Mother Lode

by Carol Anita Sheldon

  Chapter 6

  “Where does Papa go every day?” Jorie asked as he got ready for bed.

  “Tomorrow we’ll walk up the hill and I’ll show you. Now, what story would you like?”

  “The flying horse one, Mummy.”

  The Greek myth Pegasus was his favorite story the summer of his fifth year.

  “I don’t think I know it,” she teased, as she tucked him in.

  “Yes, you do. Peggythis and Belly.”

  “Oh, that one.”

  Catherine heard her step-son coughing in the hallway. Walter frequently hung around the fringe of their story time. She had no quarrel with his listening in the parlor, but bedtime was her special time with her son, the one hour she wanted just for the two of them. Besides, at twelve, she thought Walter too old for such stories; he should be doing his lessons.

  “Don’t tell the bad part, where Belly loses Peggythis and gets punished because he flew up to the house of the gods, when he wasn’t supposed to.”

  “I won’t need to—you just did,” she smiled.

  Again she heard her step-son cough.

  “Walter, go to the kitchen and help Helena with the washing up, there’s a good boy.”

  Catherine held Jorie close, while she spun the tale once more.

  When she had finished, Jorie said, “I can call my rocking horse Peggythis.”

  “That would be a good name.”

  Jorie yawned. “He’s flying, flying way up in the sky, Mummy.”

  “Yes, Darling.”

  “The stars are his friends. Here we go, here we go home!”

  She lay beside him as he slipped into sleep. When she rose to leave the room she could hear Walter scuttling down the stairs.

  What a difficult child he was, always hanging in the shadows. She had not been able to trust him since that awful incident in the ice-cream parlor when Jorie was a baby. In the crowded room, the baby carriage had been placed in the corner, where it had been tipped over. Catherine was convinced that Walter had done it, though he wouldn’t admit it, nor would Thomas punish him. Later various unexplained bruises had appeared on Jorie’s arms and legs.

  She kissed her sleeping child, and went downstairs. By the time she reached the kitchen, Walter was busy helping the Irish housekeeper.

  The next day Catherine took the boys for a long walk over the hills behind the house. A favorite vantage of Catherine’s, she could see the lake, as it wound like a silver ribbon around the bend, and Houghton on the far side. But today the spring winds were cold, and she kept her back to the view as they climbed the sodden hills.

  When they reached the plateau at the top she surveyed the dreary landscape. Pulling Jorie’s scarf tighter she said, “Look, I want you to see this. Do you know where we are?”

  “I don’t like it here.”

  “It’s Papa’s mine.” She pointed to the large stack reaching toward the sky. “That’s the chimney, puffing out big clouds of black smoke.”

  “Like the dragon in the story.”

  “Do you know that right under our feet there are hundreds of men working deep down in the earth— like little ants?”

  “It isn’t pretty here, Mummy. Where are the trees?”

  For miles around the landscape had been denuded by the voracious appetite of the steam engines. No more the forests of hemlock, pine, beech and maple that once had graced the land.

  “The trees are inside the mine.”

  “Why?”

  “To hold up the walls so they won’t cave in and bury the miners.”

  Walter added his two cents worth, “But there’s still cave-ins. Happens all the time. Miners are buried alive and can’t get out. Or they get kilt when they set off an explosion.”

  “Don’t frighten him, Walter.”

  "I wouldn’t like to work down there," Jorie said.

  A shiver went through her. “No. And you won’t. You won’t ever have to work in a mine, I promise. That’s a horrible way to spend your life—underground.”

  “My brothers do. They’re shaft captains.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  “Papa—” Jorie added.

  “Papa works in an office on the grass. Way over there where the buildings are. He only goes below once in awhile, to check on things.”

  “It’s pitch black down there,” Walter informed.

  “Don’t they get scared?”

  “Some of them do.” Catherine said. “They have to go way, way down in the earth.”

  “The man-car goes straight down to the pits of hell,” Walter whooped.

  “Walter—”

  “They call it that ‘cuz it’s so hot. Sometimes the miners get pushed off the car, or fall off it. Then they fall and fall a whole mile through a black tunnel! Just like falling out of the sky, only worse, cause it’s so dark—”

  “Walter, enough!”

  “—And at the bottom, they get killed. My brothers told me.”

  “Walter! I said stop! You’ll frighten him.”

  Walter looked up innocently. “Sorry, ma’am.”

  In the afternoon, Catherine sat on the sofa with her arm around Jorie, ready to read a story. She looked up as Walter entered the room.

  “No, you may not listen today. You disobeyed me, continued to rant on about the mine when I told you not to. Go to the kitchen now and work on your sums.

  “Your ma bleeds!” Walter announced with devilish certainty.

  “She does not!”

  “She does. Want proof?” He backed the younger boy against the wall in the upstairs hallway.

  “You’re lying. There’s nothing wrong with her.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  From behind his back Walter pulled out a soiled rag. He dangled and twirled it in front of the cornered Jorie like a wiggling snake.

  “See? See? I told you. It come from between her legs. Her whole insides is bleedin’ out. You won’t have a ma fer long. Nope, she’s gonna die.”

