by Lois Lenski
It was the day of Uncle Jack’s wedding. He was getting married to the schoolteacher, Helen Sanford. All of Miss Sanford’s pupils had come and were playing in the yard. They were waiting for the bride and groom to come from the preacher’s house. While they waited, the girls played games and the boys ran around, riding on each other’s shoulders piggyback.
At last several cars drove up and out of the first one jumped Uncle Jack. He was dressed in his Sunday suit and had a white carnation in his buttonhole. His shoulder and arm were well now and he no longer needed a sling. He helped his bride out, and they went into the house, where all their friends and neighbors were waiting.
Tina ran up and kissed her new Aunt Helen. Tina was used to the name now and glad to have her not only for a teacher but as a member of the family. Aunt Helen was dressed in white. She had some flowers in her hair and a bouquet of white flowers tied with ribbons in her hand.
The children crowded into the house. A long table was set with many dishes, and the women were bustling about getting everybody seated. The children were shooed outside again and told they must wait for the second sitting. They began to play again. Tina chose Little Sally Ann and took her place in the center of the ring. The children began to sing:
Little Sally Ann, sitting in the sand,
Weeping and crying for a little man.
Rise up, Sally, dry your eyes,
Turn to the East, then turn to the West,
Then turn to the one that YOU LOVE BEST!
They played for a long time.
Then suddenly there was great excitement. The bride and groom came running out of the house, followed by all the people. Aunt Helen had changed her clothes. Now she was dressed in a going-away suit of dark blue, and she wore a smart little hat with a feather. Uncle Jack had two suitcases in his hands. The people threw a shower of rice and confetti over them, as they climbed in Uncle Jack’s car and drove away.
The children waved as long as they could see them. Then the car turned the corner and wound up the hill to Mapleton.
“Where are they going?” Hilda Krupa asked Tina.
Tina shook her head. “It’s a secret,” she said. “Aunt Helen and Uncle Jack wouldn’t tell anybody. They are not supposed to tell where they go for a honeymoon.”
“I bet I can guess,” said Peggy Murphy. “I bet they went to Charleston.”
Tina closed her lips tightly. How did Peggy Murphy know more than she did herself?
It seemed very quiet at home that night, after all the people went away. Mrs. Bryant and Aunt Effie stayed to clean up the kitchen, and then they, too, went home. Left alone, Tina was surprised to see tears in her mother’s eyes.
“But I thought you were glad …” she began.
“I am,” said Mama. “I’m glad, but sad too, to lose my baby brother. I looked after Jack for so many years, it will be hard to get along without him.”
“Isn’t he coming back?” asked Tina.
“No,” said Mama. “They’re going to live in Charleston. He has a job there.”
The children were surprised to hear the news.
“But he can’t …” said Jeff. “I mean, there are no mines in Charleston.”
Daddy spoke up. “Uncle Jack is giving up mining,” he said. “He’s young, he has opportunities, he can find other work to do.”
“It’s all the fault of that teacher …” Mama started to say something, then closed her lips, seeing the surprise on the children’s faces. “Aunt Helen, I mean. She got her way with him at last. She was determined he shouldn’t be a miner.”
“Can you blame her?” asked Daddy. “Just remember what happened to old Ben, my buddy—her father.”
Mama tried to smile. “No, I don’t blame her. At least now, Jack won’t get his back broken in a slate fall and have to spend the rest of his life in a wheel-chair like poor old Ben. At least now, Jack is safe …”
“Until he gets smashed up in a car wreck, driving at seventy miles an hour!” Daddy laughed.
“Aunt Helen will take care of that, too!” said Mama.
“I hope she does,” said Daddy.
“Are you going to stop being a miner, too, Daddy?” asked Tina.
“Now, Tina, you know better than to ask that,” said Mama.
Jeff turned to his sister and said, “Of course not, silly!”
“Now that the mine has opened up again …” began Daddy.
“You think it’s never going to close down!” said Mama. “There’s no bigger fool of an optimist than a coal miner.”
Daddy laughed. “At least the miner has learned to look on the bright side of things,” he said. “At least I have work again and I am thankful for that. Coal mining is a dog’s life, but I guess I’m hardened to it. I’m a miner by trade and I never want to be anything else.” He turned to Tina. “Once a miner, always a miner,” he said.
After the flood, it had taken some weeks to get the mine in shape again. Then the men were called back, and operations had started on a larger scale than before.
Hope returned to the little coal camp. The fear that the mine might close permanently faded away, and the miners’ families took heart again. Even with the dwindling of the coal supply and the frequent shutting down of the mines, even with the moving of many families out of the area into homes of their own and other occupations, the miners were filled with hope. In spite of the periodic ups-and-downs in the coal-fields, in spite of the non-existence of other work near by and the consequent trapped sensation in the minds of the miners’ families, which colored all their life and thought, there remained a hard core of miners who chose never to be anything else, and who would keep on being miners as long as they lived.
