"Have another drink," said Hal.
The pit-boss drank, and becoming more sociable, told nigger stories. On the sugar-plantations there was a rush season, when the rule was twenty hours' work a day; when some of the niggers tried to shirk it, they would arrest them for swearing or crap-shooting, and work them as convicts, without pay. The pit-boss told how one "buck" had been brought before the justice of the peace, and the charge read, "being cross-eyed"; for which offence he had been sentenced to sixty days' hard labour. This anecdote was enjoyed by the men in the saloon--whose race-feelings seemed to be stronger than their class-feelings.
When the pair went out again, it was late, and the boss was cordial.
"Mr. Stone," began Hal, "I don't want to bother you, but I'd like first rate to get more pay. If you could see your way to let me have that buddy's job, I'd be more than glad to divide with you."
"Divide with me?" said Stone. "How d'ye mean?" Hal waited with some apprehension--for if Mike had not assured him so positively, he would have expected a swing from the pit-boss's mighty arm.
"It's worth about fifteen a month more to me. I haven't any cash, but if you'd be willing to charge off ten dollars from my store-account, it would be well worth my while."
They walked for a short way in silence. "Well, I'll tell you," said the boss, at last; "that old Slovak is a kicker--one of these fellows that thinks he could run the mine if he had a chance. And if you get to listenin' to him, and think you can come to me and grumble, by God--"
"That's all right, sir," put in Hal, quickly. "I'll manage that for you--I'll shut him up. If you'd like me to, I'll see what fellows he talks with, and if any of them are trying to make trouble, I'll tip you off."
"Now that's the talk," said the boss, promptly. "You do that, and I'll keep my eye on you and give you a chance. Not that I'm afraid of the old fellow--I told him last time that if I heard from him again, I'd kick the breeches off him. But when you got half a thousand of this foreign scum, some of them Anarchists, and some of them Bulgars and Montynegroes that's been fightin' each other at home--"
"I understand," said Hal. "You have to watch 'em."
"That's it," said the pit-boss. "And by the way, when you tell the store-clerk about that fifteen dollars, just say you lost it at poker."
"I said ten dollars," put in Hal, quickly.
"Yes, I know," responded the other. "But _I_ said fifteen!"
SECTION 22.
Hal told himself with satisfaction that he was now to do the real work of coal-mining. His imagination had been occupied with it for a long time; but as so often happens in the life of man, the first contact with reality killed the results of many years' imagining. It killed all imagining, in fact; Hal found that his entire stock of energy, both mental and physical, was consumed in enduring torment. If any one had told him the horror of attempting to work in a room five feet high, he would not have believed it. It was like some of the dreadful devices of torture which one saw in European castles, the "iron maiden" and the "spiked collar." Hal's back burned as if hot irons were being run up and down it; every separate joint and muscle cried aloud. It seemed as if he could never learn the lesson of the jagged ceiling above his head--he bumped it and continued to bump it, until his scalp was a mass of cuts and bruises, and his head ached till he was nearly blind, and he would have to throw himself flat on the ground.
Then old Mike Sikoria would grin. "I know. Like green mule! Some day get tough!"
Hal recalled the great thick callouses on the flanks of his former charges, where the harness rubbed against them. "Yes, I'm a 'green mule,' all right!"
It was amazing how many ways there were to bruise and tear one's fingers, loading lumps of coal into a car. He put on a pair of gloves, but these wore through in a day. And then the gas, and the smoke of powder, stifling one; and the terrible burning of the eyes, from the dust and the feeble light. There was no way to rub these burning eyes, because everything about one was equally dusty. Could anybody have imagined the torment of that--any of those ladies who rode in softly upholstered parlour-cars, or reclined upon the decks of steam-ships in gleaming tropic seas?
Old Mike was good to his new "buddy." Mike's spine was bent and his hands were hardened by forty years of this sort of toil, so he could do the work of two men, and entertain his friend with comments into the bargain. The old fellow had the habit of talking all the time, like a child; he would talk to his helper, to himself, to his tools. He would call these tools by obscene and terrifying names--but with entire friendliness and good humour. "Get in there, you son-of-a-gun!" he would say to his pick. "Come along here, you wop!" he would say to his car.
"In with you, now, you old buster!" he would say to a lump of coal. And he would lecture Hal on the details of mining. He would tell stories of successful days, or of terrible mishaps. Above all he would tell about rascality--cursing the "G. F. C.," its foremen and superintendents, its officials, directors and stock-holders, and the world which permitted such a criminal institution to exist.
Noon-time would come, and Hal would lie upon his back, too worn to eat.
Old Mike would sit munching; his abundant whiskers came to a point on his chin, and as his jaws moved, he looked for all the world like an aged billy-goat. He was a kind-hearted and anxious old billy-goat, and sought to tempt his buddy with a bit of cheese or a swig of cold coffee.
He believed in eating--no man could keep up steam if he did not stoke the furnace. Failing in this, he would try to divert Hal's mind, telling stories of mining-life in America and Russia. He was most proud to have an "American feller" for a buddy, and tried to make the work as easy as possible, for fear lest Hal might quit.
Hal did not quit; but he would drag himself out towards night, so exhausted that he would fall asleep in the cage. He would fall asleep at supper, and go in and sink down on his cot and sleep like a log. And oh, the torture of being routed out before daybreak! Having to shake the sleep out of his head, and move his creaking joints, and become aware of the burning in his eyes, and the blisters and sores on his hands!
