back and took her by the hand.

  “What? Scared of a rat?” said Uncle Jack. “Why
, the rat is the miner’s best friend. Here’s some left-over lunch in my bucket. Feed it to our little pets.” He broke up some bread and scattered it.

  “You call them pets?” said Tina. “It was as big as a cat. I saw it with my light.”

  Uncle Jack laughed. “The miners have been over-feeding that one!” he said. “Come now, let’s go.”

  They crawled again, and at last were able to walk. When they came out into the sunshine, it blinded them. But oh, how good it was to see daylight again.

  “Better not tell Mama you’ve been inside,” said Uncle Jack. “It can be our secret. Mama might not like it. Women are funny that way.”

  Tina looked down at her clothes. She was black from head to foot. “What will Mama say when she sees me?”

  “We still have to get her house coal,” said Uncle Jack. “Getting coal is always dirty work.”

  The children laughed as they climbed back into. Uncle Jack’s car.

  “Let’s go up on the slate dump, Uncle Jack,” said Jeff. “There’s plenty of coal there.”

  “Hilda Krupa and her brother pick it up along the railroad tracks,” said Tina. “Hilda says up at the tipple by the conveyor belt they get a lot when the mine’s not working.”

  “Yes, and her brother steals it off the coal cars,” said Jeff. “He could be arrested for that.”

  “Taking coal is stealing, like anything else,” said Uncle Jack. “But if a man is out of work and has a big family like the Krupas and they need it to keep warm and to cook with, nobody says anything.”

  “But when they gather up coal to sell it, that’s different,” said Jeff.

  “Willie Krupa came and tried to sell some to Mama yesterday,” said Tina.

  “That’s O.K.,” said Uncle Jack. “Old Man Krupa has leased a house-coal mine from Grandpa. Those big boys, Willie and Paul, can get it out with wheelbarrows and sell it. That will help the family out until the old man gets a job.”

  The car was winding its way up the side of Laurel Mountain. On one side of the road, the houses sat on high posts, with porches high above the road, overlooking the valley. On the other side, the roofs of houses were lower than the road, for the houses were built on a lower level. A banty hen with a flock of banty chicks crossed the road ahead. Men’s bank clothes hung from clotheslines by the houses, blowing in the breeze. A long blacksnake lay dead in the grass at one side.

  The road wound around until it came to the top of Slate Dump Hill. Uncle Jack stopped the car and the children climbed out.

  “Oh, I just love to come here!” cried Tina, clapping her hands.

  “Be careful and don’t burn yourself,” said Uncle Jack. “You don’t see the fire except at night.”

  Coal cars on a high trestle track brought waste slate from Linden Number 3 mine and dumped it over the mountainside. Dumping had gone on for many, many years until the pile was almost as large as the mountain itself and the valley was filled with slate.

  The new part of the dump was burning and giving off sulphur fumes. Whenever the weather was damp, the slate began to burn by spontaneous combustion. It burned better on rainy days, with smoke rolling up in clouds. Down at the bottom where the burned slate had cooled, it was red in color. Burned slate, called “red-dog” was sometimes used for road-building material.

  “Don’t go over there,” called Tina, pointing to the railroad track and the new part. “The dump stinks bad over there.”

  “But where it’s hot and burning,” said Uncle Jack, “that’s where we find the best coal. But we must be careful and not burn ourselves.”

  Uncle Jack was like a boy himself, always ready for fun. It had not been too many years since he too had roamed the slate dumps, like all coal camp children, and had fun on them.

  “Let’s pick up what coal we can,” he said.

  The children set to work, but soon Tina got tired. She stood still and looked about. She was high above the coal camp. She could see the railroad track and the creek and the tipple down in the valley. She could see the rows of houses up and down the slopes. She spotted the Wilson house on a corner. Was that Mama or Celia out in the yard hanging up clothes?

  There was Grandpa’s house too, not so far below her. The dump was so close, she seemed to be right on top of the house.

  “Are they going to keep on dumping slate here forever and ever?” asked Tina.

  “They could dump slate into this hollow for a hundred years and not half fill it,” said Uncle Jack.

  “But won’t they cover Gramp’s house up?” asked the girl.

  “They don’t dump on this side any more,” said Uncle Jack. “They’re dumping back in Crabapple Hollow now.”

  “Crabapple Hollow—that’s where Uncle Chick lives,” said Tina.

  She picked up a piece of slate and threw it down the slope. Maybe she could hit Grandpa’s chimney. Jeff began throwing too.

  Uncle Jack laughed and said, “Trying to hit Grandpa on the head?”

  “No,” said Tina. “Just having fun.”

  “Maybe we could hit the ponies in the pasture,” Jeff said.

