Part 11

It did not, however, for it was still “working” the next morning. Sometime during the forenoon I heard a sound as of distant artillery fire. Boom, boom, boom,—the sound came up the entry, causing a current of air to flare the lights hither and yon. This continued for an hour; then the room caved. There was a crash of falling stone, a sound impossible to describe in any other words than terrible, a great gust of wind, and every lamp in the entry was extinguished. We rushed down the entry to find that all egress was shut off. The fall of the room had carried with it the entry as well, and we were prisoners behind thirty feet of solid rock. The pit boss instantly ordered every man to put out his light and lie down. Every cubic foot of air must now be conserved, for it would be hours at least before the pipe could be driven in to supply fresh. There we lay in the Stygian blackness in that foul atmosphere waiting the signal from the relief party. Hours passed, and no signal from the other side. Every minute the air became more foul until at last we were panting for breath, the sweat running from every pore. Then came the faint tap that told us the rescue party was driving the pipe. Never a sound came with such melody to my ears. It seemed an age before the steel-nosed pipe broke through and a welcome rush of oxygen was forced in by the air-pump. The pit boss signaled along the pipe that all was well. Then the work of rescue began. All day they picked out and carted away the fallen rock. All night the work went on without ceasing. Another day and another night followed before they broke through the barrier, and we streamed out of the mine, hungry, thirsty and weary from loss of sleep.

I was beginning to realize that while in time I might become an accomplished coal-miner, my chances for living a long life to enjoy that trade were exceedingly limited. I decided to sever my connection with the Kansas and Texas Coal Company, fully realizing that the Company would not mourn much at my loss, and I had no intention of falling on its neck to weep at the parting.

The incident that crystallized my half-formed ideas into immediate action took place in the room one day when I approached nearer the swift current of the Dark River than I cared to do. By accident the driver shoved a box into our room (by this time I had a new “buddy”) and we had no coal with which to load it. A box was so valuable that we could not afford to allow it to be taken out unloaded, so we cast about for sufficient coal for the purpose. Sometime since we had shot a small blast on the pillar and the pit boss, coming in, had ordered us to let it stand as we were too far to the south. This shot was still standing. The coal was loose and needed only to be mined off for us to have sufficient coal to load out the box. That duty devolved upon me, and I shoved the box back and began mining off the shot. In a short time I had it all cut round save a small portion that I could not reach with the pick. I returned to the “face” and procured a long chum drill and with it began to cut down the standing coal. I was seated tailor-like upon the floor, my legs doubled under me. When the coal mass gave way it rolled toward me and pressing the drill across my body pinioned me beneath it. I felt no danger, for my “buddy” could soon extricate me from the position. I called to him and he started in my direction. As he did so I glanced up and was horrified to see several yards of the slate top easing downward. Frantically I grasped the drill that was binding me down and gave it a wrench. It gave and another wrench broke it in twain. To flop over and crawl on my hands and knees out of the way of danger was only the work of an instant. As I did so the great slab fell, tearing off my shoe soles as though they were but paper. I owe my life to the fact that the top did not give way instantly, but broke gradually. So thoroughly frightened was I that I sat in a stupor for some time. When I had sufficiently recovered to be able to walk I made my way out of the mine, went to my boarding place, removed my pit garments and bade Ardmore a lasting and affectionate farewell.

I have torn a few soiled and tattered leaves from my book of life and have here given them to you. That the story is not well told I fully realize. That it is true in every particular must stand its only merit.

_The Pessimist; His View-Point_

Sermons should be practiced before they are preached.

A reformer’s idea of fun is to spoil other people’s fun.

No man can fix a clock and at the same time sing a hymn.

Sacrifices on the altar of foolishness never cease for lack of material.

I wonder why they don’t charter Polygamy under the laws of New Jersey.

There are a great many more fools in the world than they have any idea of.

Sometimes they are editorials, and the rest of the time they are idiotorials.

And, oh, if the great problems solved by the graduates would only stay solved!

The reason why I am so well is that I have always been too poor to stay long at a health resort.

There are two kinds of women who cannot be reasoned with: the one in love and the one not in love.

The best way to preserve the beauty of a finely shaped nose is to keep it out of other people’s business.

TOM P. MORGAN.