It was a week before he had a moment that was not pain; and he never got fully used to the labour. It was impossible for any one to work so hard and keep his mental alertness, his eagerness and sensitiveness; it was impossible to work so hard and be an adventurer--to be anything, in fact, but a machine. Hal had heard that phrase of contempt, "the inertia of the masses," and had wondered about it. He no longer wondered, he knew. Could a man be brave enough to protest to a pit-boss when his body was numb with weariness? Could he think out a definite conclusion as to his rights and wrongs, and back his conclusion with effective action, when his mental faculties were paralysed by such weariness of body?
Hal had come here, as one goes upon the deck of a ship in mid-ocean, to see the storm. In this ocean of social misery, of ignorance and despair, one saw upturned, tortured faces, writhing limbs and clutching hands; in one's ears was a storm of lamentation, upon one's cheek a spray of blood and tears. Hal found himself so deep in this ocean that he could no longer find consolation in the thought that he could escape whenever he wanted to: that he could say to himself, It is sad, it is terrible--but thank God, I can get out of it when I choose! I can go back into the warm and well-lighted saloon and tell the other passengers how picturesque it is, what an interesting experience they are missing!
SECTION 23.
During these days of torment, Hal did not go to see "Red Mary"; but then, one evening, the Minettis' baby having been sick, she came in to ask about it, bringing what she called "a bit of a custard" in a bowl.
Hal was suspicious enough of the ways of men, especially of business-men; but when it came to women he was without insight--it did not occur to him as singular that an Irish girl with many troubles at home should come out to nurse a Dago woman's baby. He did not reflect that there were plenty of sick Irish babies in the camp, to whom Mary might have taken her "bit of a custard." And when he saw the surprise of Rosa, who had never met Mary before, he took it to be the touching gratitude of the poor!
There are, in truth, many kinds of women, with many arts, and no man has time to learn them all. Hal had observed the shop-girl type, who dress themselves with many frills, and cast side-long glances, and indulge in fits of giggles to attract the attention of the male; he was familiar with the society-girl type, who achieve the same end with more subtle and alluring means. But could there be a type who hold little Dago babies in their laps, and call them pretty Irish names, and feed them custard out of a spoon? Hal had never heard of that kind, and he thought that "Red Mary" made a charming picture--a Celtic madonna with a Sicilian infant in her arms.
He noticed that she was wearing the same faded blue calico-dress with a patch on the shoulder. Man though he was, he realised that dress is an important consideration in the lives of women. He was tempted to suspect that this blue calico might be the only dress that Mary owned; but seeing it newly laundered every time, he concluded that she must have at least one other. At any rate, here she was, crisp and fresh-looking; and with the new shining costume, she had put on the long promised "company manner": high spirits and badinage, precisely like any belle of the world of luxury, who powders and bedecks herself for a ball. She had been grim and complaining in former meetings with this interesting young man; she had frightened him away, apparently; perhaps she could win him back by womanliness and good humour.
She rallied him upon his battered scalp and his creaking back, telling him he looked ten years older--which he was fully prepared to believe.
Also she had fun with him for working under a Slovak--another loss of caste, it appeared! This was a joke the Minettis could share in--especially Little Jerry, who liked jokes. He told Mary how Joe Smith had had to pay fifteen dollars for his new job, besides several drinks at O'Callahan's. Also he told how Mike Sikoria had called Joe his "green mule." Little Jerry complained about the turn of events, for in the old days Joe had taught him a lot of fine new games--and now he was sore, and would not play them. Also, in the old days he had sung a lot of jolly songs, full of the most fascinating rhymes. There was a song about a "monkey puzzle tree"! Had Mary ever seen that kind of tree? Little Jerry never got tired of trying to imagine what it might look like.
The Dago urchin stood and watched gravely while Mary fed the custard to the baby; and when two or three spoonfuls were held out to him, he opened his mouth wide, and afterwards licked his lips. Gee, that was good stuff!
When the last taste was gone, he stood gazing at Mary's shining coronet.
"Say," said he, "was your hair always like that?"
Hal and Mary burst into laughter, while Rosa cried "Hush!" She was never sure what this youngster would say next.
"Sure, did ye think I painted it?" asked Mary.
"I didn't know," said Little Jerry. "It looks so nice and new." And he turned to Hal. "Ain't it?"
"You bet," said Hal, and added, "Go on and tell her about it. Girls like compliments."
"Compliments?" echoed Little Jerry. "What's that?"
"Why," said Hal, "that's when you say that her hair is like the sunrise, and her eyes are like twilight, or that she's a wild rose on a mountain-side."
"Oh," said the Dago urchin, somewhat doubtfully. "Anyhow," he added, "she make nice custard!"
SECTION 24.
The time came for Mary to take her departure, and Hal got up, wincing with pain, to escort her home. She regarded him gravely, having not realised before how seriously he was suffering. As they walked along she asked, "Why do ye do such work, when ye don't have to?"
"But I _do_ have to! I have to earn a living!"
"Ye don't have to earn it that way! A bright young fellow like you--an American!"
"Well," said Hal, "I thought it would be interesting to see coal mining."
"Now ye've seen it," said the girl--"now quit!"
"But it won't do me any harm to go on for a while!"