Memories Of Another Day Part 9

"But Molly Ann an' me, we figgered on bein' able to stay together."

"You kin stay aroun' if'n you want, but there's no jobs aroun' here fer you. Grafton's the only place."

"What about Molly Ann, then?" Daniel asked.

Fitch looked at the girl. "I kin git her a good job in the mill right here."

Daniel looked at his sister. "I don' know." He hesitated.

"Don' worry, Danl," Molly Ann said quickly. "I'll be all right."

"I'll look after her m'self, boy," Fitch said. "Miz Fitch'U see to it that she has a decent place to stay."

Daniel looked at the heavyset man behind the desk, then at his sister. He didn't like it. But he didn't have much choice. Paw had sent them down here to work. He couldn't go back and tell him he didn't like it. At that moment, he made up his mind to go back to the Widow Carroll's house and ask Jimmy to keep an eye on his sister. There was something about the young man that Daniel felt could be trusted. It was very different from the feeling he had about Mr. Fitch.

"All right," he said reluctantly.

^'That's better." Fitch smiled. He rose. ''I got a wagon goin' down to Grafton this afternoon. You kin ketch a ride on it." He walked to the door of the small office. ''Now you kids wait right here while I make some arrangements.''

They looked at each other when he had gone. "I don' lak him/' Daniel said simply.

Molly Ann reached for his hand. "Yer growin' up too fast, Dan'l," she said. ''But don't fergit, I'm growin' up too."

It was slightly past ten o'clock when Daniel and Molly Ann were back at the boardinghouse. The Widow Carroll came to the door in answer to their knock. "Is Mr. Simpson still in, Miz Carroll?" Daniel asked.

"He's roun' back in the bam fussin' with his mule," she said shortly. She shot a glance at him. "You plannin' to stay the night?"

"No, ma'am," he answered. "I'm goin' on to Grafton this afternoon."

"Yer sister too?"

"No, ma'am. She got a job heah in the mill."

"Well, she cain't stay here," she said sharply. "Las' night was an exception, but I don' allow girls to stay here. Sooner or later there is always trouble."

Daniel looked into the woman's eyes. "We thank you fer your hospitality, ma'am," he said quietly. "An' we have no intention of abusin' it."

Her eyes fell before his gaze. She felt oddly confused. "Of course, if she-"

He interrupted her: "I trust it won't be necessary, ma'am. Thank you kindly."

She watched them walk down the porch steps and around the comer of the house before she closed the door and went back to her cleaning. She was right. She knew she was right. Girls were always trouble. Sooner or later the men would begin to fight over her. But this was a nice girl from a good family. Not like the cheap trash that usually worked in the mills. Maybe she had spoken too quickly. She cursed her tongue silently. It had always been her worst fault. Angrily, she began making the dust fly with her broom.

Daniel and Molly Ann found Jimmy in the bam, but he wasn't fussing with his mule-at least, not that mule. The animal was contentedly munching on some hay in his stall. Jimmy was bottling the squeezin's.

He was standing in front of a wooden bench which was covered with clear gla.s.s pint bottles. Under one arm he held a jug, in the other hand a funnel. Quickly, efficiently, with a motion bom of years of practice, he slipped the nozzle of the funnel into the bottle, tipped the jug and let the clear white liquid flow into the bottle. When it was full, he moved on to the next.

Daniel was fascinated. Not so much by the rebottling, but by the fact that when he poured the clear 'shine into the bottles, it immediately tumed smoky brown in color. He had never seen anything like that before. They stood there silently until Jimmy had emptied one jug and reached for another. "Mr. Simpson," he said.

Jimmy tumed and smiled. He put down the empty jug. "Ever'thingokay?"

Daniel nodded. "I guess so." He glanced at the bench. *'We don' mean to be interruptin'."

Jimmy laughed. 'They waited this long fer Simpson's whiskey, they kin wait a bit longer."

"Whiskey?" Daniel was puzzled.

Jimmy nodded. "That's what I'm makin'. A few drops of sarsaparilla and flavorin' an' you cain't tell the difference between mine an' store-bought. Gits a better price'n clear 'shine, too."

Daniel hesitated. ''Got a favor to ask, but you already been so kin'-"

''Go ahead an' ask," Jimmy said quickly. "Anythin' I kin do."

"Mr. Fitch says I'm too tall to work in the gla.s.s factory heah, an' he got me a job in a mine down Grafton way."

