Coal Camp Girl

by Lois Lenski

  “This means the end for old Bright Eyes,” said Daddy.

  “The end of what?” asked Tina.

  Daddy hated to tell her, but he had to.

  “It’s hard to save a pony with a broken leg,” he said. “Usually it’s better to put them out of the way. Even if his leg heals, Bright Eyes may never be able to work again.”

  “The vet don’t think it’s broken,” said Uncle Chick. “He thinks it’s just turned, and badly bruised and cut.”

  “The vet said to let him rest for a month, and then he’d be as good as new,” added Jeff.

  “That’s fine,” said Daddy. “Let’s hope he gets well.”

  Before she went home, Tina went in the stall to see Bright Eyes. The pony was lying down on a bed of hay, covered with a blanket, his eyes closed. Tina was afraid to touch him. She just leaned over and whispered.

  “You didn’t like it there in the black-dark, did you?” she said. “You kicked to let them know how you felt. Too bad you hurt yourself so badly.”

  The pony did not open his eyes or look at her.

  “I’ll come by every day after school and take care of you,” Tina went on. “And remember this—you won’t have to go back in the mine to work any more. My daddy said so. As soon as your leg gets well, you’ll be my pet. Do you hear me, Bright Eyes?”

  Tina and Jeff followed Daddy and hurried home. As they passed the Murphys’ house, they saw Mrs. Murphy on the back porch.

  “Supper’s ready, Peggy and Mike,” Mrs. Murphy called out. “Come on in and get your ham and eggs!”

  Peggy ran out to the gate first and called to Tina, “We’re having ham and eggs for supper! Are you?”

  Tina shook her head. “No,” she said.

  She ran straight home and said to Mama, “The Murphys are having ham and eggs for supper, Peggy said so!”

  Mama laughed.

  “Mrs. Murphy said so too!”

  “Ham and eggs, my goodness!” said Mama. “And Pat laid off six months already! Plenty imagination they’re having, that’s sure.”

  “What are we having, Mama?” asked Tina.

  “Potato soup,” said Mama. “Good and nourishing too.”

  On Sunday afternoon, Mama said Jeff and Tina could go to the hospital to see Uncle Jack. Uncle Chick came by in Uncle Jack’s car to pick them up. Grandma went along.

  Tina had not been to Mapleton for a long time. It was fun to ride up the steep hill out of the coal camp valley to the big town on the highway that led to Charleston. It was exciting to see the big stores and churches, the post office and fire department, though they were all closed on Sunday. Soon they came to the red brick hospital. Uncle Chick parked the car and they went in.

  Grandma had her arms so full of packages, Tina had to help her carry them.

  They went up the elevator and down a long hall. They came into a big ward, with many beds along the sides. The men in them were sleeping, talking or laughing. Which one was Uncle Jack?

  Grandma headed for a bed in the far corner. Tina tried to pull her back. That was not the right place, for there was a pretty young lady there, leaning over the man in the bed. Grandma must have made a mistake. Tina pulled her by the arm and said, “That’s not Uncle Jack! Let’s go find him.”

  “Oh yes it is,” said Grandma, dropping her packages at the foot of the bed.

  The pretty young lady turned around. To her surprise, Tina saw that it was Miss Sanford, her teacher at school.

  “Why … why … do you know my Uncle Jack?” asked Tina.

  “Do I know him?” asked Miss Sanford. “I sure do.”

  Uncle Jack laughed and caught Miss Sanford’s hand. “Helen and I are the best of friends,” he said.

  “Helen? Who’s that?” asked Tina.

  “Helen Sanford,” said Uncle Jack. “Miss Sanford’s name is Helen.”

  Tina looked at her teacher and saw that her cheeks were very pink. Grandma and Jeff brought chairs and they all sat down. Grandma opened her bundles. She had cookies and fruit for Uncle Jack, pajamas and bedroom slippers.

  “Oh, Uncle Jack,” said Tina. “I couldn’t bring you any flowers. Grandma’s dahlias were frozen up.”

  “O.K., honey,” said Uncle Jack.

  It didn’t seem like Uncle Jack at all, this strange man with his shoulder and arm in a cast, lying propped up in bed. He kept talking to “Helen” most of the time, while Grandma and the children listened.

