Breaker Boy

by Joan Hiatt Harlow

  Corey thought for a moment. “I don’t go to school,” he said. “I work in the mine.” It wasn’t really a lie. He would be working in another month or so.

  “Are you twelve yet? You have to be twelve now to work down in the mine.”

  “I am twelve,” he said. He would be twelve tomorrow, so that was not really a lie either. Corey didn’t expect any celebration. The family couldn’t afford Christmas, so a birthday most likely would not be celebrated either.

  “Well, now, that’s different. Do you have an account here? It will make it a lot easier for you to buy things if you have an account, you know.”

  “No, I don’t have an account, but I’d like one.” It sounded grown-up to have an account of his own.

  “I’ll set you up right now.” He took out a pad of paper. “What’s your name?”

  “Corey Adamski.”

  “Joe Adamski’s kid?”

  “Yes. Do you know my dad?”

  “Of course I know him. He shops here a lot.”

  Corey remembered Mom and Dad arguing about the company store the other night. Mom was worried about bills and money, as usual. Did they owe money to the company store? He couldn’t remember, exactly. “Maybe I should ask my father first.”

  “If you had an account in your own name right now, you could get that Hershey’s bar you want, plus a few other things. You don’t have to ask your father.”

  That sounded like a good idea. “Okay. Sign me up and I’ll get that Hershey’s bar for a start.” Corey thought about his little brothers, Jack and Sammy, and decided he would get them something. He picked out two more Hershey’s bars. Then he saw a whistle with a cord to wear around the neck, so he took two of those for his brothers. Their family hadn’t given anything to one another for Christmas because there was no money. This way, at least the boys would have a present. So what if it was Corey’s birthday? It was a nice idea for Corey to celebrate by giving gifts to others—sort of a good deed.

  He was about to leave when he remembered Mom and Dad. He would surprise them with a gift too. He could pay for it once he started work at the mine. He looked around and found a pair of woolen socks for Dad, and a pretty box of Cashmere Bouquet Soap in the shape of shells for Mom. So far his bill came to two dollars and thirty-five cents.

  Then he spotted a small leather purse—just the right size to hold change and fit into a man’s back pocket. He bought three: one for Dad, one for his friend Anthony, and one for himself. They were real leather and pretty expensive at fifty cents each. The salesclerk added up the bill, which now came to three dollars and eighty-five cents.

  Corey signed his name to a slip for that amount, put the bill in his pocket, took his package, and went outside.

  That was easy, he thought. Once I start working, I’ll pay the bill. Mom and Dad don’t need to know how I paid for it.

  He looked around to see if Anthony was coming. Instead he spotted Abby Russell in the center of a group of boys. Corey had known Abby since first grade. She was thrashing her fists and punching them as they tossed something back and forth among themselves. Her brown curly hair peeked out from her cap and bounced in the scuffle.

  It looked as though the boys had something of hers and she was trying to get it. As he approached, he could see they were swinging her handbag around on its drawstring and just out of reach from Abby’s hands. “Give it to me now!” she yelled, kicking the boys, her face flushed.

  “Hey, what’s goin’ on?” Corey asked, heading their way.

  “Abby got us all in trouble,” Tommy McDooley answered. “We hid her purse and she told the principal.”

  “Why do you want a girl’s purse?” Corey said with a smirk.

  “We don’t want one,” Tommy’s twin brother, Jimmy, snapped. “Are you tryin’ to be funny?”

  “No wonder you got in trouble. Boys are not supposed to touch girls’ pocketbooks,” Corey stated.

  “Since when did you care about rules?” Tommy asked.

  “I don’t care anymore ’cause I’m through with school. I’m starting work in the mine soon.” Corey could see Abby’s eyes on her purse, which still dangled just above her head. “For Pete’s sake, just give Abby her purse.”

  “Why don’t you go on home and mind your own business,” Red O’Brian said, giving Corey a shove.

  “Yeah, Corey, go on home. Quit bossin’ us around,” Jimmy added.

  “He thinks since he’s a workin’ man now, he can tell us what to do,” Red said with a sneer.

  “Workin’ man? He’s heading into the mines and won’t come out until there’s a Black Maria waitin’ for him. He’ll never amount to anything but a coal miner,” Jimmy added.

