The Librarian of Boone's Hollow

by Kim Vogel Sawyer

  Lynch

  Emmett

  “DON’T GIVE UP, boy.” Paw growled the command into Emmett’s ear while massaging his shoulders.

  The pressure of Paw’s fingers sent ripples of pain up Emmett’s neck and all the way down his arms. The sunshine felt good after being in the dark mine for hours, and the air tasted fresh after breathing the acrid smell of dust all morning. He wanted to stay out here in the sun and never go into the mine again. “I don’t want to give up, Paw, but…” He groaned.

  A couple of men sitting on a patch of gravel with lunch boxes in their laps glanced his way and then smirked at each other.

  He shrugged free of his father’s touch and held out both hands. Bleeding blisters dotted his palms. “Paw, look. How am I going to make it to the end of the day?”

  Paw plopped down next to Emmett and reached for his metal lunch box. “Same way every other feller who works here does—take it one hour at a time.”

  Emmett touched one particularly large blister and winced. “I’m not sure I’ve got another hour in me.”

  Paw glared at him. “A man keeps goin’ even when it’s tough.” He nudged Emmett with his elbow. “Eat your lunch. It’ll bolster you for the afternoon.”

  Paw’s lack of sympathy pained Emmett more than his aching muscles. He opened the peanut butter tin Maw had used to pack his lunch and pulled out a wax paper–wrapped sandwich. He wasn’t hungry. The weariness seemed to have reached all the way into his bones and stolen his hunger. But he’d eat anyway. If he took the lunch home untouched, Maw would worry. Besides, Paw was right. He needed strength to face the afternoon.

  While he ate his sandwich, pickled beets, and cookies, those around him chatted and laughed, much the way the workers from Tuckett’s Pass and Boone’s Hollow did on their morning drive to the mine. But Emmett didn’t join in. Talking took energy he didn’t have. He swallowed the last bite of cookie, then checked the big round clock on the side of the firehouse. He stifled another groan. Five more minutes of the lunch break, and then he’d have to go in and pick up his shovel.

  Paw got to his feet. “Gonna get me a drink an’ visit the outhouse. Prob’ly won’t see you again until end o’ the day.” He pointed at him. “Stay strong.”

  “Yes, sir.” Emmett rested his elbows on his knees and let his head dangle, stretching the tight muscles in his back. A shadow fell across him, and then a hand clamped over his shoulder. He looked up.

  One of the men who’d seemed to poke fun at him earlier grinned down at him. “You Tharp’s son?”

  Emmett nodded.

  “They put you on the shovel crew?”

  He nodded again.

  “Thought so when I seen him tendin’ to you an’ then got a look at your blisters. Them’re shovel blisters, for sure. Why didn’t you buy your equipment before you started?”

  Emmett stood and folded his arms over his chest. He was too worn out to fight anybody, but he wasn’t in the mood to be ridiculed, either, not even by a man twenty pounds heavier and probably as old as Paw. “I only got hired this morning. No one told me to buy equipment.”

  The fellow pulled a pair of leather gloves from his belt. “Common sense says you oughta wear gloves if you’re usin’ a shovel.” He smacked his palm with the gloves in rhythmic whacks. Dust rose with every whack.

  “Yeah, well, I guess I didn’t take the course on mining common sense at the University of Kentucky.” He hadn’t intended to be snide. Maw would gasp in disapproval, and even Paw would give Emmett a foul look if he heard Emmett talk so disrespectfully to one of his elders. He braced himself for backlash, but the man burst out laughing.

  “Lemme educate you a little bit here, college boy. Pushin’ a shovel causes friction. Friction causes blisters. Blisters can get infected. Infections keep you from workin’. So, it all comes down to needin’ gloves.” He flicked the gloves against Emmett’s middle.

  Emmett automatically took hold of them.

  “Put ’em on. But not ’til you’ve seen the mine physician an’ had him clean an’ bandage those sores. After work, get yourself to the company store an’ buy your own.”

  Emmett fingered the worn gloves. “I don’t have money.”

