The Blind Brother: A Story of the Pennsylvania Coal Mines Page 2

  CHAPTER II.

  THE BURNED BREAKER.

  For a long time Bennie lay there, pitifully weeping. Then, away offsomewhere in the mine, he heard a noise. He lifted his head. By degreesthe noise grew louder; then it sounded almost like footsteps. Supposeit were some one coming; suppose it were Tom! The light of hope flashedup in Bennie's breast with the thought.

  But the sound ceased, the stillness settled down more profoundly thanbefore, and about the boy's heart the fear and loneliness came creepingback. Was it possible that the noise was purely imaginary?

  Suddenly, tripping down the passages, bounding from the walls, echoingthrough the chambers, striking faintly, but, oh, how sweetly, uponBennie's ears, came the well-known call,--

  "Ben-nie-e-e-e!"

  The sound died away in a faint succession of echoing _e_'s.

  Bennie sprang to his feet with a cry.

  "Tom! Tom! Tom, here I am."

  Before the echoes of his voice came back to him they were broken by thesound of running feet, and down the winding galleries came Tom, as fastas his lamp and his legs would take him, never stopping till he andBennie were in one another's arms.

  "Bennie, it was my fault!" exclaimed Tom. "Patsy Donnelly told me youwent out with Sandy McCulloch while I was up at the stables; an' I wentway home, an' Mommie said you hadn't been there, an' I came back tofind you, an' I went up to your door an' you wasn't there, an' I calledan' called, an' couldn't hear no answer; an' then I thought maybe you'dtried to come out alone, an' got off in the cross headin' an' got lost,an'"--

  Tom stopped from sheer lack of breath, and Bennie sobbed out,--

  "I did, I did get lost an' scared, an'--an'--O Tom, it was awful!"

  The thought of what he had experienced unnerved Bennie again, and,still holding Tom's hand, he sat down on the floor of the mine and weptaloud.

  "There, Bennie, don't cry!" said Tom, soothingly; "don't cry! You'refound now. Come, jump up an' le's go home; Mommie'll be half-crazy."It was touching to see the motherly way in which this boy of fourteenconsoled and comforted his weaker brother, and helped him again to hisfeet. With his arm around the blind boy's waist, Tom led him down,through the chambers, out into the south heading, and so to the foot ofthe slope.

  It was not a great distance; Bennie's progress had been so slow that,although he had, as he feared, wandered off by the cross heading intothe southern part of the mine, he had not been able to get very faraway.

  At the foot of the slope they stopped to rest, and Bennie told aboutthe strange man who had talked with him at the doorway. Tom could giveno explanation of the matter, except that the man must have been oneof the strikers. The meaning of his strange conduct he could no moreunderstand than could Bennie.

  It was a long way up the slope, and for more than half the distance itwas very steep; like climbing up a ladder. Many times on the upward waythe boys stopped to rest. Always when he heard Bennie's breathing growhard and laborious, Tom would complain of being himself tired, and theywould turn about and sit for a few moments on a tie, facing down theslope.

  Out at last into the quiet autumn night! Bennie breathed a long sigh ofrelief when he felt the yielding soil under his feet and the fresh airin his face.

  Ah! could he but have seen the village lights below him, the glory ofthe sky and the jewelry of stars above him, and the half moon slippingup into the heavens from its hiding-place beyond the heights ofCampbell's Ledge, he would, indeed, have known how sweet and beautifulthe upper earth is, even with the veil of night across it, comparedwith the black recesses of the mine.

  It was fully a mile to the boys' home; but, with light hearts andwilling feet, they soon left the distance behind them, and reached thelow-roofed cottage, where the anxious mother waited in hope and fearfor the coming of her children.

  "Here we are, Mommie!" shouted Tom, as he came around the cornerand saw her standing on the doorstep in the moonlight watching. Outinto the road she ran then, and gathered her two boys into her arms,kissed their grimy, coal-blackened faces, and listened to theiroft-interrupted story, with smiles and with tears, as she led them toher house.

  But Tom stopped at the door and turned back.

  "I promised Sandy McCulloch," he said, "to go over an' tell him if Ifound Bennie. He said he'd wait up for me, an' go an' help me hunt himup if I came back without him. It's only just over beyond the breaker;it won't take twenty minutes, an' Sandy'll be expectin' me."