  “What’s wrong with bein’ a coal miner? My dad’s a coal miner, and so is yours. Didn’t they amount to anything?” Corey demanded.

  “Don’t you say anything about our dad,” Jimmy warned.

  “Our dad won’t let us quit school to work in the mine,” Tommy said.

  Corey didn’t feel like arguing. “I’m goin’ home, where I don’t have to deal with you kids anymore.” He turned on his heel and headed in the other direction. “Leave Abby alone. Go buy your own purse and quit picking on her.”

  “We’ll get you later, Abby.” Tommy threw Abby’s purse at her and the boys walked off.

  Abby retrieved her purse from the street, brushed it off, and ran to catch up with Corey. “Thanks, Corey,” she said breathlessly.

  “Have you seen Anthony?” Corey asked her.

  Abby straightened her hat, looked over her shoulder, and pointed. “There he is now, coming around the bend.”

  Anthony was meandering along the street, kicking at a stone here and there, but when he looked up and saw Corey and Abby, he ran toward them. “Hey, Corey, where have you been?”

  “I’ve been sick,” Corey answered.

  Anthony caught up with Corey and Abby and they all walked together up the street toward home. “I heard you nearly drowned.”

  “Not nearly. I did drown. I was dead until Mrs. Chudzik and her dog saved me.”

  “Mrs. Chudzik and her dog saved you? Wow,” Anthony said. “Did you get to go inside her house? Did you see anything?”

  “What do you mean?” Corey asked.

  “Did you see any signs of . . . bones or torture chambers?”

  “You mean like the stories about her luring kids into her home and then they are never heard from again?” Corey asked.

  “Yeah, things like that—those kinds of stories.” Anthony leaned closer. “Corey, it could have been you. You could have been taken and no one would know where you were. Mama said you probably had a curse put on you.”

  “Well, nothin’ happened like that,” Corey told him.

  Abby rolled her eyes. “It was a good thing that it was Mrs. Chudzik who saved him. She was a doctor, you know. My dad said she studied medicine in Switzerland under a famous Polish woman doctor, Anna Tomaszewicz-Dobrska. Imagine that. A girl growing up to be a doctor.”

  “I thought only boys were doctors,” Anthony said. “Girls become nurses.”

  “Well, Mrs. Chudzik is a doctor. Even though she doesn’t have her license to practice medicine, she is a registered nurse here in Pennsylvania.”

  “How do you know so much about her?” Corey asked.

  “She lives next door to us. I know enough about her not to believe those stupid rumors.”

  “So she’s a doctor and a nurse. Then I was lucky to have her save me, wasn’t I?” Corey said. “But she and her dog are pretty scary just the same.”

  No one spoke for a while, and then Anthony asked, “What does she look like? You must have seen her close up. I heard she has a beak. Does she? And what about the whiskers on her chin?”

  “Her nose is pointy—kind of like a beak,” Corey said. “I don’t think she could crack nuts with it or anything. It’s just . . . big and sharp.”

  “What about the whiskers?”

  “I didn’t notice whiskers, but she ha
s huge black eyes. I’ll bet she could turn a person to stone when she’s angry.”

  Anthony stopped walking. “Really? What about her voice? Does she sound like a witch?”

  “I don’t know what a witch sounds like,” Corey admitted. “But she does shriek. She shrieks at people and talks over them—especially when she’s mad.”

  “You saw her mad? Really?” Anthony asked. “Did anyone turn to stone?

  “No, of course not! She just told the neighbors to shut up when she was talking,” Corey answered. That was true, he thought. She did shriek. And everyone did shut up.

  “They were probably rude to her,” Abby said. “She had a good reason to tell them to shut up.”

  “She never used those exact words, though,” Corey said, feeling guilty. “She more or less waited until they were quiet.”

  They had arrived at the crossroads to Corey’s patch. Corey was about to head home but changed his mind. “I’ll walk a little way with you.” He turned to Anthony and said, “I wondered if you had decided to be a nipper.”

  “No! I would be bored to death, sittin’ around waitin’ to open or close the door for the coal cars on their way to the breaker. And if you didn’t open the door soon enough . . . POW! The whole carload of coal would crash through, and probably squash you to death,” Anthony said.