  Jeff told him about Bright Eyes’ accident, and he grew sober.

  “Ponies!” said Uncle Jack. “Who wants to use ponies in a mine? Have you heard about auger-mining? That’s the latest thing! Two men and a big machine can get out more coal than twenty men with the old machines, and they never have to go inside the mine at all. They strip off all the top soil and rock, and let the machine bore holes into the side of the mountain and twist the coal out.”

  “But Jack,” said Miss Sanford, “I thought you were through with mining. Hasn’t this accident taught you a lesson?”

  Jack laughed and turned to his mother.

  “Shall I give up mining and find some other kind of a job, Mom?”

  Grandma looked sad and said, “That is for you to decide—you and Helen.”

  Grandma called her “Helen” too. On the way home, Grandma asked Tina, “How do you think you’ll like your Aunt Helen?”

  Tina did not know what to say. She liked Miss Sanford for a teacher, but could she ever learn to call her “Helen”—“Aunt Helen”?

  Chapter Six

  WINTER

  Mama lighted a kerosene lamp and set it on the table beside the window. “So Walter can see when he comes in,” she said.

  She looked down the road at the row of houses below her own. The white snow made them look dingier than ever. A heavy snow had fallen and the electric power had gone off.

  “Soon all the houses will be boarded up,” Mama said. “The Davises went first. Soon the others will go too.”

  She put a shawl around her shoulders, sat down and took baby Letty on her lap. The baby had been crying all day. Winter was always the hardest time of the year.

  A truck pulled up outside and stopped with a jerk. A man got out and pulled a heavy sack of coal down. He carried it to the coal shed and dumped it. Then he went back for a second sack. The truck went on. Mama heard the back door open.

  “That you, Walter?” she called. “Did you bring the coal?”

  “Yes, Mary Kate,” said Daddy. “I brought in a scoop bucket full.”

  “Fill up the stove then,” said Mama. “Fire’s most out. House is freezin’—and Christina sick.”

  Daddy began to fix the fire. He shook down the ashes. Coal gas and smoke filled the room as he poured coal dust from the scoop bucket on the live coals.

  “What—no lumps?” asked Mama. “Only slack?”

  “Best I could get under the snow,” said Daddy.

  He forgot to close the draft at the bottom when he put the coal in. Flames shot up toward the ceiling, right in his face. He closed the lid promptly and set the drafts.

  “You say Tina’s sick?” he asked. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Teacher carried her home in her car, long about noon,” said Mama. “Teacher said she was too weak to walk home.”

  “Teacher? Teacher?” asked Daddy. “Who do you mean?”

  “Miss Sanford,” said Mama. “Helen—don’t you know? Ben Sanford’s girl. Ben, your buddy in the mine, before he got hurt so bad. He’s in a wheel-chair now all the time.”

  “Ben’s girl is grown up and teaching school?” asked Daddy.

  “Yes,” said Mama. “She’s got big ideas too—you’d never guess she was brought up in a coal camp herself. She said the kids had no business comin’ to school with their stomachs empty—and no breakfast. Christina must of fainted at school, or fell over, or somethin’ … Helen Sanford blamed me.”

  “What’d you tell her?” asked Daddy.

  “Told her I didn’t have a thing in the world to fee
d ’em,” said Mama. “Told her we was lucky to manage one meal a day right now.”

  “What’d she say to that?”

  “She got real mad,” said Mama. “And do you know what she said about Jack? Said Jack was givin’ up mining for good and all. Said her pa got crippled for life and she wasn’t going to let the same thing happen to Jack. Said Jack had had his warning … Now what do you make of that?”

  “Sounds like there’s something between them two,” said Daddy. “Then what did she do?”

  “She up and left,” said Mama.

  “No breakfast! My kids—no breakfast!” Daddy sat down quickly in a chair. “I know how it feels—as if the bottom of your stomach has dropped out. Those sacks of coal were the heaviest I ever lifted.” He paused. “And I never used to get tired at all when I worked sixteen hours a day.”

  Mama put the baby in her crib and came out again.

  “Celia, where did you put that head o’ cabbage?” she called. “I’ll cook it now we got some coal dust to cook with.”

  Celia came in from the bedroom.

