Burnham Breaker

He was told that the breaker had been struck by lightning and burned to the ground, and that his own illness was due to the severity of the electric shock.

It was the day after the circus. Robert Burnham sat in his office on Lackawanna Avenue, busy with his afternoon mail. As he laid the last letter aside the incidents of the previ...

When court opened on Saturday morning, all the persons interested in the Burnham suit were present, and the court-room was crowded to even a greater extent than it had been on t...

Ten days after the evening interview at Sharpman's office, Ralph received a message from the lawyer instructing him to be at the railroad station on the following morning, prepa...

Ralph had entered the office just as Rhyming Joe reached the point of his disclosure. He had heard him declare, in emphatic tones: "I say the boy Ralph is not Robert Burnham's s...

Simon Craft and Lawyer Sharpman were sitting together in the rear room of the latter's law office. The window-shades were closely drawn, shutting out the mellow light of the ful...

Three months had gone by since the accident at Burnham Shaft. They were summer months, full of sunshine and green landscapes and singing birds and blossoming flowers and all thi...

A boy with Ralph's natural courage and spirit could not remain long despondent. Ambition came back to him with the summer days, and hope found an abiding place in his breast onc...

The city of Scranton lies in the centre of the Lackawanna coal-field, in the State of Pennsylvania. Year by year the suburbs of the city creep up the sides of the surrounding hi...

For many minutes Ralph stood, like one in a dream, holding the slip of paper tightly in his grasp. Then there came upon him, not suddenly, but very gently and sweetly, as the mo...

Every one expected that the jury would come into court with a verdict at the opening of the session on Tuesday morning. There was much difference of opinion, however, as to what...

When Ralph went to his work at the breaker on the morning after his return from Wilkesbarre, he was met with curious glances from the men, and wondering looks and abrupt questio...

At half-past one o'clock people began to loiter into the court-house at Wilkesbarre; at two the court-room was full. They were there, the most of them, to hear the close of the...

Ralph slept, hour after hour. He dreamed, and moved his hands uneasily at intervals, but still he slept. There were no noises there to disturb him, and he had been very tired.

The engineer, clothed lightly as he was, fairly dripped with perspiration. The fireman, with face and neck like a lobster, went out, at intervals, and plunged his hands and his...

The result of the trial seemed to be a foregone conclusion. Every one said there was no doubt, now, that Ralph was really Robert Burnham's son. People even wondered why Mrs. Bur...

The shaft-tower of Burnham Breaker reached up so high from the surface of the earth that it seemed, sometimes, as if the low-hanging clouds were only a foot or two above its hea...

When Ralph awoke, it was quite dark in the room. He was still sitting at the round table, but Rhyming Joe had disappeared from the other side of it. He looked around the room, a...

Old Simon's disclosures in court were a source of much anxiety to him. Goodlaw's design in bringing them out was apparent, and he felt that it must in some way be thwarted. Of w...

Sharpman had not seen Ralph's expression and did not know what the noise was all about. He looked around at the audience uneasily, whispered to Craft for a moment, and then anno...

It was a dull day in the court-room at Wilkesbarre. The jury trials had all been disposed of, and for the last hour or more the court had been listening to an argument on a rule...

Midway in the second block, on the right side of this last named street, there stood, twenty years ago, a small wooden building, but one story in height. It was set well back fr...

It had been understood, when Ralph went to Wilkesbarre that morning, that he should return in the afternoon. Bachelor Billy was very much surprised, therefore, when he returned...

It was the morning of the third day after the disaster at Burnham Shaft. The breaker boys were to go that morning, in a body, to the mansion of their dead employer to look for t...