  “Besides, I hear it’s lonely bein’ a nipper, sitting by yourself and waiting for those cars to come rolling down,” Corey added.

  “That nipper Freddie had a butty,” Anthony said with a grin at Abby. “A big rat. He tamed it by giving him bits of his lunch every day.”

  “Some miners toss scraps from their lunches to the knockers every night when they leave the mine,” Corey said. “That food disappears.”

  “Sure it disappears. The rats eat it,” Anthony said.

  “Oh, that’s creepy,” Abby said. “Between the stories I’ve heard about the knockers or the rats, I think I prefer the rats.”

  “You don’t believe the tales about the knockers, do you?” Corey asked.

  “Well, who’s to say?” Abby said. “People have actually seen the rats, but who has ever seen a knocker? I don’t believe in any of those silly tales. They’re like the stories we hear about Mrs. Chudzik and her dog. They’re just not true.”

  “From what Corey said, the stories about Mrs. Chudzik are true,” Anthony answered.

  “No, they’re not. She was okay to me,” Corey said. “She’s just odd, that’s all.”

  “Well, I do believe in the knockers,” Anthony said.

  “My grandpa from Wales called the knockers ‘Coblynau,’ and when he talked about them, they sure sounded believable,” Corey agreed.

  “We don’t need to worry if we are breaker boys,” Anthony said. “Now, that would be fun. They play baseball at lunch every day and then play other mining companies every spring. It’s a big community game. I wouldn’t mind that.” He turned to Corey and shook his head. “I’m pretty good as a pitcher.”

  “It would be fun to get on a baseball team,” Corey said. “My dad pitches to me and I smash some of the balls right out of sight.”

  “I don’t know how the breaker boys can pitch or hold a bat,” Abby said. “They have terrible cuts on their hands from the coal and the slate. Their hands bleed and are all covered with pus and . . . sometimes they lose a finger—or even a hand.”

  “Losing a finger won’t kill you.” Anthony scoffed. “That’s nothin’.”

  Abby shuddered and shook her head. “Oh yes, it is something. What would you do if you lost your finger?”

  The boys looked at each other and shrugged. “We’ll be all right if we’re careful,” Corey told her.

  “Besides, it hardly ever happens,” Anthony added.

  “You hope so. I’ve heard what happened to the McGregor boy who fell into the machinery at the breaker and was crushed to a pulp,” Abby said. “Can’t you find anything else to do at the mine?”

  “Corey’s dad said he’d take us down to see about being mule drivers,” Anthony said. He turned to Corey. “When will we go, Corey? Has your dad mentioned it lately?”

  “No, we haven’t talked about it since my accident. I almost had pneumonia, you know.” He coughed for effect.

  Abby’s jaw dropped. “That would have been awful!” she exclaimed.

  “Well, you didn’t get pneumonia, did you?” Anthony asked.

  “No, but I could have.”

  “Driving a mule can be dangerous too,” Abby said. “Mules are ornery. If they don’t like you, they can corner you in a stall and then stomp on you. I’ve heard terrible stories about mules.”

  “I wouldn’t mind being a mule driver,” Corey said.

  “Mules are more dangerous than—” Abby started.

  “Abby, stop it!” Anthony ordered. “You’re gettin’ on our nerves.”

  “Well, my father is an engineer at the mine, and he knows things going on that you don’t ever hear about,” Abby sputtered angrily.

  “Forget it, Abby. Anthony and I have to work. We have to help our families. So don’t tell us all the gloomy stories you’ve heard. It doesn’t help us one bit,” Corey said.

  “Any work in the mine is dangerous,” Anthony said to Abby, “but Corey and I can handle it.”

  They walked along for a while with no one speaking. Corey felt a bit sorry, as he saw Abby’s grumpy expression, her lips turned down in an angry pout. Abby had a hard time at school. Girls didn’t like her because her father wasn’t a miner but a professional engineer, and that gave her a different status from most of the girls. The boys always picked on her, but Corey thought that was because she was pretty and nice and they probably really liked her but would never admit it.

