Time has come to rest your soul.
Sing, little songbird, sing.
Sing, little songbird, sing.
Jamie and his family stopped to listen. The Gap-Toothed Man’s widow stopped, too. Her eyes were red, but the sharpness went out of her shoulders and she loosened her grip on her handkerchief.
“I don’t think I ever did hear a thing so beautiful,” she said. “Not ever in this world.”
Jamie’s ma linked her arm through Mrs. Hurley’s. “They are beautiful,” she said. “Jamie always promised me they would sing like that.”
“Why now, Pa?” Jamie asked. “How come we haven’t heard them really sing until now?”
Clayton Campbell put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Could be they just didn’t have much of a reason,” he said.
Later, much later, when the canaries had gathered back in their tree beyond Jamie’s window, Aunt Lou called a meeting.
“I think we should stick around awhile,” she said. “For the summer, at least. These people need us.”
“What about your arthritis?” Bitty asked her. “What about the ocean?”
“The ocean will still be there this winter, when it gets cold,” Aunt Lou said. “And Charleston will be there next spring. Right now there’s work for us here.”
“Work?” repeated Uncle Aubrey. “You’d better believe there’s work!” And he set about finding the perfect branch to keep track of the group’s singing engagements for the remainder of the season.
Mr. Finch kept his promise. Bitty saw at least two newspaper stories on the need for a conversation about the plight of miners in West Virginia. The union’s efforts were always mentioned by the second paragraph; the delegate was mentioned by the third. Nothing had happened yet. A conversation required two sides to do the talking, and so far, no one was talking back. Besides, Uncle Aubrey said, talking wasn’t the same as doing. And Bitty knew that while there were plenty of things that could make the miners safer, mining would always be a dangerous job. Still, you had to start somewhere.
The canaries stayed in Coalbank Hollow until the end of September, when they could no longer ignore the whipping wind.
They stayed long enough to see Jamie start school again. (He wanted to win a scholarship, they heard him tell Preach, to study veterinary medicine at Virginia Polytechnic.)
They stayed until the town unveiled a memorial honoring the miners who had died in the No. 7—the miners who had died recently, and the miners who had died long ago. The memorial honored living miners, too, and their years spent working beneath the earth.
The birds watched the ceremony and sang with the school choir under a sky that threatened rain but didn’t make good on its threat. When it was all over and the humans had gone, the birds flew to the monument for a closer inspection. The four-foot base bore the names of the men who had died in Coalbank Hollow. Upon the base stood a man wearing a miner’s cap. He carried a lunch pail, a pickax and a shovel, and his face wore a look of determination and pride. The detail was so exact that if you looked closely, between his bronze lips, you could see the dim outline of his teeth. And between his front teeth? A gap. Also cast in bronze, near the miner’s boots, was a cage. And on top of the cage, with its wings outstretched, was the small figure of a canary. A small plaque beneath the bird bore these words:
For they were so brave that they risked their lives
to save the lives of men.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I wasn’t brave,” Chester said. “I was scared out of my mind.”
It was the first time Bitty could remember Chester admitting he was afraid.
“I just figured something out,” Bitty said. “Being brave doesn’t mean you’re not scared. It means you keep on going when you are.”
Chester thought about that. “So what you’re saying is that if I was more scared than the rest of you, that means I was the bravest one. Right?”
“We were all brave,” Bitty said. His heart swelled with pride even as the September wind ruffled his feathers. Soon they would have to leave this place.
“We’ll catch a chill if we stay much longer,” said Aunt Lou, echoing his thoughts. She perched above him, on the miner’s solid shoulder. “But we’ll come back. I’m sure we’ll come back.”
“A chill?” said Uncle Aubrey, who was perched on the miner’s boot. “We have to get moving. We can’t risk a chill. Think of what that could do to our voices! Our voices are our livelihoods.”
Bitty smiled and shook his head. Some things never change, he thought. But others . . .
He stood on the tips of his toes and stretched his wings as far as they could go. He didn’t hit Chester. Or a perch. Or a metal bar. He didn’t hit anything but the crisp September air. He felt like flying.
“Come on,” he said to Alice and Chester. “Let’s go.”
“Where are we going this time?” they asked in unison.
Bitty looked at the clouds, which were parting now, their grieving done. He looked at the blue West Virginia sky.
“Up,” he said.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Mary Cash for her keen eye and sage voice, and for giving Bitty wings. Thanks to Holiday House, Grace Maccarone, Barbara Perris, and Chris Sheban. It takes a village to publish a book, too; if I didn’t know that before, I do now.
When I started writing this story, most people advised against a talking animal middle-grade, so when I gave this manuscript to my agent, it felt like a dare. Thanks, Susan Cohen, for taking it and Brianne Johnson, first believer.
I am grateful to the following people for their coal-mining stories, technical expertise, and general sense of direction: Jerry Asher, Melody Bragg, Joy Lynn, Stuart “Sonny” Schuman, Karen Vuranch, Rachael Walker, and the late Malcolm McPherson. Any mistakes are my own.
I am grateful to the following writers for their friendship, encouragement, and general butt kicking: Tom Angleberger, Cece Bell, Molly Burnham, Margaret Egan, Mary Hill, Leigh Anne Kelley, Anne Marie Pace, and Alicia Potter. Thanks, to critique group members Anamaria Anderson, Moira Rose Donohue, Marfé Ferguson Delano, Marty Rhodes Figley, Anna Hebner, Carla Heymsfeld, Liz Macklin, Suzy McIntire, Martha Taylor, and fearless leader, Jacqueline Jules. I’m especially grateful to Wendy Shang, who read (and reread) this story, often after a frantic, late-night phone call.
Thanks to readers, librarians, archivists, Roanoke Times, and my old Bethesda critique group. And a huge thanks to my friends and family for the constant cheerleading and support, especially: Linda and Jimmy Deemer, Harvey and Linda Rosenberg, Andrew Rosenberg and Melanie Ross, and Sally Lazorchak.
To my kids, Graham and Karina: you are my first readers and my first editors. Thank you for the bedtime critique sessions and for always listening; I listened, too. And to my husband, Butch Lazorchak, who gave me the gifts of time and love: Even though you may not think so, they were all I ever needed.
Author’s Note
Coalbank Hollow is a fictional town in West Virginia, though I named it after a mine in Blacksburg, Virginia, that was once owned by Murray Slusser, my stepdad’s grandfather. The mine closed in the early 1940s, but the name has always captured my imagination. The fictional Coalbank Hollow isn’t meant to represent the original mine or its operation in any way. According to Deemer family history, Grandad Slusser was well liked and known for taking care of his miners.
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