Part 16

“I found Jemima a good deal altered, now that she had a grown family; but we just began where we left off,—the same friendliness and kindness. When I was in Ohio was just when the English Friends, Jonathan and Hannah Purley, were in the country. We met them at Marlborough Quarterly Meeting. We were all together at William Smith’s house,—one of the neatest of places,—everything like waxwork, with three such daughters at home. How they worked to entertain Friends!

“First-day a great many world’s people were at meeting on account of the strange Friends. Meeting was very full,—nearly as many out in the yard as in the house. Very weighty remarks were made by Jonathan and Hannah. She spoke to my own state:—‘Leave thy widows and let thy fatherless children trust in Me.’ The meeting was disturbed some by the young babies; but we could hardly expect the mothers to stay away.

“Second-day was Quarterly Meeting. Of course the English Friends, being at William Smith’s, drew a great many others. We had forty to dinner. One of William’s daughters stayed in the kitchen, one waited on the table, and one sat down midway, where she could pass everything and wait on the Friends. It was in the Eighth Month, and we had a bountiful table of all the good things of that time of year,—vegetables and fruit too. William was a nurseryman.

“There was a little disturbance at breakfast, William’s son—a rather wild young man—making the young people laugh. We had fish,—mackerel, and little fresh fish out of the mill-dam. I sat near the middle, and heard Friend Smith at one end say to each, ‘Will thee have some of the mackerel, or some of these little dam-fish?’ Then young William, at the other end, spoke low to his friends: ‘Will thee have some of the mackerel, or some of these dam little fish?’ But most of the young women kept pretty serious countenances. When Quarterly Meeting was over, the English Friends went out to Indiana, visiting meetings and Friends’ families, and I went back with Cousin Samuel’s.

“I was dreadfully disappointed once. One evening Samuel and ’Mima and the rest of us were sitting round the table, and Samuel put his hand into his coat-pocket and drew out the paper and two or three letters. As he read, I noticed that one of the letters had not been opened, and caught sight of my name—Priscilla Gardner; so I put out my hand and took it. It was from sister Mary,—just as James and she were starting for California. She told me that they should stay in Pittsburg over one night, and she hoped I should be able to meet them there and bid them a long farewell. But when I looked again at the date of the letter, and glanced at the paper that Samuel was reading, I found that my letter was ten days old. The time had gone by. Oh, dear! I walked out into the kitchen and stood by the stove, in the dark, and cried. Some one came up behind me. Of course it was Jemima. She kissed me, and waited for me to speak. I gave her the letter, and in about ten minutes I felt able to go back to the sitting-room. When I sat down, Samuel said, ‘’Mima tells me, Priscilla, that thee is very much disappointed about thy letter. I had on this coat when I went to the post-office a week ago, and I didn’t put it on again till to-day. I hope thee’ll excuse me. Thomas, my son, will thee bring us some red-streaks? I feel as if I could eat a few apples.’

“I felt sorrowful for some time about my sister; but my mind was diverted when we got word that the English Friends were coming to our Monthly Meeting on their way back from Indiana; and as we lived very near the meeting-house, of course they would be at Samuel’s. As the time came near, Jemima and I were a good deal interested to have things nice. They were going to be at William Smith’s again, where everything was so neat, and I felt very anxious to make everything in-doors, at Jemima’s, as nice as we could.

“In the sitting-room was one empty corner, where the great rocking-chair ought to stand. It was broken, and put away in the bedroom. I wanted very much to have it mended; but it seemed as if we could not get it to Salem. One time the load would be too large, another the chair would be forgotten. At last one day it was put in the back of the covered wagon, and fairly started. When Samuel got home it was rather late in the evening, and I heard him say to ’Mima, ‘Only think of my forgetting thy large chair. I was late starting from home, thee knows; and when I got to Salem there was a good deal of talk about the war; and when I got halfway home I remembered the big chair in the back of the wagon. It can go in next week.’ We did send it again, but it did not get home before Monthly Meeting.