You are standing on an Eighth Avenue corner, looking down a side street toward the ugly black streak made by the Ninth Avenue elevated railroad. You see peddlers, right hands curving at the sides of their mouths, left hands holding pails of potatoes; a woman with a basket of wash, which is tucked under a sheet; many fire escapes that look like a jumbling of giant gridirons, when seen from the corner. You notice the signs over doorways: a gilded boot; a carpenter’s sign projecting a little farther; glazier’s sign, of stained-glass squares trying to eclipse signs of shoemaker and carpenter; tailor’s sign almost obscuring all of them. In the tailor-shop windows are prints of the latest fashions, labeled, “Types of American Gents.” American gents, going to work, in overalls and sweaters, pause to enjoy the very latest in riding, golf, and hunting costumes, and perhaps go in to order a three-dollar pair of breeches. The tailor shop occupies the first floor of a three-story frame house—a grimy-looking house; its grimy clapboards are stained by streaks of rain dripping from the rusty fire-escape.

The McGibneys lived in the second-floor rooms. McGibney was log-shaped; he seemed as big around at his ankles as at his chest, and, though he wore collars, it was because everyone else wore collars, and not because his neck was perceptible. Close-cropped hair, a rather sharp nose, bright, alert eyes, cheeks red and all other visible parts of him pinkish. Mrs. McGibney was a plump, delicately featured little woman, who could express most amazing firmness upon her small features. When she had household cares, she worried; when she had household duties, she bustled. And it would surely please you to look at Mrs. McGibney when she worried; left forefinger beginning over the fingers of the right hand; left forefinger lodging on right little finger, Mrs. McGibney pausing to look into space, counting up to assure herself that the butcher had not cheated; forefinger beginning again and dealing with the grocer, this time; another fixed look into space to be sure the grocer had not imagined a can of tomatoes or a pound of flour. It would please you, because you would know that not one penny, worked so hard for by McGibney, would be wasted. When Mrs. McGibney bustles—ah, now that is pretty! That means a very keen sense of responsibility, nothing shirked, nothing that will make McGibney’s comfort neglected. Bustling to the oven door, opening and shutting it; fingers dabbing at under lip and sizzling on under side of a flat iron; frying-pan moved back on the stove; quick, short steps to the table to roll out breadcrumbs; dash to a window to sharpen a knife on the sill—when Mrs. McGibney bustles!

Evening! Both of them in the cheerful kitchen. Very cheerful kitchen! Three conch-shells, like big pink ears, up on the mantelpiece, and four palm leaves, painted green, stuck in a flower pot, just like a bit of Florida. The dish-pan, on the stove murmuring; a subdued rattle and good-natured growling of bubbles forming on the bottom of the pan, and dishes fluttering on them. The oil-cloth was bright and new-looking, except in the corner where heavy McGibney sat. There, chair legs had indented as if someone had beaten around at random with a hammer. And in his corner, reading the newspaper, sat McGibney, his wife sitting beside the table his elbow was on, frowning, puzzling, and counting her fingers. “Yes,” said Mrs. McGibney, “I can keep expenses down to five dollars a week, but you mustn’t charge on my book what you spend. I don’t think I ought to mark down the cent for your newspaper, do you? I’m not going to have my book any more than it’s got to be. I’ll cross off this two cents for a stamp. Now, you know you oughtn’t to charge me for that; it was for your own letter—don’t sit like that! How often have I told you you ruin the oil-cloth?”

McGibney not only continued to tilt back and dig into the oil-cloth but rocked himself on the hind legs of the chair; one is sometimes tempted to torment severe little women when they are too serious.

“Oh, I don’t care; you’re not harming me. Go ahead, if you feel like paying for new oil-cloth.” McGibney could not sit straight without some demonstration to cover his accession; he put out fingers like tongs and pinched just above her knee. If you are an old married man, you know just how far from dignified and severe that immediately made McGibney. Then McGibney sat straight, sat as if he would have sat straight anyway.

A rap on the door. Mrs. McGibney put away her account book as if it were wrong to keep account-books; McGibney sat crooked as if it were wrong to sit straight. No matter what one is doing, one feels that someone else coming makes a difference. Mrs. McGibney started toward the door, went to the stove instead, and covered the dish-pan; started again but paused to twitch a curtain; finally got to the door and opened it, but had glanced back twice and had motioned to McGibney to put away a bag of crackers.