  “Bring any groceries, Dad?” she asked. “Bring any milk?”

  Her father turned on her angrily. “You think I’ve been to the grocery store and bought it out?” he asked. “You know, Celia, my credit’s all used up at the company store. They won’t give us a penny of scrip. My rockin’ chair money ran out last month. Where you been? Ain’t you heard the coal mine’s closed down?” Walter Wilson, like all the miners, referred to unemployment compensation as “rocking chair money.”

  “I thought maybe they’d trust you for a can or two of condensed milk,” said Celia. “My baby’s hungry for milk.”

  “Jeff and Tina and Ronnie have forgot what milk tastes like,” said Mama. “No meat or milk since October. Only bread, potatoes and beans for the last two weeks. Today for a change, we’ll have cabbage.”

  “Feed the baby cabbage, Celia!” Daddy laughed, but it wasn’t funny at all. Celia hung her head and went out of the kitchen. She did not like Daddy’s jokes.

  “No good going to the mine superintendent,” said Daddy. “He said it was all our own fault gettin’ in a fix like this. Said no matter how high wages the miners get, they never save anything, and when hard times come, not one of ’em can live a week … Guess that’s about it.”

  The kitchen warmed up as the fire caught the coal dust. Daddy tipped his chair back against the wall. He turned on the battery radio beside him and soft music began to play. Daddy began to feel better.

  “Where’s my girl?” he called out. “Where’s that little ole Teeny girl? Come here, Teeny, let me see how sick you are.”

  A stir was heard in the bedroom, then the swift patter of bare feet on the cold linoleum floor. The tousle-headed figure of a girl came running into the room.

  “Daddy! Daddy!” She ran to her father and leaned on his shoulder. “Daddy, Daddy, did you get you a job? Is the mine gonna open tomorrow?”

  “They’ll open up when the company gets more orders for coal,” said Daddy. “They’ll take all their men back again.”

  “I’m glad,” said Tina. “Tomorrow?”

  “Not just yet, sugar pie,” said Daddy, “but one of these days soon. Hey, you kid, what kind of big winter coat is this you’re wearin’?”

  Tina began to laugh.

  “Big winter coat?” she said. “You know I don’t have a big winter coat. It’s the comfort offa my bed. I had to wrap it round and round me, to git me warm. I was so cold, I felt like an icicle. Gee! It’s nice and warm in here. Let me sit on your lap.”

  Big girl that she was, going on ten, Tina jumped on her father’s lap and curled up. He folded his arms around her as if he would keep her from harm. He decided to tell her the truth. She was old enough to know.

  “When a mine closes down, Tina, it’s bound to mean hardship,” said Daddy. “Not only for us, but for every family in the coal camp.”

  “What’s hardship, Daddy?” asked Tina.

  “No coal, no pay. No pay, no food,” said Daddy. “That’s hardship. All miners know hardship at one time or another when the men are laid off.”

  “Does it mean no treats in your bucket, Daddy?” asked Tina.

  “Yes, no candy, cake or gum,” said Daddy.

  “No trips to the dime store in Mapleton?” asked Tina. “No show on Saturdays?”

  “That’s about it, sugar,” said Daddy.

  “But the mine will open up, won’t it?” asked Tina.

  Daddy began to rumple her hair.

  “Big ole baby you,” he said softly. “Better not let your little brother see you settin’ on my lap. He’ll fight you and bust your head open.”

  “I don’t feel like fightin’ today, Daddy,” said the girl.

  “Next time that Peggy Murphy hits you, you yell for me and I’ll come flyin’,” said Daddy. “You don’t feel good, sugar?”

  “I’m tired—not sick—just tired,” said Tina. “So tired I couldn’t stand up no more in school … at the blackboard. Didn’t git my arithmetic done, the numbers kept jumpin’ so …”

  “I know how it feels, honey,” said Daddy.

  “But Daddy, you didn’t answer me,” said Tina. “Is the mine gonna open up soon?” The girl looked up at him and her face showed its pallor and thinness in the lamplight.

  “Sure, sugar,” the man said. “Purty soon.”

  “Is the whistle gonna blow while I’m still in bed in the mornin’?” asked the girl. “And will you go off down the hill before it’s light? And will you save me a treat in your lunch bucket?”

