The Comstock Club Part 30

'Goodbye.' 'Good bye.'

"In the evening the same call is made; the same answer; and then from the still convent on noiseless pinions these words go out through the night, and pulsate on the father's ear: 'Good night, papa! Good night, mamma! a kiss for each of you!' and then the weird instrument materializes two kisses for the father's ear.

"He is a rough fellow, but he declares that since he commenced to receive those kisses, he knows that an answer to prayer is not impossible; that if that child's voice can come to him, stealing past the night patrol unheard, stealing in clear and distinct and like a benediction, while the winds and the city are roaring outside, there is nothing wonderful in believing that on the invisible wire of faith the same voice could send its music to the furthest star, and that the Great Father would bend His ear to listen."

"It is a pretty story," said Brewster. "The telephone is the most poetical of inventions. There is a metallic sound to the click of the telegraph, as though its chief use was to further the work and the worry of mankind. There is something like a sob to the perfecting press, as though saddened by the very thought of the abuses it must reform. There is a something about a steam engine which reminds one of the heavy respirations of the slave, toiling on his chain, but the telephone has a voice for but one ear at a time, and when it is a voice that we love its messages come like caresses.

"Not the least of its triumphs is that it has broken the silence of the convent.

"At last voices from the outer world thrill through the thick walls, and the patient women who are immured there hear the good nights and the kisses which by loving lips are sent away to loving homes. How their starved hearts must be thrilled by those messages! Sometimes, too, they must realize that the course of Nature cannot be changed; that the beginning of heaven is in the love which canopies true homes on earth.

But with that thought there comes another, that from the Infinite, to palace, convent and humble homes alike, celestial wires, too fine for mortal eyes to discern, stretch down, and all alike are held in one sheltering hand. Sometime all these wires will work in accord, and the good-nights and the kisses in the souls of men will materialize into harmony and fill the world with music."

"That is, Brewster," said Corrigan, "supposin' the wires do not get crossed and the girls do not kiss the wrong papas."

"Suppose, Brewster," said the Colonel, "that at the final concert it shall be discovered that certain gentlemen have not settled their monthly rents for a long time, and their connection has been cut off?"

"There is no music where there are no ears to hear," said Wright. "What if some souls are born deaf and dumb?"

"Suppose," said the Professor, "that there are souls which have no ear for music?"

"I do not know," said Brewster, "but I fancy that the fairest final prizes may not be to the best musicians, but to those who made the sorest sacrifices in order to get a ticket to the concert."

With this the good nights were repeated.

CHAPTER XVII.

At length there came a day when there was real trouble in the Club. The foreman of the mine in which Wright was at work ordered Wright and a fellow miner to go to the surface to a.s.sist in handling some machinery which was to be sent down into the mine.

The two men stepped upon the cage and three bells were sounded--the signal to the engineer at the surface that men were to be hoisted and all care used.

The cage started from the 2,400-foot level. Nothing unusual happened until, as they neared the surface, Wright said to his comrade: "By the way we are pa.s.sing the levels, it seems to me they must be in a hurry on top."

The other miner answered: "I guess it is all right;" but hardly were the words spoken, when they shot up into the light; in an instant the cage went crashing into the sheaves and was crushed, the men being thrown violently out.

Wright's companion, as he fell, struck partly on the curbing of the shaft, rolled in and was of course dashed to pieces.

Wright was thrown outside the shaft, and though not killed outright, two or three ribs were broken, one lung was badly injured, besides he was otherwise terribly bruised.

People unfamiliar with mining may not understand the above. On the Comstock the hoisting engines are set from forty to eighty feet from the mouths of the shafts. Directly over the shafts are frames from thirty to fifty feet in height, on which pulleys (rimmed iron wheels) are fastened. The cages are lowered and raised by flat, plaited, steel wire cables, which are generally four or five inches wide and about three-eighths of an inch in thickness.

This cable is first coiled on the reel of the engine, then the loose end is drawn over the pulley, then down to the cage, to which it is made fast. The wheel of a pulley is called a sheave, and by habit it has grown to be a common expression to call the block and wheel in hoisting works "the sheaves." At intervals of one or two hundred feet on the cables they are wound with white cloth, as a guide to the engineer, as the cable is uncoiled in lowering or coiled in hoisting. Also, on the outer rim of the reel, is a dial with figures or marks at regular intervals, and a hand (like the hand of a clock) which perpetually indicates to the engineer about where the cage is in all stages of lowering or hoisting.

These engineers work eight hour shifts, and sometimes twelve. Of the nature of their work an idea can be formed by the statement that during the two or three years when the great Bonanza in the California and Con. Virginia mines was giving up its treasure, through two double-compartment shafts, all the work of those two mines was carried on. The main ore body was between the 1,300-foot and 1,700-foot levels.