  And without waiting for more words, the boy started off on a run.

  It was already past ten o'clock, and he had not had a mouthful ofsupper, but that was nothing in consideration of the fact that Sandyhad been good to him, and would have helped him, and was, even now,waiting for him. So, with a light and grateful heart, he hurried on.

  He passed beyond the little row of cottages, of which his mother's wasone, over the hill by a foot-path, and then along the mine car-track tothe breaker. Before him the great building loomed up, like some hugecastle of old, cutting its outlines sharply against the moon-illuminedsky, and throwing a broad black shadow for hundreds of feet to the west.

  Through the shadow went Tom, around by the engine-room, where thewatchman's light was glimmering faintly through the grimy window; outagain into the moonlight, up, by a foot-path, to the summit of anotherhill, along by another row of darkened dwellings, to a cottage where alight was still burning, and there he stopped.

  The door opened before he reached it, and a man in shirt-sleevesstepped out and hailed him:

  "Is that you, Tom? An' did ye find Bennie?"

  "Yes, Sandy. I came to tell you we just got home. Found him down in thesouth chambers; he tried to come out alone, an' got lost. So I'll notneed you, Sandy, with the same thanks as if I did, an' good-night toyou!"

  "Good-nicht till ye, Tom! I'm glad the lad's safe wi' the mither. Tom,"as the boy turned away, "ye'll not be afeard to be goin' home alone?"

  Tom laughed.

  "Do I looked scared, Sandy? Give yourself no fear for me; I'm afraid o'naught."

  Before Sandy turned in at his door, Tom had disappeared below the browof the hill. The loose gravel rolled under his feet as he hurried down,and once, near the bottom, he slipped and fell.

  As he rose, he was astonished to see the figure of a man stealcarefully along in the shadow of the breaker, and disappear around thecorner by the engine-room.

  Tom went down cautiously into the shadow, and stopped for a moment inthe track by the loading-place to listen. He thought he heard a noisein there; something that sounded like the snapping of dry twigs.

  The next moment a man came out from under that portion of the breaker,with his head turned back over his shoulder, muttering, as he advancedtoward Tom,--

  "There, Mike, that's the last job o' that kind I'll do for all thesecret orders i' the warl'. They put it on to me because I've got nowife nor childer, nor ither body to cry their eyes oot, an' I get i'the prison for it. But I've had the hert o' me touched the day, Mike,an' I canna do the like o' this again; it's the las' time, min' ye, thelas' time I--Mike!--why, that's no' Mike! Don't ye speak, lad! don't yewhusper! don't ye stir!"

  The man stepped forward, a very giant in size, with a great beardfloating on his breast, and laid his brawny hands on Tom's shoulderswith a grip that made the lad wince.

  Tom did not stir; he was too much frightened for one thing, too muchastonished for another. For, before the man had finished speaking,there appeared under the loading-place in the breaker a littleflickering light, and the light grew into a flame, and the flame curledaround the coal-black timbers, and sent up little red tongues to lickthe cornice of the long, low roof. Tom was so astounded that he couldnot speak, even if he had dared. But this giant was standing over him,gripping his shoulders in a painful clutch, and saying to him, in avoice of emphasis and determination,--

  "Do ye see me, lad? Do ye hear me? Then I say to ye, tell a single soulwhat ye've seen here the night, an' the life o' ye's not worth the dusti' the road. Whusper a single word o' it
, an' the Molly Maguires 'lltak' terrible revenge o' ye'! Noo, then, to your home! Rin! an' gin yeturn your head or speak, ye s'all wish ye'd 'a' been i' the midst o'the fire instead."

  With a vigorous push, he sent Tom from him at full speed down the track.

  But the boy had not gone far before the curiosity that overtook Lot'swife came upon him, and he turned and looked. He was just in time tosee and hear the sleepy watchman open the door of the engine-room, runout, give one startled look at the flames as they went creeping up thelong slant of roof, and then make the still night echo with his cry of"Fire!"

  Before twenty minutes had passed, the surrounding hills were alive withpeople who had come to look upon the burning breaker.

  The spectacle was a grand one.