Jimmy made no comment. "An' your sister?"

"She's goin' to the mill heah." Daniel looked at Molly Ann. "It's not 'zactly the way we thought. We thought we would be together. Mr. Fitch says he'll look after her." He fell silent.

Jimmy looked at Molly Ann. Her gaze dropped demurely. He saw the faint blush come into her cheeks. "What d'you think?" he asked her.

She didn't answer.

He turned back to Daniel. "You don' lak Mr. Fitch." It was more a statement than a question.

"I don' rightly cotton to that man," Daniel admitted. "I'd feel much better in my own mind if'n I knew that you was keepin' an eye out for her rather than Mr. Fitch."

Jimmy nodded. "I know the feelin'." He spoke again to Molly Ann. "How do you feel about that, Miz Molly Ann?"

Her voice was very soft, but she did not look up at him. "I would feel right comforted by your kindness."

He smiled. "Then I'll be glad to he'p. Fust thing to do is fin' you a proper place to live. I have some friends, a good family. Their oldes' girl jes' married an' they have an empty room, an' they kin use the boardin' money. Let's us go over there an' fin' out if they're agreeable." He put the fimnel on the bench and started toward them.

"But what about your whiskey makin'?" Daniel asked.

Jimmy laughed. "Let it set there. Haven't you heard that agin' whiskey is the best thing fer it?"

Gresolvent and rubbed the gritty paste into a lather on his face. But even after he had rinsed it away and dried himself with the rough towel, there was no change except that his face hurt from the rough sandy grains in the soap. Coal dust had a way of implanting itself into the skin the way a weed clung to the earth. No matter what you did, you couldn't get it out.

After wetting his hair and combing it flat against his scalp, he went back to his cot and began to dress. The blue work shirt and overalls were stiff with coal dust, as were his heavy work boots. He picked up the denim miner's cap and checked the lamp fastened to its peak. The wick was soft, and there was enough oil in the can to last through the day. Softly he walked to the door. He took a last look at the other, sleeping boys before he went out, but made no move to awaken them. They were breaker boys, and they didn't have to be on the job until a half-hour after him, at seven o'clock.

He closed the door behmd him and went down the narrow staircase to the main floor of the boardinghouse. He walked through the hallway to the kitchen. The heavy set cook, her black face already shining with the heat from the ovens, looked at him. She smiled. ''Mawnin', Mistuh Daniel."

''Momin', Carrie."

"Usual this mawnin', Mistuh Daniel?"

''Yes, please. An' don't fergit-"

She grinned. ''No, suh. Aigs fried hard with lots o' salt an'pepper."

He sat down at the table and poured himself a steaming mug of coffee ft*om the big iron pot on the table. He added cream and three heaping spoonfuls of sugar and stirred the coffee.

"Ah got some good cally ah kin fry up with the aigs if youlak," she said.

"That's right kind o' you, Carrie," he said. "I sure would fancy that." He spread b.u.t.ter thickly on the still-warm home-baked bread and took a bite. "I de- Clare, Carrie, next to my maw, you bake the best bread in West Virginia."

**Aw, go on, now, Mistuh Daniel." But her face broke into a pleased smile as she brought the eggs and pork b.u.t.t over to the table. He reached for the salt. 'Hold on a minute," she warned him. 'I got lots of salt in there already.''

He tasted the eggs and nodded. *'It's fine." But as soon as her back was turned, he added more salt.

He ate quickly and carefully, wiping the yolks of the eggs from the plate with his bread. He finished his coffee and got to his feet.

She brought him his black metal lunch box. **Ah slipped in a extra apple an' orange fo' you," she said. *'Ah knows how much yo' laks fresh fruit."

**Thank you, Carrie." He took the lunch pail from her hand and walked to the door. *'See you tonight."

**Yo' be caihful, now, Mistuh Daniel," she said. *'Doan' yo' go too near them dynamite charges."

*'I won't," he said, and smiled as he went out the door, knowing that it was his job as shot man to place the fiise and light it. It got him an extra dollar a week, and he was not about to let that get away from him. Seven dollars a week was almost as much as a grown man was paid.