  The man snorted. “You’re a mine employee now, aren’t you? They’ll put it against your comin’ pay. Get at least two pairs.” He dropped his attention to Emmett’s feet. “Get some boots, too. Them shoes you’re wearin’ might be fine for Sunday mornin’ church, but they won’t hold up over time in the mine.”

  The whistle blared, and everyone started toward the mine opening. The man drew Emmett away from the flow and pointed in the direction of the physician’s shack. He hollered, “Go see the doc. I’ll let Stead know where you are. If you don’t see me at the end o’ the day, give him my gloves. He’ll make sure I get ’em back.” The whistle faded down to a shrill hiss.

  Emmett waved the gloves. “I sure appreciate this, Mister…Mister…”

  The man grinned. “Just call me Teach.” He took off at a trot and joined the others returning to the shafts.

  With his hands bandaged and the borrowed gloves in place, Emmett made it through the day. His afternoon productivity didn’t match the morning, though. The gloves were a little big, making it harder to grip the shovel, so he couldn’t scoop as much. But remembering Paw’s admonition that a man keeps going and Maw’s penchant for quoting Philippians 4:13 about doing all with Jesus’s strength, he lasted the full day.

  Paw and the others went to the bathhouse when the quitting whistle sang, but Emmett looked for Teach. In the crowd of milling dust-covered men, the fellow didn’t stand out, so Emmett handed off the gloves to Stead and made his way to the company store. It’d been a few years since he’d been in the store owned by US Steel. Like the last time he’d been there, the shelves were stocked with choices. Lots of shoppers browsed the different areas. All the sales personnel were busy with other customers, so Emmett wandered the store and waited his turn.

  They’d added electric appliances to the household goods section, and he couldn’t resist opening the door on a refrigerator. A light came on, illuminating the shelves inside, and cool air flowed out. Wouldn’t Maw like to have one of those in place of her old icebox? But they’d need electricity run to the house to operate it. Paw’d been saving for years to have the electric company bring a line to their cabin. Emmett glanced at the refrigerator’s price tag and whistled through his teeth. If a fellow put one of those big items on his tab, he’d never have the money to run electric wires to his house.

  He moved on and found a display of leather work gloves. He tried on several pairs until he found some that fit tight without cutting off his circulation. Teach had said to get two, and he seemed to know what he was talking about, so Emmett followed his advice. Then he headed for the area where boxes of shoes and boots formed towers. He examined the drawings on the ends of the boxes, looking for boots similar to the ones Paw had worn for as far back as Emmett could remember.

  A clerk hurried over. “Sorry it took so long. Been busy in here all day. Usually is, the first Monday after payday. How can I help you?”

  Emmett glanced at the beanpole-thin, sweaty-faced youth. “I need some boots for working in the mine.”

  The clerk stepped past him and gestured to a stack at the end of the rows. “This here style is what most o’ the miners wear. Tall shank, double-thick sole, and a steel toe. What size you need?”

  Emmett shrugged. “Eleven, I think.”

  The clerk squinted at the boxes, then slid one free from the middle of the stack. He handed it to Emmett. “Most of the men put good thick socks on, too, so they don’t rub blisters.”

  Emmett didn’t want any more blisters. “Better get me some, then.”

  “Sit down over there an’ try on them boots.” The clerk flapped his hand at a low bench nearby. “I’ll fetch some socks. Three pair
s or four?”

  “Four, I guess.”

  “Four it is.” The fellow scurried off.

  Emmett gritted his teeth and clomped stiffly to the bench. He’d spend half of his first paycheck before he even got it. But he supposed he could call the purchases an investment in his future as a miner. The thought didn’t do much to cheer him. He sat and pulled off his shoe. Black dust filtered down to the white tile floor. Emmett rubbed it away real quick with his sock, hoping nobody noticed. The boot fit a little loose over his stocking, but a thick sock would fill the gap. This pair would do.

  He put the boots in the box, closed the lid, and slid his feet back into his shoes. At the counter, he signed his first ticket as an official employee of US Coal & Coke’s Mine Thirty-One, then tucked his purchases under his arm and left the store. He stood at the edge of the boardwalk and looked up the street. Where was the wagon that took the Boone’s Hollow workers home? He shifted his gaze to the firehouse clock, and his heart sank. The shift had ended almost an hour ago. The wagon had probably already gone on. Without him.