“Jemima had a very neat home-made carpet on the sitting-room: she had a great taste for carpets. As there had been some yards left, she let me cover the front entry too, and her youngest son Edward, a nice lad, helped me put it down. A little colored girl, near by, rubbed up the brass andirons for us, and Edward built up a pile of wood ready to kindle the fire when it was wanted. A good many panes of glass had been broken, and as we had just had an equinoctial storm, some old coats, and so on, had been stuffed in at several places; but we managed to get most of the glass put in before Monthly Meeting.

“When we had done all we could to the house, of course we began to think of the cooking. Jemima said, ‘I sha’n’t be able to get Mary Pearson to come and cook: she is nursing. I wonder whether I hadn’t better heat the oven on meeting-day. I can get the dinner in before I go; and then between meetings I can run over and see to it. I shall hardly be missed. I can slip in at the side-door of the meeting-house before Mary Ann has done reading the Minutes.’—‘Then thee will heat the oven?’ said I.—‘I reckon,’ she said; ‘but it is only a mud oven. Samuel has been talking for a good while about having a brick oven. This one is not very safe.’—‘Suppose I make a little sponge-cake, and put it in too,’ said I. ‘I’ll send for some sugar, if thee is willing. Polly Evans used to call me a dabster at sponge-cake.’

“Jemima was willing, and we began to get ready to go to the store. Edward and the little colored girl hunted the barn and the straw-shed, and brought in a quantity of eggs. All could not be sent, because we needed some at home, and some had been set on, and some had lain too long. Then Jemima sent to the garret for brooms and rags, and spared a little butter too for the store,—not much, to be sure, when Monthly Meeting was coming. I thought I might as well ride over with Edward; and when we had got coffee, and tea, and so on, and were just starting home, I caught sight of some lemons. I bought a few, and when I got home asked Jemima if she would not like some lemon-puddings. ‘Thy apple-pies and rice-puddings are nice, dear,’ I said; ‘but Hannah Purley and Jonathan are such strangers, we might go a little out of the common way.’ Jemima smiled at my being so anxious, but agreed, as she generally did.

“Fourth-day morning we were up very early. Jemima was going to roast some fowls and a loin of veal. Edward and the little colored girl helped me to beat eggs, grate lemons, and roll sugar; and everything was ready for the oven before the Friends came in from a distance, who always stopped before meeting to get a cup of tea.

“We had a nice little table for them, of course,—dried beef, preserves, and so on; and one woman Friend, a single woman, asked for a warm flat-iron to press out her cap and handkerchief. At last we were ready to start. Jemima had set everything into the oven, which stood out in the yard. She put the meats back, and the cakes and puddings near the door, where it was not so hot. ‘The door isn’t very safe,’ said she, ‘and I propped a stick against it to keep it up. Don’t let the dog knock it down, Susan, while we are gone.’

“The day was beautiful; all signs of the storm over, except the roads a little muddy; and as we stepped over to the meeting-house Jemima whispered, ‘I am glad I told Susan to set both tables. I think we shall have a good many to dinner. I wanted cole-slaw, like Pennsylvania folks, but the cows broke in last night and ate all the solid cabbage.’ She did not talk of these things generally going into meeting; but our minds were very full.

“First meeting was rather long, for several Friends spoke besides the strangers. When it broke, Jemima stepped out, and I quietly followed her. We walked over to the house, and round into the side-yard, going toward the oven. But just as we had got into the yard we saw the old sow. She had broken out of the barn-yard, and had been wallowing in a pond of brown water near the fence. Now she had knocked down Jemima’s stick, and as the door fell I guess she smelt our good things, for she had her fore-feet upon the oven floor. We ran and screamed, but she did not turn. She made a jump up to the oven, over my cakes and puddings, the veal and chickens, and carried the oven roof off with her. Oh, dear! oh, dear! poor Jemima! I could laugh too, if it wasn’t so dreadful.”