Silently he trudged down the rain-dampened mud street past the rows of company houses, all gray-and-black with mine dust, and turned on the street that led to the mine entrance. The road was beginning to fill with men going to work and men coming from work. Some would be going to the beds that had just been vacated by the day shift. Beds were at a premium, and many boardinghouses accommodated two shifts. On Sundays, when the mmes were closed, confusion was rampant, and often there were fights about which shift had first claim on the beds. The house rules said that they were to alternate on Sundays, but that didn't really help, because everybody was too tired and short-tempered. Daniel felt that he was lucky to have found a sharing room. But the grown men didn't seem to want to share.

Daniel reached the front of the mine. As usual, he was the first of his work gang to arrive. He sat down on a wooden box and watched the men coming out.

Their faces were black, their clothing even dustier than his own, and their eyes squinted painfully as they adjusted to the morning daylight. They moved slowly, almost painfully, as they accustomed their bodies to walking erect instead of half hunched over, as they did in the low-ceilinged corridors of the mines.

One of the men stopped in front of him. He was a heavyset, barrel-chested man, and his blond-white hair was covered with coal dust. ''Andy here yet?" he asked.

''No, sir." Daniel shook his head. Andy was his shift foreman. The man who spoke to him was the night-shift foreman.

The foreman looked around for a moment. "You tell him the west tunnel needs shoring before you do any more blasting. The walls are getting thin."

Daniel nodded. "Fll tell him."

"Don't forget, now," the man warned. "Or you may all find yourselves eatin' dirt."

"I won' fergit," Daniel promised. "Thank you."

The man shook his head and lumbered wearily away. Daniel fished in his pocket and pulled out a piece of chewing tobacco. He bit off a comer and began to work up a wad in the comer of his mouth. A good spit helped keep the dust out of a man's lungs. Expertly he shot a gob of tobacco juice at a water bug crawling near his feet. The bug drowned in a brown stream of poison.

Daniel looked after the night foreman. He wasn't particularly concemed. The warning was an old story to him. Each shift tried to unload the shoring on the other because the time it took decreased the mining tonnage. You couldn't bring out the coal while you were boarding up the walls.

The air in the mine was heavy with humidity, and the walls were soaked with moisture. The earth underfoot was soft and spongy, and as their heavy boots sank into it, water rushed in to fill the footprints.

"d.a.m.n!" the foreman swore. "We better git some pumps down here or we'll be in water up to our a.s.s before we know it."

"All the pumps is in use in the East Tunnel," one of the men told him.

The foreman turned to Daniel. "You git up to the superintendent's shack an' tell him we gotta git some pumps 'cause our mules are up to their bellies an' cain't haul the coal."

Daniel nodded and turned away. He walked back up the tunnel toward the main entrance, pa.s.sing a gang of workmen who were laying track for the coal trucks.

"What's it lak down there?" one of the men called.

"Wet," Daniel answered. "I'm goin' fer some pumps."

"Bring back a bird while you're at it," the man said. "I don' like the smell down yere."

Daniel grinned. He had been sent on those errands before. Canaries were supposed to be used to detect leaking gas or oxygen shortages, but in all the time he had been working in the mine, he had never seen one. "I think I kin ketch an eagle ifn y'all kin git me the afternoon off," he replied.

The shout of laughter followed him until he turned the comer. The entrance was up the inclined corridor about twenty yards in front of him. He stared through it toward the dark blue sky in which thousands of stars twinkled. A sense of wonder filled him. Outside it was daylight, but seeing the sky through the long narrow tunnel made it night. The stars were always there be-

86.

hind the sun. They faded and began to disappear as he approached the entrance.

The timekeeper stopped him at the entrance. '*Where at you goin', boy?"

''Andy sent me to git some pumps from the super's office," he replied.

''Yer wastin' yer time," the timekeeper said. "Git back down there on the job."

''Andy says the mules is up to their bellies an' cain't haul the coal."

The timekeeper looked at him. After a moment, he shrugged his shoulders. "Go ahead," he said truculently. "But it won't do you no good."

Daniel walked over to the office. He knocked on the door and went in. The clerk looked over his desk at him. "What do you want?"

"Andy says we need pumps in the West Tunnel," he replied. "We cain't git the coal out."

"Why not?"

Daniel stared at him. Already he had the ingrained dislike of office workers that every miner felt. "Ever'body knows mules cain't swim an' haul coal at the same time," he said.

The clerk stared back. "Wise kid." He looked down at his desk. "Go back and tell Andy there ain't no pumps."

Daniel was stubborn. "He tol' me to see the super."

"The super ain't in."

"I'll wait." Daniel looked around for a chair.