  “Not tomorrow,” said Daddy. “I gotta go scrape up some more coal for us tomorrow, if the snow is gone. And more cabbage maybe.”

  “Helen Sanford wanted to know why the kids missed so much school,” said Mama, coming in. “I told her the truth—Jeff’s shoes are plumb wore out, and Christina’s soles is flappin’.”

  “You’re gonna go to work again and buy us all some new shoes, ain’t you, Daddy?” said Tina. Her voice was warm with hope and trust.

  “Sure, honey,” said Daddy. “Purty soon now.”

  “Mrs. Krupa came to see me, Walter,” said Mama. “She said I ought to go on Welfare, like all the other miners’ families. I told her I just couldn’t.”

  “We’re not that low yet,” said Daddy.

  That night Celia and the children went to bed early, but Mama and Daddy sat up to talk.

  “Things can’t go on like this, Walter,” said Mama.

  “I know it,” said Daddy.

  “If we don’t go on Welfare, maybe we ought to clear out like the Davises and go away somewhere,” said Mama.

  “I wouldn’t know where to go,” said Daddy. “I haven’t enough education to get a job in town. I’ve lived here all my life—it’s the only life I know.”

  “Can’t you get a job in some other mine, one of the other big ones?” asked Mama.

  “They wouldn’t take me,” said Daddy. “I’m past forty and I’ve got silicosis. Every man that’s worked twenty years in a mine has got it. I’d be afraid to let them take X-rays—I know what they’d find. Besides, I have no car to drive a long way to another mine.”

  “But you can’t wait forever for the company to call you back,” said Mama.

  “When they get more coal orders, they will,” said Daddy. “I want to stick by them and get my pension when I’m sixty. I’m fifty now—it won’t be long.”

  “But in the meantime, we’ve got to eat,” said Mama.

  “Yes,” said Daddy. “It means mollygrub then. I saw a sign in the window of the company store today. There’s to be a distribution of surplus government food tomorrow. At the Baptist church, at 4 p.m.”

  Mama looked shocked. “And you want me to go?”

  “Why not?” said Daddy. “That surplus food is all that is keeping the miners from starving. My buddy told me you can get free flour and rice and other food. We haven’t much choice in the matter. Christina fainted in school today. She hasn’
t been getting enough to eat. It’s not begging.”

  Mama shook her head. “I’d be ashamed to go.”

  “You are too proud, I guess,” said Daddy.

  “No more proud than you,” said Mama. “You won’t go to work in my brother Chick’s pony mine! Why not? You’re too proud—that’s the only reason. The big mine makes you feel like a big shot, so you ‘stick by the company,’ no matter if your family starves.”

  Daddy did not speak right away.

  “You’re right, Mary Kate,” he said. “It’s pride—we’re both too proud and our children suffer for it. Will you go and get some of that mollygrub, if I start work in Chick’s pony mine?”

  Mama said yes, and Daddy took her in his arms.

  Tina stayed out of school for several days and spent most of her time in bed. One day she got up, put her old jacket on and went outside. But the cold wind chilled her, so she soon returned. The fire in the heater had gone out, but coals in the open grate in the bedroom were alive and red. Tina went to the grate and bent over, rubbing her hands to warm them.

  Celia was in the kitchen, scrubbing the floor, and had the outside door open. As she opened the bedroom door to mop the door sill, the wind blew in, caught Tina’s thin cotton skirt and fanned it across the hot coals. The next minute, the flames shot up toward the little girl’s face.

  “Oh! Oh! My skirt’s on fire!” Her voice was a shriek of pain.

  Daddy, in the front room, threw his paper down and ran. The next minute, before she could think, he had the girl down on the floor and was rolling a rug around her. When she looked up, they were all staring at her—Daddy, Mama, Celia and the baby, Jeff and little Ronnie. They were all scared and crying. After Daddy lifted her to the bed, he found that the palms of his hands were badly burned.

  Tina cried and cried because the burn hurt so bad. Mama’s screams brought Mrs. Bryant running, and they took her clothes off. Her right leg was burned from knee to thigh. Mrs. Bryant found some salve and they put it on. That night Mrs. Bryant sent over a folding cot, so Tina could sleep alone instead of with Celia and the baby.