  The trio approached Anthony’s road, which led down to another patch village owned by the mining company. The houses were older and shabbier than Corey’s, and outhouses were lined up on a long stretch of grass in the middle of the street for the families to share.

  “Oh, I forgot, Anthony. I bought you something.” Corey set down the company store bag he was carrying and pulled out the coin purse. “This is for you. I thought you could use it when you start work. I got one for my dad and for me, too. It’s real leather.”

  Anthony took the leather purse and turned it over and over in his hand. “Hey, this is real nice of you, Corey. Thanks a lot.”

  “You’re welcome,” Corey said. “See you later.”

  “Bye, Corey. Bye, Abby.” Anthony turned and raced down the road to his house.

  Corey and Abby continued up the road without speaking for a while. Then Corey said, “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

  “It’s okay. I’m sure you and Anthony already know the dangers at the mine.”

  “We’ll be careful. We don’t want to get hurt, you know.”

  “I’ll be turning off here. It’s my shortcut.” Abby nodded toward the woods. “No one uses this path very often. I’ve been going home this way so I don’t have to deal with those boys who take my purse all the time. I don’t want them to know where I live.”

  Corey could barely see the trail, which wound its way through the woods. Patches of melting snow still lingered in the shaded areas. No one would ever realize there was a path there. “So, this little track must lead to Mrs. Chudzik’s house too.”

  “Yes, it goes right down to her back door and off to our house.”

  “Good to know,” Corey said, making a mental note.

  “I feel sorry for Mrs. Chudzik. People talk about her and kids are mean to her.”

  “She’s strange, but she saved my life,” Corey said. “Have you ever been in her parlor?”

  “No. Have you?” Abby asked.

  Corey told Abby how he woke up in Mrs. Chudzik’s house, after drowning, and how he found Mrs. Chudzik in the coffin.

  Abby opened her mouth in astonishment. “What? She was lying in a coffin? In her parlor?”

  Corey nodded. “Abby, please don’t say anything to anyone. Mrs. Chudzik did
save my life, and I don’t want to pay her back by telling her secret. I probably shouldn’t have told you—about the coffin, I mean. And I probably said too much to Anthony.”

  “I won’t tell anyone, Corey. She was wonderful to have saved you.”

  “Actually, her dog, Hovi, saved me by barking and taking her down to the pond.”

  “Her dog petrifies me, especially his bark.”

  “He saved me, and now he thinks I belong to him.” Corey laughed. “He jumps and laps my face when he sees me.”

  “I wouldn’t want those teeth near my face. Thanks for walking with me, Corey,” Abby said before running off onto the hidden trail. “Bye!” she called as she disappeared into the shadows of the trees.

  7

  Into the Mine

  As usual, Corey didn’t sleep much that night. He tried to stay awake, turning and tossing until the blanket was tangled, and Sammy yelled at him. He fought sleep in a dozen ways, reciting the times tables way beyond twelves, but he found his mind wandering. He forced himself to stay awake so he wouldn’t dream—and he was drowsy when Mom came in to get him up early next morning.

  “Dad said you’d be going with him today to see if you and Anthony might be mule drivers. Dad talked with Anthony’s father yesterday, so Anthony will meet you at the mine.” Mom sounded excited for him—as if she was counting on him and was sure that things would be better now.

  She and Corey went downstairs, where Dad waited, finishing up a mug of coffee. “How do you feel this morning?” Dad asked.

  “I’m okay,” Corey answered. He sat at the table and tried not to show how sleepy he was. He was worried about going into the mine and he didn’t feel at all hungry.

  Then, after Mom packed the lunch pails, Dad and Corey kissed her good-bye. “Good luck, Corey. I hope you get a job. I’m not sure how you’ll do with a mule, but whatever you do, I know you will be a good worker and a big help to our family.” She sounded cheerful, but Corey could see tears brighten her eyes.

  He and his dad started their hike up the road toward the coal mine. It was still dark and took over a half hour to walk up the hill to the Mountain Crest mine. As they approached, other miners, breaker boys, and workers joined them. By the time they reached the mine, a long line of workers had arrived at the mine and breaker. Their voices, along with the morning whistle, and the nearby locomotive on its way to the canal with its load of coal, all made strange music in the morning air.