  “Don’t you dare try it,” said Tina.

  “Hey! You kids aren’t helping me much,” said Uncle Jack. “Guess I’ll go over to the Krupas’ house-coal mine and get the tubs filled. That’ll be quicker, since your mother’s waiting for her coal. You kids want to stay here and play?”

  Tina and Jeff nodded.

  “Roll your sacks down the hill when they are full of coal and I’ll stop and get them.” Uncle Jack got in his car and rode off.

  “Here come Trig and Dede,” said Jeff, “and Virgil Tucker.”

  “Good! Now we’ll have fun,” said Tina.

  Trig and Dede were cousins, Uncle Chick’s children. They were a little older than Tina and Jeff. Trig was a small wiry boy, always daring. Dede had curly hair which Tina envied. Virgil lived just a block away from the Wilsons. They had come to Grandpa’s and now they climbed up the dump from there. They had seen Jeff and Tina at the top.

  Trig and Dede and Virgil kept on climbing, but sometimes the slate started sliding and took them down again. After a tumble, they had to get up and start all over. That made it all the more fun. At last they reached the top.

  “Coal will bounce up and hit you,” said Trig, “but slate just slides.”

  “The more you slide, the slicker it gets,” said Virgil.

  “I brought some cardboards,” said Dede. “Let’s slide down.”

  The children sat on the cardboards and started sliding. They slid down the slate dump and walked up again. Oh, what fun it was! Then they picked up pieces of slate and threw them. Each time they would race down to see if they could find the particular piece they had thrown.

  Tina and Dede left the boys and started to look for red-dog stones. They loved the pretty colors in them. Tina stepped on a stone and cried out, “Red-dog stones are pretty but sharp!” She began to fill her pocket.

  Then Dede stepped in a low place and sank down. She pulled pulled her foot out quickly. “Ouch! That’s hot!” she called. “Oh—h—h! My leg’s burned!”

  Tina ran over. “Couldn’t you see the smoke?”

  “I thought it was just dew,” said Dede, half-crying. “Gee! My leg hurts—it’s burned.”

  Above her sock, her leg began to turn red. Tina helped her limp back up the dump where the boys were.

  “What’s the matter with you, Dede?” asked Trig.

  “I burned my leg,” said Dede. “That red-dog is hot!”

  Trig looked at her leg. “Better go down and get Grandma to put some salve on it, before it blisters,” he said.

  Dede started off down the hill limping. She waved goodbye to Tina.

  “Oh look!” cried Jeff. “I found a fossil.”

  Tina and Trig crowded close to see. The piece of slate was imprinted with lacy fern marks.

  “I bet this piece is a million years old,” said Jeff.

  “Shucks!” said Trig. “I don’t believe it.”

>   “I found some petrified wood once,” said Virgil.

  After the sacks were filled with coal, Jeff tied them up and rolled them down to the bottom of the hill. The children walked back to the far side of the dump. Here young oak and birch trees had taken root in the barren slate and were trying to grow. A scared rabbit ran out, then disappeared in a hollow. Patches of grass were trying to grow—brown grass that never turned green.

  “I know where there’s an old mine,” said Trig. “It’s caved in and got bats in it.”

  “Where’s it at?” asked Virgil.

  “Up on Deerfoot Mountain, at the head of Crabapple Holler,” said Trig. “The entry’s high up in the bushes. You boys ever been there?”

  “No,” said Jeff.

  “I know where it is,” said Virgil.

  “Want to go with me sometime?” asked Trig. “I’ll show you where it is.”

  “Well—maybe,” said Jeff. “But Uncle Jack says old mines are not safe.”

  “He’s just afraid to go in one himself,” said Trig. “I’m not.”

  Trig and Virgil started off towards home.

  “Oh Jeff,” said Tina, “let’s go down to Gramp’s pasture and ride the ponies.”

  “Not today,” said Jeff. “We’d better go straight home or Mama will be out looking for us.”

  When Tina and Jeff got home, Mama said, “Uncle Jack brought the house coal hours ago. Where have you been?”

  “We stayed up on the slate dump to play,” said Tina. “Trig and Dede came and Dede burned her leg—not bad, though.”

  Mama took a good look at the girl.

  “And what did you do, to get so black?” she asked. “You look like a coal miner!”

  It was hard for Tina to keep a secret. Before she knew it, she had blurted out the truth.

  “Uncle Jack told us not to tell you …” she added.

  “Oh, that bad brother of mine,” said Mama. “He’s always up to something.”

  “I’ve been in the mine,” said Tina. “I’ve been under this house, and all the way under Laurel Mountain. I’ve been under the dime store in Mapleton!”