  For many minutes the fire played about in the lower part of thebuilding, among the pockets and the screens, and dashed up againstthe base of the shaft-tower like lapping waves. Then the small squarewindows, dotting the black surface of the breaker here and there up itsseventy feet of height, began to redden and to glow with the mountingflames behind them; a column of white smoke broke from the topmostcornice, little red tongues went creeping up to the very pinnacle ofthe tower, and then from the highest point of all a great column offire shot far up toward the onlooking stars, and the whole giganticbuilding was a single body of roaring, wavering flame.

  It burned rapidly and brilliantly, and soon after midnight there wasbut a mass of charred ruins covering the ground where once the breakerstood.

  There was little that could be saved; the cars in the loading-place,the tools in the engine-room, some loose lumber, and the householdeffects from a small dwelling-house near by; that was all. But amongthe many men who helped to save this little, none labored with suchenergetic effort, such daring zeal, such superhuman strength, as thehuge-framed, big-bearded man they called Jack Rennie.

  * * * * *

  The strike had become general. The streets of the mining towns werefilled with idle, loitering men and boys. The drinking saloons drovea brisk business, and the merchants feared disaster. Tom had not toldany one as yet of his adventure at the breaker on the night of thefire. He knew that he ought to disclose his secret; indeed, he felt apressing duty upon him to do so in order that the crime might be dulypunished. But the secret order of Molly Maguires was a terror in thecoal regions in those days; the torch, the pistol, and the knife werethe instruments with which it carried out its desperate decrees, andTom was absolutely afraid to whisper a word of what he knew, even tohis mother or to Bennie.

  But one day the news went out that Jack Rennie had been arrested,charged with setting fire to the Valley Breaker; and soon afterward amessenger came to the house of the Widow Taylor, saying that Tom waswanted immediately in Wilkesbarre at the office of Lawyer Pleadwell.

  Tom answered this summons gladly, as it might possibly afford a meansby which he would be compelled to tell what he knew about the fire,with the least responsibility resting on him for the disclosure. Buthe resolved that, in no event, would he speak any thing but the truth.

  After he was dressed and brushed to the satisfaction of his carefulmother, Tom went with the messenger to the railroad station, and thefast train soon brought them into the city of Wilkesbarre, the countytown of Luzerne County.

  On one of the streets radiating from the court-house square, theystopped before a dingy-looking door on which was fastened a signreading: "James G. Pleadwell, Attorney-at-Law."

  Tom was taken, first, into the outer room of the law-offices, wherea man sat at a table writing, and two or three other men, evidentlyminers, were talking together in a corner; and then, after a fewmoments, the door into an inner apartment was opened and he was calledin there. This room was more completely furnished than the outerone; there was a carpet on the floor, and there were pictures on thewalls; also there were long shelves full of books, all bound alike inleather, all with red labels near the tops and black labels near thebottoms of their backs.

  At the farther side of the room sat a short, slim, beardless man, withpale face and restless eyes, whom Tom recognized as having been inthe mine with the visiting strikers the day Bennie was lost; and by around centre table sat Lawyer Pleadwell, short and stout, with bristlymustache and a stubby nose on which rested a pair of gold-rimmedeye-glasses.

  As Tom entered the room, the lawyer regarded him closely, and wavinghis hand towards an easy chair, he said,--

  "Be seated, my lad. Your name is--a'--let me see"--

  "Tom--Thomas Taylor, sir," answered the boy.

  "Well, Tom, you saw the fire at the Valley Breaker?"

  "Yes, sir," said Tom; "I guess I was the first one 'at saw it."

  "So I have heard," said the lawyer, slowly; then, after a pause,--

  "Tom have you told to any one what you saw, or whom you saw at themoment of the breaking out of that fire?"

  "I have not, sir," answered Tom, wondering how the lawyer knew he hadseen any one.

  "Do you expect, or desire, to disclose your knowledge?"

  "I do," said Tom; "I ought to a' told before; I meant to a' told, but Ididn't dare. I'd like to tell now."

  Tom was growing bold; he felt that he had kept the secret long enoughand that, now, it must out.

  Lawyer Pleadwell twirled his glasses thoughtfully for a few moments,then placed them deliberately on his nose, and turned straight to Tom.