Walter Wilson was one of these. He lived through and accepted the hardships and hazards of mining as a necessary part of his life. His wife and family accepted them too, though Mrs. Wilson would, perhaps, be the last person to admit it. There was a real challenge in the work. For the miner depended for survival upon technical ability, physical fitness, mental alertness and loyal teamwork, all commendable qualities. His very directness, straight-forwardness and lack of pretense stemmed from the nature of his work.
When the white birches grew on the slate dump, the fire burned them, but they always grew back again. Long after all of man’s mining operations have ceased, trees and bushes will take root and grow, to cover the gaps in the hills and the unsightly slate dumps. Only Nature can heal the scars made by the hand of man. And so the white birches became the symbol of the miner’s perennial hope.
That evening, when Jeff and Tina were riding the ponies in Grandpa’s pasture, they talked quietly together.
“Tina, you shouldn’t ask Daddy if he’s going to stop being a miner,” said Jeff.
“Why not?” asked Tina.
“Mama don’t like coal mining—the women never do—but Daddy has to do it,” said Jeff. “He don’t care if Mama don’t like it, he has to do it anyway. He has to work somewhere. He’s a born miner—he could never work outside a mine.”
“But he might get hurt,” said Tina. “Mama don’t want him to get hurt—that’s all.”
“Of course not,” said Jeff. “But Daddy is careful. In all the forty years that he’s been mining, he’s never had but one lost-time accident—that time he lost his two fingers.”
Tina looked thoughtful for a moment.
“Are you going to be a miner, Jeff?” she asked.
Jeff’s face grew sad for a moment.
“I was scared to death when I was lost in the mine,” he said soberly. “I was so scared, I think I’ll never be scared again as long as I live. Getting lost up there has taken all my fear away.”
“You won’t be afraid to be a miner, Jeff?” asked Tina.
Jeff did not answer directly. He began slowly as if weighing every word. “Virgil says he’ll never be a miner, and Trig says he won’t be afraid to be one. And as for me, I’ll be a better miner just because I was lost in the mine.”
“But you
said you’d rather stay in jail for the rest of your life,” said Tina, “than go in a mine again.”
“That’s what I said at first,” Jeff went on. “But I’ve had time to think since then.”
“You still want to be a miner?” asked Tina.
“Yes.” said Jeff. “I’m a born miner like Daddy, I guess.”
DEFINITIONS
Bank clothes, bank hat, etc.—the word “bank” evidently derives from “coal bank.”
Crib-blocks—short timbers set in crisscross fashion, tower-like; used where a single post would not be strong enough to hold up the roof headers.
Cross-cut—a passageway for ventilation.
Drift mine—a mine entered from the side of a hill instead of a vertical shaft.
Drift-mouth—entrance to a drift mine.
Entry—mine opening.
Face—working part of the coal mine; wall where the coal is being cut, shot down and loaded.
Header—a cross timber 4 × 8 × 12 ft. set on posts to hold rock roof up.
Main haulageway, or hallway—passage through which the coal is hauled out.
Man-trip—a train of coal cars fitted with seats which carried the miners from the portal along the haulageway to the sections where they work, and brings them out again at the end of the shift.
Motor—electric locomotive which pulls coal cars in and out.
Portal—mine opening.
Portal-to-portal pay—the miner’s work-day begins when he enters the portal; he is paid for his time beginning when he enters the portal and ending when he comes out to the portal at end of shift.
Punch mines—mines that are opened up along strip mine highwalls and extend several hundred feet underground, employing from three to five men.
Runway—a track or path.
Scrip—artificial money advanced by the coal company to miners on credit.
Scrip-card—a card on which the miner’s advances are recorded.
Stump—a large block of coal left between two rooms.
Tipple—place where coal is dumped or loaded; apparatus by which loaded coal cars are emptied by tipping.
Trip—a train of mine cars.
A Biography of Lois Lenski
Lois Lenski was born in Springfield, Ohio, on October 14, 1893. The fourth of five children of a Lutheran minister and a schoolteacher, she was raised in the rural town of Anna, Ohio, west of Springfield, where her father was the pastor. Many of the children’s books she wrote and illustrated take place in small, closely knit communities all over the country that are similar to Lenski’s hometown.
After graduating from high school in 1911, Lenski moved with her family to Columbus, where her father joined the faculty at Capital University. Because Capital did not yet allow women to enroll, she attended college at Ohio State University. Lenski took courses in education, planning to become a teacher like her mother, but also studied art, and was especially interested in drawing. In 1915, with a bachelor’s degree and a teaching certificate, she decided to pursue a career in art, and moved to New York City to take classes at the Art Students League of New York.
In an illustration class at the League, Lenski met a muralist named Arthur Covey. She assisted him in painting several murals, and also supported herself by taking on parttime jobs drawing fashion advertisements and lettering greeting cards. In October 1920, she left New York to continue her studies in Italy and London, where the publisher John Lane hired her to illustrate children’s books. When she returned to New York in 1921, she married Covey and became stepmother to his two children, Margaret and Laird.