_Reader._—And what did they do then?

_Writer._—The best that they could. I do wonder at Jemima, poor thing, to undertake so much on Monthly Meeting day.

THE MINERS OF SCRANTON.

A few years ago I visited Hyde Park,—a mining division of the youthful city of Scranton. Besides boarding in the family of an operative, I talked with citizens, from miners to ministers, and took notes of these conversations. Upon the information thus obtained the following article is founded.

There hangs in our house a large map of the State of Pennsylvania of the year 1851. Scranton is not marked upon it. A little village named Providence is, indeed, to be found, which is now an inconsiderable part of consolidated Scranton. Nine years after the date of this map, by the census of 1860, the population of Scranton is given at nine thousand, and in 1870 at thirty-five thousand. This very rapid increase was caused by the working of the immense coal-beds which underlie the narrow valley of the Lackawanna, in which the city is situated.

Forty-five per cent. of the population is given as foreign, or fifteen thousand eight hundred and eighty-seven. The miners are almost all of foreign birth, the Irish being the most numerous, next the Welsh, then the Germans, and lastly the English and Scotch. Among the Welsh-speaking population there are, however, natives of Monmouthshire, not now a portion of Wales, but belonging to England. Among the miners there are some Pennsylvania Germans. With the exception of these, there is scarcely to be found at Scranton a native of this country working underground, either as miner or laborer.

Gaelic is extensively spoken by the Irish here, there being women, I am told, newly come over, who do not speak English. The Welsh language is more extensively employed. There are seven churches of which the services are in that language, a Welsh newspaper, and a literary or scientific society.[166] But as the Pennsylvania German employs many English words in speaking “Dutch,” so does the Welshman introduce many into his vernacular, as “all right,” “exactly,” “you know,” “twenty per cent.,” “mortgage,” “explosion,” “universe.” In speaking English, those from South Wales treat the letter _h_ as the English do, and speak of Mr. ’Iggins, and of picking ’uckleberries, or say, “That’s a hodd name,” “I have a hell kitchen to my house.” The Welshman frequently emphasizes a statement, as, “Yes, sure,” “Yes indeed, man.” He says, “Dear to goodness!” “I ’on’t do it, whatever,” etc., etc.

The Welsh have been accused of bearing malice, and of being clannish, or of “keeping together.” “I think,” says a Scotchman, “that that is why they keep up the Welsh language.” For themselves they claim that they were never subjugated. They are Republicans almost to a man, and equally Protestant; lovers of liberty, stubborn and enduring, not fickle. The Welsh churches at Scranton belong to the three following sects: Independent or Congregational, Baptist, and Calvinistic Methodist.

The Welshman is an experienced miner in his own rugged country. We are informed that the coal-field of Glamorganshire, in Wales, is one of the most important mineral districts in the world, and that in this small district more iron is manufactured than in all the United States. The Welsh here work more exclusively at mining than do the Irish and Germans. The Welshman is the miner, who blasts and takes down the coal, while the Irishman loads it upon the cars, a certain number of car-loads forming his daily task.

The Irish are more volatile. They do not practise much domestic economy; their motto is more, “Come day, go day.” On a long strike they have generally nothing laid by for the emergency. A Catholic clergyman says, “The Irish are not fit for _bossing_; they are kept in too much subjection at home.” But the rule is not without exceptions. I visited a mine of which the inside foreman was an Irishman, and from Connaught too, that wild western district. Besides having attained to this position, he was a landed proprietor, the owner of a farm. He was more interested in politics than my Welsh acquaintances, saying that a friend of his, a miner, could speak as well as any politician.

* * * * *

The Irish are inclined to superstition. An Irishman tells me that some years ago a man having been killed in a mine by the falling of the roof, the story afterward got round that if persons would go on a moonlight night to a certain spot—a back road at Scranton—the fairies might be met there, and the lost man with them; then by throwing something, his friends could get him back all right. Some went there in fun, and some in earnest.