  "Well, Tom," he said, "we may as well be plain with you. I representJack Rennie, who is charged with firing this breaker, and Mr. Carolanhere is officially connected with the order of Molly Maguires, inpursuance of whose decree the deed is supposed to have been done. Wehave known, for some time, that a boy was present when the breaker wasfired. Last night we learned that you were that boy. Now, what we wantof you is simply this: to keep your knowledge to yourself. This will beto your own advantage as well as for the benefit of others. Will you doit?"

  To Tom, the case had taken on a new aspect. Instead of being, ashe had supposed, in communication with those who desired to punishthe perpetrators of the crime, he found himself in the hands of theprisoner's friends. But his Scotch stubbornness came to the rescue, andhe replied,--

  "I can't do it, sir; it wasn't right to burn the breaker, an' the man'at done it ought to go to jail for it."

  Lawyer Pleadwell inserted a thumb into the arm-hole of his vest, andpoised his glasses carefully in his free hand. He was preparing toargue the case with Tom.

  "Suppose," said he, "you were a miner, as you hope to be, as yourfather was before you; and a brutal and soulless corporation, havingreduced your wages to the starvation-point, while its vaults weregorged with money, should kick you, like a dog, out of their employ,when you humbly asked them for enough to keep body and soul together.Suppose you knew that the laws were made for the rich and against thepoor, as they are, and that your only redress, and a speedy one, wouldbe to spoil the property of your persecutors till they came to treatyou like a human being, with rights to be respected, as they surelywould, for they fear nothing so much as the torch; would you think itright for a fellow-workman to deliver you up to their vengeance andfury for having taught them such a lesson?"

  The lawyer placed his glasses on his nose, and leaned forward, eagerly,towards Tom.

  The argument was not without its effect. Tom had long been led tobelieve that corporations were tyrannical monsters. But the boy'sinherent sense of right and wrong was proof against even this speciousplea.

  "All the same," he said, "I can't make out 'at it's right to burn abreaker. Why," he continued, "you might say the same thing if it'd 'abeen murder."

  Pleadwell saw that he was on the wrong track with this clear-headed boy.

  "Well," he said, settling back in his chair, "if peaceful persuasionwill not avail, I trust you are prepared, in case of disclosure, tomeet whatever the Molly Maguires have in store for you?"

  "Yes," answered Tom, boldly, "I am. I've been afraid of 'em, an' that'swhat's kept me from tellin'; but I won't be a
coward any more; they cando what they're a mind to with me."

  The lawyer was in a quandary, and Carolan shot angry glances at Tom.Here was a lad who held Jack Rennie's fate in his hands, and whomneither fear nor persuasion could move. What was to be done?

  Pleadwell motioned to Carolan, and they rose and left the roomtogether; while Tom sat, with tumultuously beating heart, but withconstantly increasing resolution.

  The men were gone but a few moments, and came back with satisfiedlooks on their faces.

  "I have learned," said the lawyer, addressing Tom, in a voice ladenwith apparent sympathy, "that you have a younger brother who is blind.That is a sad affliction."

  "Yes, indeed it is," replied Tom; "yes, indeed!"

  "I have learned, also, that there is a possibility of cure, if the eyesare subjected to proper and timely treatment."

  "Yes, that's what a doctor told us."

  "What a blessing it would be if sight could be restored to him! what adelight! What rejoicing there would be in your little household, wouldthere not?"

  "Oh, indeed there would!" cried Tom, "oh, indeed! It's what we'rea-thinkin' of al'ays; it's what I pray for every night, sir. We've beena-tryin' to save money enough to do it, but it's slow a-gettin' it,it's awful slow."

  "A--how much"--Lawyer Pleadwell paused, and twirled his eye-glassesthoughtfully--"how much would it cost, Tom?"

  "Only a hundred dollars, sir; that's what the doctor said."

  Another pause; then, with great deliberation,--

  "Tom, suppose my friend here should see fit to place in your hands,to-day, the sum of one hundred dollars, to be used in your brother'sbehalf; could you return the favor by keeping to yourself the knowledgeyou possess concerning the origin of the fire at the breaker?"

  The hot blood surged up into Tom's face, his heart pounded like ahammer against his breast, his head was in a whirl.

  A hundred dollars! and sight for Bennie! No lies to be told--only tokeep quiet--and sight for Bennie! Would it be very wrong? But, oh, tothink of Bennie in the joy of seeing! The temptation was terrible.Stronger, less affectionate natures than Tom's might well have yielded.