“Oh, it’s you, Clara?” exclaimed Mrs. McGibney. “Why, come right in!”

Into the room came a stocky person, with a broad, flat, amiable face. Everything about her seemed to suggest that she was made to work hard and suffer, usually not complain, but, quite without reasoning, flash into short-lived rebellion against hardships now and then. Like your impression of peasantry more than a century ago, down-trodden, without leaders, should be your impression of Clara. In her heavy arms was a huge bundle, done up in a sheet, four corners of the sheet hanging loose at top. She appeared to be carrying a monstrous turnip, all white, loose ends like white turnip-tops.

“Why, good evening!” said Clara awkwardly, turning to the right, turning to the left, with her huge bundle, looking for a place to set it down, but still clinging to it, her chin buried in the top of it, the big bundle making her look like a pouter-pigeon.

“Mrs. McGibney,” said Clara, turning to the right, to the left, still clinging, “I don’t like to ask you, knowing you ain’t got accommodations, but could you lend me the loan of your ironing-board for the night? I’ve flew the coop on him for good and all this time, and tomorrow will get a room for myself; but, if you can let me have your ironing-board, I can sleep on it here, on the floor tonight. This is my wash, which I brought with me, not to leave him so much as a stitch that’s mine. Would it be too much to ask for your ironing-board?”

“Why, put down that heavy bundle, Clara!” cried Mrs. McGibney, having dabbed at the bundle, but missed it; “it’s sopping wet!”

“Sopping wet!” repeated Mrs. McGibney, as if pleased. And she was pleased, for here was an occasion for her to bustle around the room. Very much did Mrs. McGibney like to bustle around a room. And Clara, by the door, sat at the table at the other end of which McGibney sat.

“It’s wet because I just took it in off the line, not to leave him anything of mine,” said Clara. She moved uneasily in her chair. And she winked, as if in physical distress.

“I can’t move my line, because the rain’s made it too tight,” said Mrs. McGibney, “but we can hang up the wash here to dry. Ironing-board? Ironing-board, how are you!” She pounced upon the huge turnip, seizing turnip-tops, plucking them apart. “No, but we can make you comfortable in the front room, Clara.” Sheet spread out and wash in a mound. “And you’ve carried this with you all the way through the streets? I’ll fix up lines.” Two parallel lines, rigged up one from each end of the table to the opposite wall, sheets thrown over them; kitchen looking like Monday morning in your back yard. Room divided into three compartments: Clara in one, by the door; middle one, including the table, reserved for Mrs. McGibney; McGibney isolated in the third. Mrs. McGibney hung wash on the backs of chairs, and, forgetting how picture frames collect dust, jumped up at comers of picture frames, with more wash. Then she returned to her chair, which was in the middle compartment.

“Not bothering you too much,” began timid Clara. An expression of pain suddenly shot across her broad face. “Oh,” she breathed, “I guess that must be the tintypes! Anyway, don’t bother about me. Oh! yes, I’m sure it’s the tintypes. Tintypes has such sharp corners, even if there is pink paper frames to them. I had nowhere else to carry my belongings, which I’d not leave behind, as I have flew the coop on him.”

Clara stuck one foot out and lifted her skirt somewhat. Untied a handkerchief from somewhere, though I have heard that the material is usually more elastic—never mind; in a most matter-of-fact way, Clara untied the handkerchief. As if it were the most natural thing in the world to do, and very serious about it, she delved and drew forth an alarm clock, a comb, shoe-strings, a looking-glass, a tea-strainer, a box of matches, the tintypes——

“It was the tintypes!” cried Clara. “I knew, because they got such sharp corners and was sticking me, all the way over, most every step I took.”

Mrs. McGibney and McGibney, who drew his sheet aside, stared at the astonishing collection on the table and then laughed heartily. Clara, looking calm and unintelligent, drew forth a can of baking powder. Nothing to laugh at could she see, but the others seemed amused, so she smiled sympathetically with them.