Early in her career, Lenski dedicated herself to book illustration. When a publisher suggested that she try writing her own stories, she drew upon the happy memories of her childhood. Her first authored book, Skipping Village (1927), is set in a town that closely resembles Anna at the start of the twentieth century. A Little Girl of 1900 (1928) soon followed, also clearly based on Lenski’s early life in rural Ohio.
In 1929, Lenski’s son, Stephen, was born, and the family moved to a farmhouse called Greenacres in Harwinton, Connecticut, which they would call home for the next three decades. Lenski continued to illustrate other authors’ books, including the original version of The Little Engine That Could (1930) by Watty Piper, and the popular Betsy-Tacy series (1940–55) by Maud Hart Lovelace. Lenski also wrote the Mr. Small series (1934–62), ten books based on Stephen’s antics as a toddler.
The house at Greenacres had been built in 1790 and it became another source of inspiration, as Lenski liked to imagine the everyday lives of the people who had previously lived in her home. In Phebe Fairchild, Her Book (1936), for instance, a young girl is sent to live with her father’s family on their farm in northwestern Connecticut in 1830‚ when Greenacres would have been forty years old. For its rich and detailed depiction of family life in rural New England, the book was awarded the Newbery Honor.
Other historical novels followed—including A-Going to the Westward (1937), set in central Ohio; Bound Girl of Cobble Hill (1938); Ocean-Born Mary (1939); Blueberry Corners (1940); and Puritan Adventure (1944)—all set in New England; and Indian Captive (1941), a carefully researched retelling of the true story of Mary Jemison, a Pennsylvania girl captured by a raiding Native American tribe, for which Lenski won a second Newbery Honor.
By 1941, Lenski’s stepdaughter, Margaret, had married and started her own family, and Margaret’s son, David, spent a great deal of time with his grandparents at the farm. Lenski’s Davy series of seven picture books (1941–61) was largely based on David’s visits to Connecticut as a child.
During this period, Lenski experienced bouts of illness, brought on by the harsh Connecticut winters. The family began to spend winters in Florida, where she “saw the real America for the first time,” as she wrote in her autobiography. Noting how few books described the daily life of children in different parts of the country, she began writing the Regional America series, starting with Bayou Suzette (1943). The seventeen books in this series depict children’s lives in every region of the United States, from New England to the Pacific Northwest, in rural and urban settings. Lenski traveled to each region that she would later feature in her books, spending three to six weeks in each locale. She collected stories from children and adults in each area, documenting their dialect, learning about their way of life, and otherwise getting to know the people that would become the characters in her books. The second book in the series, Strawberry Girl, won the Newbery Medal in 1946. The Roundabout America series (1952–66), intended for younger readers, was based on the same theme of daily life all over the country. Lenski was unparalleled in the diversity of American lifestyles that she documented; the combination of research, interviews, and drawings that she utilized; and the empathy and honesty that she employed in recording people’s lives.
Other popular series for children followed, including four books about the seasons—Spring Is Here (1945), Now It’s Fall (1948), I Like Winter (1950), and On a Summer Day (1953)—and the seven Debbie books (1967–71), based on Lenski’s experiences with her granddaughter. Lenski also published several volumes of songs and poetry, mostly for children.
In early 1960, Lenski’s husband died, and she soon sold the farm in Connecticut to live in Florida year round. There she wrote her autobiography, Journey Into Childhood (1972). Lenski died on September 11, 1974, at her home in Florida. The Lois Lenski Covey Foundation, which she established to promote literacy and reading among at-risk children, continues her mission by providing grants to school and public libraries each year.
Lenski in 1897, at age four, when she lived in Springfield, Ohio. She was born there on October 14, 1893.
Lenski photographed at age seven or eight, when the family lived in Anna, Ohio. The family lived in Anna for twelve years. It was there that Lenski developed her love of country life and began drawing and painting.
Lenski with her family in Anna, Ohio. From left to right: sister Esther; brothers, Oscar and Gerhard; father,
Richard; Lois; mother, Marietta; and in front, sister Mariam.
Lenski’s high school graduation photo, taken in 1911. Her English teacher predicted that some day she would “do some form of creative work.”
Lenski in her studio in Pelham Manor, New York, around 1925. She lived there with her husband, Arthur; stepchildren, Margaret and Laird; and later, her son, Stephen.
Lenski with Stephen, age three, in 1932.
Lenski with Stephen and Arthur in 1946, just after she had won the Newbery Award for Strawberry Girl. With them is their pet goat, Missy.
Eventually, Lenski’s declining health led her to move to a warmer climate. In this 1960s photo, she is in her studio in Tarpon Springs, Florida.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1959 by Lois Lenski
Cover design by Andrea Worthington
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2203-3
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10014
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