Every day from six hundred to eight hundred men were lowered into and hoisted out of the mine. One hundred thousand feet (square measure) of timbers were lowered daily (three million feet per month); nearly or quite one thousand tons of ore was hoisted daily; the picks, drills and gads were sent up to be sharpened and returned; the powder used and five tons of ice daily were lowered, and besides this work, there was machinery to lower and hoist; the waste rock to be handled and visitors and officers of the mine to be lowered and hoisted. The cages are about four feet six inches in length and three feet in width, and are simply iron frames with a wooden floor and iron bonnet over the top and made to exactly fit the size of the shaft. Three of these compartments had double cages--one above the other, and one had three cages. A three-decker carries three tons of ore or twenty-seven men at a time.

Of course when such work is being driven, the eyes of an engineer have to be every moment on their work. Men follow the occupation for months and years without an accident or mistake, but now and then, through the ceaseless strain, their nerves break down; something like an aberration of the mind comes over them and they watch, dazed like sleep-walkers, as the cage shoots out of the shaft and mounts up into the sheaves and cannot command themselves enough to move the lever of the engine which is in their hand.

Such an accident as this overtook Wright and his companion. Poor Wright was carried home by brother miners. The accident happened only about an hour before the time for changing shifts and hardly was Wright laid in his bed before the other members of the Club met at their home.

The best surgical talent of the city was called; the members of the Club took turns in watching; there was not a moment that one or the other was not bending over their friend.

At first, when he rallied from the shock of the injury, Wright told all about the accident. He further told his friends that he had no near relatives, instructed the Club, in the event of his death, to open his trunk, burn the papers and divide the little money there among themselves, designated little presents for each one and said: "Miller will be grieved if I die, and may think my heart was not altogether warm toward him, so give him my watch; it is the most valuable trinket that I have."

When the first reaction from the shock came, his friends were encouraged to believe he would recover; but it was a vain hope. He soon went into a half unconscious, half delirious state, from which it was hard to 'rouse him for even a few minutes at a time.

He lay that way for two days and nights and then died.

On the afternoon of the second day it was clear that he was almost gone--the spray began to splash upon his brow from the dark river--and all the Club grouped around him.

Out of the shadow of death his mind cleared for a moment. In almost his old natural tones, but weak, like the voices heard through a telephone, he said:

"I have seen another mirage, boys. It was the old home under the Osage shadows. It was all plain; the old house, the orchard, the maples were red in the autumn sun, and my mother, who died long ago, seemed to be there, smiling and holding out her arms to me.

"It was all real, but you don't know how tired I am. Carlin, old friend, turn me a little on my side and let me sleep."

Gently as mothers move their helpless babes, the strong miner turned his friend upon his pillows.

He breathed shorter and shorter for a few minutes, then one long sigh came from his mangled breast, and all was still.

There was perfect silence in the room for perhaps five minutes. Then Brewster, with a voice full of tears, said: "G.o.d grant that the mirage is now to him a delicious reality," and all the rest responded, "Amen."

The undertaker came, the body was dressed for the grave and placed in a casket, and the Club took up their watch around it.

Now and then a subdued word was spoken, but they were very few. The hearts of the watchers were all full, and conversation seemed out of place. Wright was one of the most manly of men, and the hearts of the friends were very sore. The evening wore on until ten o'clock came, when there fell a gentle knock on the outer door. The door was opened and by the moonlight four men could be seen outside. One of them spoke:

"We 'eard as 'ow Hadrian wur gone, and thot to sing a wee bit to he as 'ow the lad might be glad."

They were the famous quartette of Cornish miners and were at once invited in.

They filed softly into the room--the Club rising as they entered--and circled around the casket. After a long look upon the face of the sleeper they stood up and sang a Cornish lament. Their voices were simply glorious. The words, simple but most pathetic, were set to a plaintive air, the refrain of each stanza ending in some minor notes, which gave the impression that tears of pity, as they were falling, had been caught and converted into music.

The effect was profound. The stoicism of the

Club was completely broken down by it. When the lament ceased all were weeping, while warm-hearted and impetuous Corrigan was sobbing like a grieved child.

The quartette waited a moment and then sang a Cornish farewell, the music of which, though mostly very sad, had, here and there, a bar or two such as might be sung around the cradle of Hope, leaving a thought that there might be a victory even over death, and which made the hymn ring half like the _Miserere_ and half like a benediction.

When this was finished and the quartette had waited a moment more, with their magnificent voices at full volume, they sang again--a requiem, which was almost a triumph song, beginning:

Whatever burdens may be sent For mortals here to bear, It matters not while faith survives And G.o.d still answers prayer.

I will not falter, though my path Leads down unto the grave; The brave man will accept his fate, And G.o.d accepts the brave.

Then with a gentle "Good noight, lads," they were gone.

It was still in the room again until Corrigan said: "I hope Wright heard that singin'; the last song in particular."