This is like the idea in “the old country” when a child dies, that the fairies have changed him, leaving another in his place, and that he might by some means be recovered. “Some tell it for a fact that they used to do so in Ireland.”

A Scotchman tells me that if a child, a cow, or a pig suddenly begins to decline in health, or a cow in milk, the Irish accuse some one of “looking over it.” They say that such persons do not know when they do it. This is doubtless “the evil-eye.”

An Irishwoman was telling us of her son’s losing a leg, the result of an accident when mule-driving in a mine. When she learned that the person hurt was her “Jamesey,” “Oh!” said she, “it was to be. I dreamed it a year ago.” She told us her dream, but it was very unlike the circumstance.

Germans, especially Catholics, are said to retain some of the superstitions of their native country, and to find “spooks” or spirits. A harmless superstition, if there be any such, is mentioned of them. They generally have gardens, and plant things “by the signs.” Beans planted in the decline of the moon they do not think will take to the poles.

A German foreman says, “I have sat and listened to the miners of different nations telling of spooks and ghosts seen in the mines and other places, but, if one questions them closely, it is a brother or an uncle who saw it, and not the man himself.”

The Welsh were formerly very superstitious, but they are not so now. Says one, “We do not believe in signs or omens, or that any flesh can see spirits.” Another tells me that the belief in hobgoblins, ghosts, witches, fairies, and all kinds of signs and omens prevailed in Wales in his childhood, until about thirty years ago a very eminent Baptist minister, Robert Ellis, brought out a work called _Ofergoelion y Cymry_ (or Superstitions of the Welsh), which attracted a great deal of attention, and had great effect upon the minds of the people in banishing all these ideas.

In spite of the efforts of their clergy the Irish still keep up wakes at funerals, watching the body of the dead. I am told that the friends of the family do not feel like sleeping, being sorrowful. In the old country neighbors would gather whether invited or not, and games would be introduced to keep them awake, but this custom is not followed here.

A Scotchman says that he thinks the Irish attend “buryings” better than any other nationality. At Scranton they impoverish themselves by the train of carriages hired to attend funerals. “It was a funeral of fifty carriages;” thus they estimate the honor and glory of the occasion. But that number was exceeded at the funeral of a poor Irishwoman at Scranton, when there were about one hundred and forty “rigs,”—the name given here to turnouts.

The Welsh do not make such display. A prominent Welsh citizen, a man of means, apparently wishing to set an example, hired only one carriage when burying his son, and walked himself in the funeral procession.

* * * * *

The chief hardship of the miner is the insecurity of his life. He is liable to accidents at any moment, either in blasting the coal, or from the falling of the roof in the passages and chambers of the mine, or from the explosion of fire-damp,—carburetted hydrogen gas,—an extremely explosive substance generated in the mine.

By an awful accident which occurred in the Avondale mine, more than one hundred men were suffocated below. At Scranton are interred the remains of about sixty of these sufferers. The fatal accident is supposed to have occurred thus. Over each of the mining shafts is erected a breaker or cracker,—an immense wooden structure,—to the top of which the loaded cars are drawn up and then “dumped,” the coal in its gradual downward progress being sorted, the greater part of it broken, sifted, and delivered into the cars beneath. The mine at Avondale was ventilated by means of a furnace or great fire, causing a draught. From this it is generally supposed that the breaker took fire, and this in turn set to burning a great body of coal; and as there was at the Avondale mine only one way of egress,—that is, up the shaft,—the men perished below.

At Scranton I saw a sad though simple ballad upon this disaster:

“But all in vain. There was no hope One single life to save, For there is no second outlet From the subterraneous cave. No pen can write the awful fright And horror that did prevail Among those dying victims In the mines of Avondale.”