“Yes,” said Clara, no longer timid, for it was her way to be awkward at first and then feel as much at home as anybody, “I’ve flew the coop on him forever. I’ve said I meant it before, but this time I do mean it. And he can be so nice when he wants to be. You know that yourself, Mrs. McGibney.”

“He always seemed a perfect little gentleman whenever I saw him,” declared Mrs. McGibney.

“It’s a shame you two can’t get along better!” was heard from behind McGibney’s sheet. “I’ve always found Tommy all right.”

And Clara exclaimed: “He’s the nicest little man in the world! This time I have flew the coop on him forever.” She smiled at her sheet, so that no one within hearing should be depressed, just because she had troubles.

“I don’t know!” said Clara, with her broad, slow smile, “it’s pretty hard for a woman to come home from her day’s work, and find the man stretched on the floor before her sleeping it off. Isn’t it?” she asked, as if by no means sure and wishing to hear what others thought.

From behind two sheets:

“It certainly is hard!”

Rumbling up over McGibney’s sheet:

“You hadn’t ought to put up with it! It is hard!”

“Isn’t it!” cried Clara, as if crying. “There, I was right, after all! I thought, myself, it was hard, and here’s others thinks the same. And then, when you’re getting along nice, both working and laying by a little, and going to buy the brass lamp in Mason’s window, and get a whole half-ton of coal instead of by the bag, which is robbery, and then he goes out to change the savings into one big bill which you’d never be tempted to break, and comes back in the morning without one cent—” Clara paused. She would not like to be ridiculed for regarding trifles too seriously. “I don’t think he does right by me—does he?”

Both sheets agitated. Over both sheets:

“He certainly don’t do right by you!”

“Does he!” cried Clara, almost excited, also triumphant, hearing her own suspicions verified.

“He oughter be ashamed of hisself!” rumbled McGibney.

Clara looked up, and there was a slow heavy frown, instead of the slow heavy smile.

“There’s worse than him!” she said sharply.

“I’ll never speak to him again!” declared Mrs. McGibney.

“You might speak to worse, Mrs. McGibney. I’m sure he always spoke most kind of you——”

“How could he speak otherwise of me?” demanded Mrs. McGibney in quick anger.

“Now! now! now!” rumbled McGibney, thrusting his sheet aside and looking warningly at his wife.

“Not making you a sharp answer, Mrs. McGibney,” pursued thick, slow, heavy Clara, “he never said nothing but kind words of you. There’s lots worse than him and he was always a good husband to me, excepting when he was bad, and I hope I’ll never lay my two eyes onto him again.”

And Mrs. McGibney looked at the McGibney sheet as if to say, “You’d best always keep quiet!” and her resentment was over, for she was fond of Clara and had known her many years.

“I’ll get a pint of beer,” said McGibney. “Can I leave youse two without there being a clinch? You like a little ale in it, don’t you, Clara?”

“Don’t never mind me!” said Clara restlessly. “I just remember I left the gas burning and him sleeping his buns off. Do you think the gas would go out and then start up again and not burning? I’ve heard tell of such cases. Not meaning to go back to him, maybe I’d better go back and turn the gas out.”

“Do go back, Clara!” urged Mrs. McGibney, feeling through the sheet for Clara’s hand and impulsively seizing Clara’s nose, trying again for the hand, closing fingers upon Clara’s ear, Clara leaning over, with head near her knees, “Give him another chance. A wife’s place is at home. Don’t mind what others tell you—your husband is dearer to you than all the rest of the world. Go back and make him promise to do better.”

“I don’t wish him no harm,” said Clara, hesitatingly. “This time I’ve flew the coop on him forever, even if he is the nicest little man in the world when he has a mind to be—if I thought the gas would go out on him, I might go back and turn down the gas, anyway.”

Oh, then, here was a fine chance for Mrs. McGibney to bustle. Down came everything on the lines, as if it were Monday night in the back yard. Down came everything from the backs of chairs and from picture frames. Back into a bundle with everything! Big white turnip again, loose, sprawling turnip-tops.

“I might try him again for a week, anyway,” decided Clara. Out and away and back home with her big white, turnip and its pouter-pigeon effect, too bulky for her arms to go around, her chin lost in fluttering turnip-tops; back home with bundle, alarm clock, looking-glass, box of baking-powder and tintypes taken one almost impossibly happy day at Coney Island.