  He leaned against a porch pillar, his entire frame sagging. A tiredness beyond anything he’d known before strained every muscle in his body. And now he had to walk that mile-long road up the mountain. Maybe he should take a hotel room instead. Didn’t the Miner’s Hotel let workers sign receipts? Temptation to travel the short walk to the hotel pulled hard, but in the end he couldn’t make himself do it. If he didn’t get home, Maw would worry.

  “A man keeps goin’ even when it’s tough.” He pushed off from the post and aimed his aching feet for the road.

  Boone’s Hollow

  Bettina

  MULE PLODDED DOWN BOONE’S HOLLER’S main street, and Bettina didn’t give him so much as a nudge to hurry him along. Dawdling was fine. She’d dawdled all day. Done it on purpose. But now dusk was falling and she’d delivered her last books, and Miz West’d be wondering why she hadn’t turned up yet. There wasn’t no choice but to drop her pack off at the library and go on home to Pap’s wrath.

  Her stomach hurt.

  At the other end of town, a man, toting packages and wearing coal dust from head to toe, trudged up the street. His head bobbed like he was falling asleep on his feet, and his shoulders hung as sloped as rain-soaked branches. He sure looked beat. More beat than Mule after a full day of carting her over her mountain route. Fool feller must’ve missed the wagon. She swallowed a little chortle. Reckon he wouldn’t do that again.

  “C’mon, Mule, let’s go see who it is there that got left behind.” She tapped her heels. Mule snorted, but he clopped a little faster. Bettina kept her squinty gaze pinned on the feller, and all of a sudden his predicament didn’t seem funny anymore. She ordered Mule to stop, slid to the ground, and hollered, “Emmett!”

  His head came up, and his gaze lit on hers. He stopped dead in his tracks.

  She dropped Mule’s reins and hurried to him. Up close, he surely was a sight, his hands wrapped with strips of blood-stained cloth and his face so filthy she couldn’t hardly tell it was him. She took the boxes that dangled from his fingers by strings and gawked at him. “Since when’re you workin’ in the mine? An’ how come you’re walkin’? The wagon shoulda brung you back two hours ago.”

  He scrunched his face. Coal dust formed whiskers in the creases. “I had to buy gloves and boots, and I guess I took too long at the store, because the wagon went on without me.” He lifted his arm real slow and swiped his face with his sleeve. The whiskers got lost under a smear of black dust. “So I walked.”

  Bettina shook her head, swinging his boxes. “If I’d known you was stranded, I’da brung Mule down the mountain to carry you home.” She would’ve got up behind him and wrapped her arms around his middle to keep ’em both on the mule’s back. Wouldn’t that’ve been fine?

  “That’s nice of you, Bettina, but I think your old mule works hard enough taking you on your book route.”

  She plunked her fist on her hip, bopping her thigh with the smaller box. “You sayin’ I’m a heavisome burden for Mule all by own self?”

  He drew back. “No. I meant—” He blew out a big breath. “I’m too tired to think.”

  She should oughta let him go home, rinse off the layer of dust, and drop into bed, but she needed the pleasure of talking to him to reflect on later, when she was home and Pap was bellowing at her because the new book gal wasn’t staying with them. “Pap didn’t tell me you was workin’ at Mine Thirty-One.”

  “He didn’t know. I didn’t know myself until this morning. I had to get a job, so…” He reached for the boxes. “Listen, Bettina, my maw’s probably worrying about me. I better go.”

  She flopped the boxes behind her back. “You’re plumb wore out. Lemme carry these for you.”

  “That’s real nice, but—”

  “You’re near to drop. Here.” She put the boxes on the ground and curled her hands around his arm. His muscles felt tight and quivery, and it made her insides shiver. Yessir, he was strong. Stronger’n Pap, for sure. She guided him toward the library. “You sit there on the lib’ary stoop, an’ I’ll fetch ol’ Mule. After I turn in my pack, you an’ me’ll ride Mule to your place. Don’t that sound better’n climbin’ the path when you’re so tuckered you can’t hardly put one foot in the front o’ the other?”