The Ventilation Act passed by the Legislature of Pennsylvania after this great disaster forbids the working of any mine without two outlets. In one that I visited, instead of a furnace for ventilation, there was employed an immense fan, worked by a steam-engine, and supplying sixty thousand feet of pure air per minute.

Great precautions are also taken to prevent the explosion of fire-damp. Nevertheless, accidents do still occur from this cause, and, as we have said, from the falling of the roof, and this although one-third of the coal is left in for support for the rock above. Some companies will not insure the lives of miners, and when they do insure they demand a very high rate,—about like that charged for those engaged in the manufacture of gunpowder.

Besides the more fearful sufferings to which the miner is liable, it is not uncommon to see him working in water, perhaps up to his knees, and at the same time water may be dropping upon him from above. Sometimes, on account of powder-smoke from blasting, he must feel his way rather than see it. Yet it is a general impression that the miner’s health is good.

It must be accounted one of his hardships that he has not regular employment. At the time of my visit more than half the mines were not working at all, and the rest only on half time.

* * * * *

The miner’s luxuries are those of other poor men,—his pipe and glass of ale or beer,—though I must acknowledge that the Irishman has not dispensed with whiskey. “I do not think,” says Father ⸺, “that he drinks more than the Welshman, but perhaps he is more frequently seen intoxicated in public.” The Welshman, it has been said, does not drink so much here as at home, for he has bidden his native land farewell with the intention of making money. The use of malt liquors is very common in this region, and beer is abundant in the hardest times.

The Irish are fond of singing, dancing, and carousing. The saloons on Lackawanna Avenue have two rooms, the front one for drinking, the back for dancing and general amusement. On the contrary, dancing is generally considered a heinous sin among the Welsh. Says a friend, “The ministers denounce balls and dancing parties as they would manslaughter or murder.”

The German is fond of hunting. He has a gun and dog, and on a Sunday or other holiday, or when there is a breakdown in the mine, he goes hunting on the mountain, and brings home partridges, rabbits, or perchance a deer. Nor does he have to go far to find his hunting-ground. The valley of the Lackawanna is only about two miles wide, and lies in the Moosic Mountains, a part of the Alleghanies. The Germans are fond, too, of fishing. Their picnics and musical festivals generally begin on Saturday afternoon and conclude on Sunday evening. About two-thirds of the Germans go to church on Sunday morning, and many visit the beer gardens in the afternoon with their wives and children. They observe the church holidays, Good-Friday and Easter-Monday.

No Irish miners will work on St. Patrick’s Day. They generally go to church in the morning, and immediately after service, or about half-past nine, organize and form processions composed of their various beneficial societies,—the Father Mathew, St. Mary’s, St. Joseph’s, Young Men’s Beneficial, etc. They do not have a ball on St. Patrick’s Day, considering it to be somewhat a desecration. On the parade day of the Miners’ Union the different branches frequently have balls in the evening, and often with a charitable object, as for the relief of a poor woman whose husband or son has been killed in the mine. But since the unsatisfactory termination of the great strike in 1871 the parade day of the Miners’ Union, August 1, is not generally observed.

Our national holiday, July 4, is kept with great zeal by the Irish. It is an outlet for the expression of their animosity to England. In 1874 there was a great parade of several thousand persons, about two-thirds of whom were foreigners.

The Welsh have only one national holiday,—St. David’s Day, March 1. On this day, in Wales, they form processions and carry the leek, the national emblem. I saw it growing at Scranton, very much like the onion when standing. On this day in Wales they also have meetings for literary pursuits and for vocal music, being a great singing nation. St. David’s Day is still observed in some American cities, but among the people at large the celebration has died out here. Christmas is a great day among the Welsh, and is observed by meetings of the _Eisteddfod_, a very ancient national gathering, which can be traced back for nine hundred years. The word means an assembly, and is pronounced _Ice-teth-vod_, the _dd_ being like _th_ in _thee_.