An evening or two later. McGibney out for a walk. Mrs. McGibney up to her elbows in the washing that had driven him out, for if he had remained in he would have had to carry boilers of water to the stove from the sink in the hall. So McGibney had said, “Marietta, I ain’t getting fresh air enough. I don’t sleep good unless I take a little walk in the evening.” Mrs. McGibney had to fill the boiler one dishpanful at a time and that was satisfactory to McGibney.

Rap on the door. Mrs. McGibney quickly concealed socks with holes in them and turned to the door. Vain little Mrs. McGibney! She paused to rummage through the wash until she found curtains. They were very fine lace curtains. The very fine curtains were placed where a caller would surely see them and note how very fine they were. Then Mrs. McGibney’s hand did around and around on the door knob, hand slippery with soap-suds, until the slipperiness wore off and she could open the door. She exclaimed: “Why, Tommy! come right in.” The “nicest little man in the world” was an uneasy, squirming, twisting, little man; bald-headed; Hebraic nose like a number six inclining at forty-five degrees; chin with a dimple looking like a bit gouged out of it; very neat; fussy. And a very polite little man, scraping, bowing, grinning.

“Sit down, Tommy. You won’t have much room to stir. The old man is out, but will be back almost any minute. Sit down, but first I’ll trouble you to fill the boiler for me, if you don’t mind. How is Clara?”

Tommy seemed to scrape and bow to the boiler, before lifting it, seemed to scrape with his right foot and bow to the wash-tub as he passed it and went scraping and bowing down to the sink, filled the boiler, came back with it, set it on the stove and stood grinning, prepared to scrape and bow, if given half a chance to, until invited again to sit down.

“My!” said Mrs. McGibney, “the wash does gather on one so!”

Tommy opened his eyes wide and wrinkled his forehead to express profoundest sympathy. Not only with eyes and forehead, but with elbows, feet, knees and hands, it was his way to show how very attentively he listened to anyone speaking to him; ready to laugh heartily at anything he might be expected to smile at; equally ready to commiserate with anybody.

“Are you feeling pretty well?”—soap dabbed on a McGibney shirt. “How is—” laundry-brush up and down where the soap was, which was at elbows; McGibney _would_ lean on elbows. “Clara? Is she—” up and down with the shirt on the wash-board—“feeling pretty—” wringing out and dropping shirt on pile, on a newspaper, “well?” Pile too high and toppling over, top pieces falling on the floor outside the newspaper. Not a speck on them, but rubbing over for them, anyway.

“Oh, yes, ma’am; Clara is very well. I have left her.”

“You’ve what? You’ve left her?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am!” said Tommy, head bobbing, shoulders, arms, knees, all of him bobbing. “I called to see would you keep these tintypes for me? I’m going to Maddy-gascar, where I hear there’s openings.”

“Why, Tommy, what’s the matter?”

“She don’t keep the house picked up—not saying a word against her,” answered Tommy. “These tintypes is mine, and she can have everything else; but these is mine, and it was my money paid for them down to Coney Island, me and her in them, and all I got in the world I care about, and will you keep them for me till I can send for them from Maddy-gascar?”

“Why, of course I’ll do that, Tommy; but you know you’d never do such a thing as leave Clara. That would be very wrong of you.”

“Oh, yes, indeed, ma’am, very wrong of me! Not saying one word against her, she lies in bed all day and won’t so much as do any sweeping. There’s never any cooking, and I’m tired to death of the delicatessens and rather go to Maddy-gascar and eat spiders, me going in the spider-web industry there. She don’t do no wash like you, Mrs. McGibney, but just rinses out in cold water. She’s so lazy she washes dishes by rubbing newspapers on them. That ain’t so bad as when she does wash them; she washes clothes in the dish-pan and then washes dishes after them—not that I’d say one word against her. So, will you mind the tintypes with her and me in them, ma’am? They’re all I have to care about, ma’am.”

“Oh, now Tommy—” But how could one possibly argue with Tommy? With eyes and forehead and elbows and knees, he would most emphatically agree with everything said to him.

“Your wife is a very good woman.”

Of course she was! Best in the city! Best in the whole world! But would Mrs. McGibney care for the tintypes?