"You lika da spagett?"
"You no lika da spagett?"
"I told ye once," laughed the girl--"the good old pertaties is good enough for me!"
"And you remember," said he, "what I answered?"
Yes, she remembered! Her cheeks took on the colour of the rose-leaves he had specified as her probable diet.
And then the Rafferty children, who had got to know Hal well, joined in the teasing. "Mister Minetti! Lika da spagetti!" Hal, when he had grasped the situation, was tempted to retaliate by reminding them that he had offered to board with the Irish, and been turned down; but he feared that the elder Rafferty might not appreciate this joke, so instead he pretended to have supposed all along that the Rafferties were Italians. He addressed the elder Rafferty gravely, pronouncing the name with the accent on the second syllable--"Signer Rafferti"; and this so amused the old man that he chuckled over it at intervals for an hour.
His heart warmed to this lively young fellow; he forgot some of his suspicions, and after the youngsters had been sent away to bed, he talked more or less frankly about his life as a coal-miner.
"Old Rafferty" had once been on the way to high station. He had been made tipple-boss at the San Jose mine, but had given up his job because he had thought that his religion did not permit him to do what he was ordered to do. It had been a crude proposition of keeping the men's score at a certain level, no matter how much coal they might send up; and when Rafferty had quit rather than obey such orders, he had had to leave the mine altogether; for of course everybody knew why he had quit, and his mere presence had the effect of keeping discontent alive.
"You think there are no honest companies at all?" Hal asked.
The old man answered, "There be some, but 'tis not so easy as ye might think to be honest. They have to meet each other's prices, and when one short-weights, the others have to. 'Tis a way of cuttin' wages without the men findin' it out; and there be people that do not like to fall behind with their profits." Hal found himself thinking of old Peter Harrigan, who controlled the General Fuel Company, and had made the remark: "I am a great clamourer for dividends!"
"The trouble with the miner," continued Old Rafferty, "is that he has no one to speak for him. He stands alone--"
During this discourse, Hal had glanced at "Red Mary," and noticed that she sat with her arms on the table, her sturdy shoulders bowed in a fashion which told of a hard day's toil. But here she broke into the conversation; her voice came suddenly, alive with scorn: "The trouble with the miner is that he's a _slave!_"
"Ah, now--" put in the old man, protestingly.
"He has the whole world against him, and he hasn't got the sense to get together--to form a union, and stand by it!"
There fell a sudden silence in the Rafferty home. Even Hal was startled--for this was the first time during his stay in the camp that he had heard the dread word "union" spoken above a whisper.
"I know!" said Mary, her grey eyes full of defiance. "Ye'll not have the word spoken! But some will speak it in spite of ye!"
"'Tis all very well," said the old man. "When ye're young, and a woman too--"
"A woman! Is it only the women that can have courage?"
"Sure," said he, with a wry smile, "'tis the women that have the tongues, and that can't he stopped from usin' them. Even the boss must know that."
"Maybe so," replied Mary. "And maybe 'tis the women have the most to suffer in a coal-camp; and maybe the boss knows that." The girl's cheeks were red.
"Mebbe so," said Rafferty; and after that there was silence, while he sat puffing his pipe. It was evident that he did not care to go on, that he did not want union speeches made in his home. After a while Mrs.
Rafferty made a timid effort to change the course of the talk, by asking after Mary's sister, who had not been well; and after they had discussed remedies for the ailments of children, Mary rose, saying, "I'll be goin'
along."
Hal rose also. "I'll walk with you, if I may," he said.
"Sure," said she; and it seemed that the cheerfulness of the Rafferty family was restored by the sight of a bit of gallantry.
SECTION 19.
They strolled down the street, and Hal remarked, "That's the first word I've heard here about a union."
Mary looked about her nervously. "Hush!" she whispered.
"But I thought you said you were talking about it!"
She answered, "'Tis one thing, talkin' in a friend's house, and another outside. What's the good of throwin' away your job?"
He lowered his voice. "Would you seriously like to have a union here?"
"Seriously?" said she. "Didn't ye see Mr. Rafferty--what a coward he is?
That's the way they are! No, 'twas just a burst of my temper. I'm a bit crazy to-night--something happened to set me off."
He thought she was going on, but apparently she changed her mind.
Finally he asked, "What happened?"
"Oh, 'twould do no good to talk," she answered; and they walked a bit farther in silence.
"Tell me about it, won't you?" he said; and the kindness in his tone made its impression.
"'Tis not much ye know of a coal-camp, Joe Smith," she said. "Can't ye imagine what it's like--bein' a woman in a place like this? And a woman they think good-lookin'!"
"Oh, so it's that!" said he, and was silent again. "Some one's been troubling you?" he ventured after a while.
"Sure! Some one's always troublin' us women! Always! Never a day but we hear it. Winks and nudges--everywhere ye turn."
"Who is it?"
"The bosses, the clerks--anybody that has a chance to wear a stiff collar, and thinks he can offer money to a girl. It begins before she's out of short skirts, and there's never any peace afterwards."
"And you can't make them understand?"
"I've made them understand me a bit; now they go after my old man."
"What?"
"Sure! D'ye suppose they'd not try that? Him that's so crazy for liquor, and can never get enough of it!"
"And your father?--" But Hal stopped. She would not want that question asked!
She had seen his hesitation, however. "He was a decent man once," she declared. "'Tis the life here, that turns a man into a coward. 'Tis everything ye need, everywhere ye turn--ye have to ask favours from some boss. The room ye work in, the dead work they pile on ye; or maybe 'tis more credit ye need at the store, or maybe the doctor to come when ye're sick. Just now 'tis our roof that leaks--so bad we can't find a dry place to sleep when it rains."
"I see," said Hal. "Who owns the house?"
"Sure, there's none but company houses here."
"Who's supposed to fix it?"
"Mr. Kosegi, the house-agent. But we gave him up long ago--if he does anything, he raises the rent. Today my father went to Mr. Cotton. He's supposed to look out for the health of the place, and it seems hardly healthy to keep people wet in their beds."