  His feet dragged like he was wearing concrete shoes, but he made it to the library and sank down on the stoop. He let out a low groan. “This is a mistake. Now that I’m sitting, I might not be able to get up again.”

  She patted his shoulder, raising a little puff of dust. “Don’t you worry none about that. I’ll help you up.”

  Miz West stepped into the doorway. She looked at Bettina, then Emmett, then Bettina again. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes’m.” Bettina beamed at the woman. Oh, how she liked taking care of Emmett. She felt sorry for him, but now he’d get a little peek at how good she’d be to him when they was married. “This here’s my friend. He needs to sit for a minute an’ catch his breath. Soon as I get my pack for you, we’ll be on our way. Shouldn’t take no longer’n two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

  Emmett put his elbows on his knees and sagged forward.

  Miz West stared at him for a few seconds, then gave Bettina one of her pinched-lips scowls. “Please hurry. I’d like to get your returns cataloged. Addie and I are late to supper.”

  Bettina scampered off, though she didn’t care one bit about that new book gal going hungry. If she’d agreed to stay with Pap and her, then Bettina wouldn’t have took so much time on her route and they could be sitting down to a meal right now. ’Course, then she would’ve missed seeing Emmett come up the road. Maybe the new book gal had done her a little bit of a favor. Maybe.

  She grabbed Mule’s reins and pulled him close to the library. She yanked the pack from his back, eased past Emmett into the building, and flopped the pack onto the table.

  The new book gal opened the pack and smiled. “Thank you, Bettina.”

  Bettina grunted and hurried back outside. “Lemme get your boxes, Emmett, an’ then I’ll help you up on Mule’s back.”

  He pushed his hand against the rock stoop and stood. “It’s all right, Bettina. I’m so tired I’d probably fall off his back. But if you don’t mind, I’ll let you carry those boxes for me.” He looked at his bandaged hands. “I hate to admit how much these hurt.”

  A gasp came from the library’s doorway.

  Bettina looked up, and Emmett half turned, too.

  The new book gal stared at Emmett’s hands the way Bettina might stare at Pap’s raised fist. She looked straight into Emmett’s face. “What happened to you?”

  Emmett’s whole body jerked, like somebody’d sneaked up behind him and poked him with a stick. He leaned toward the new girl, wobbling a little bit, and his mouth fell open. “Addie Cowherd?”

  Addie
>
  ADDIE MOVED ONTO the stoop, gaze locked on the blue eyes of the young man who wore stained bandages on his hands and splotches of black dust on every inch of his skin and clothes. Between the fading sunlight and the smears marring his face, she couldn’t make out his features. But his voice seemed slightly familiar. “Do I know you?”

  A lopsided smile formed on his lips. “I think that’s what I asked you at the UK bonfire.”

  She drew in a breath and reared back. “Now I remember. You’re Emmett. Emmett…” She couldn’t recall his surname.

  “Tharp.” He bobbed his hands. “I’d offer to shake hands, but…”

  “It’s all right.” She cringed at the dark stains on the cloth. “Were you in an accident?”

  “No, these are from ignorance.”

  She shot him a puzzled look.

  “I shoveled coal for four hours without first putting on gloves.”

  Addie gripped her throat. “Oh, my…Four hours is a long time to shovel coal.”

  “Actually, I shoveled closer to nine hours in total, but I used gloves in the afternoon.” He turned a rueful grimace on his hands. “Of course, it was too late by then.”

  Bettina had stood to the side, her attention shifting between Emmett and Addie the way spectators watched a tennis match. She scuttled close to Emmett and curled her hands around his upper arm. “C’mon, Emmett. I’ll getcha home now.”

  Addie stepped to the ground. “Just a moment, Bettina.” She’d come out to deliver a message, but Emmett’s pathetic appearance had distracted her. She shouldn’t let Bettina leave without fulfilling her duty to the librarian. “Miss West said your pack is short a book, a copy of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Her records indicate it was loaned to the Tool family.”

  Bettina clung to Emmett’s arm and scowled. “I brung back everything the folks give me. Mebbe Miz Tool wasn’t done with it yet an’ kept it.”