  “It’s not true! She’s not dying.”

  “Tis so. I found it in her room.”

  “Did not.”

  “Did too. There was five of them, all smashed down in a lard pail she hides under her bed. She don’t want you to know, see.”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  “Come on, I’ll show you the others. It’s hard to get the cover off the pail, but I’ll do it for you.”

  “No!” He ran downstairs, but was afraid to report this news to his mother.

  For two days he worried that perhaps it was true. Why else would she bleed? He imagined a constant flow of her life energy leaking out— mostly at night, he supposed— until she was so sick she couldn’t get out of bed. And then she’d die, like Grandma.

  The horror was too much to bear. He lost his appetite and Catherine thought he was sick.

  When she came to his room, she found him curled up in a ball, making a sort of choking noise.

  At first he wouldn’t tell her why, and squirmed away from her. “I’ll get in trouble if I tell.”

  “Trouble? With Papa?” She forced him to face her.

  “No,” he cried. “Walter.”

  “Walter!”

  He burst out, “Walter says you’re going to die!”

  “What?”

  “Like his ma did.”

  “That’s a terrible lie. There’s not a bit of truth to it. Do I look ill to you?”

  “No, but. . .”

  “But what?”

  It was hard to say. “He showed me a bandage. And there were more he said.”

  “A bandage? What kind of bandage?”

  “There was blood on it.”

  “He’s just trying to frighten you again, my darling. It must have been someone else’s, a filthy thing he picked up in the road.”

  Jorie shook his head, and buried it in his mother’s lap.

  “What is it? Tell me.”

  “He said it came from under your bed,” he eked out.

  Jorie felt her stiffen and push him
away. He saw the color first drain from her face, and then come back, darkening to the shade of red plums. He had never seen her so angry.

  “He is a wicked, wicked boy to fill your head with such frightening falsehoods.”

  Her hands were tight little fists. A vein on her forehead was sticking out.

  Blood comes out of veins. Maybe this one will pop open, and blood will come out of her head too.

  “Jorie, look at me.”

  “Then you don’t have bandages under your bed?”

  Catherine took a deep breath. “You wouldn’t understand, Jorie. But it’s nothing to do with dying. It’s normal.”

  Normal. How could bleeding be normal?

  Walter was soundly punished.

  Three days later, Jorie went out to play. But when it was suppertime, he did not come in.

  “Have you seen him, Walter?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Thomas was not home. She said to Walter, “Help me look for him.”

  “I’ll go this way, and you go that way. All right, ma’am?”

  She walked down the hill, as Walter walked up. An hour later, she still hadn’t found him. Catherine was at sixes and sevens. She started back up the hill, by a different route, and rounded back to the house to see if he had come home. It was quiet, so she started off again, this time up the hill. A half hour later, Walter called to her.

  “The search is over, ma’am. I found him.”

  “Where?”

  “Up in the copse, asleep in the grass.”

  But Jorie was crying, rubbing his arms.

  “What’s wrong, Darling?”

  He looked at Walter and said nothing.

  “Tell me.”

  It wasn’t until she was getting him ready for bed that Jorie relayed how Walter had tied him to a tree, and left him there.

  “Don’t let him know I told you, Mummy. He said if I did, next time he’d shove me down the privy hole.”

  “Oh, good lord.”

  She held him to her for a few moments, assuring him no such thing would happen.

  When she told Thomas later that evening, he was able to get a confession from his older son. Walter was whipped soundly, but Catherine was not satisfied. That night she wrote in her diary:

  July 19, 1888

  I do not trust Walter. Always I must be on the alert to make certain he does not harm my Jorie. The lad is dishonest and mean-spirited. He frightens Jorie, and I fear some day may do him real harm. Oh, how I wish he didn’t live with us!

  Jorie awoke to his brother leaning over him. “Get up.”

  “What? Why?” he asked still half asleep.

  “Come on. Get up.” Walter pulled him out of bed.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’re going in here.” He pushed Jorie into the closet. “This is where you’ll spend the night, ya hear?”

  “You can’t do this to me!”

  “And if you dare tell yer ma or let out a sound, next time I’ll throw ya down the mine shaft, where you’ll fall all the way down to hell.”

  Jorie heard the closet door close and the key turn. In total darkness, he began to cry quietly.

  “Please, Walter, let me out.”

  There was no answer.

  “Please!”

  Finally realizing there would be no help, Jorie pulled some clothes off the hangers and made a bed for himself on the floor. He woke to the sound of mice scurrying about; fear and cold kept him awake for hours.

  Early in the morning, he was startled by the door opening suddenly, blinding him with daylight.

  “Get out of there. And ‘member, I told you, not a word to yer ma.”

  This time Jorie took the warning to heart.

  An urgent knock brought her to the door, where a lad of about fourteen stood. “Would you be Mrs. Radcliff, Ma’am?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s up at the mine, Ma’am. An accident.”

  “What happened?” Catherine’s hand went to her face. “Is my husband hurt?”

  “You’d best come up to the agent’s office.” The boy ran off.

  Catherine hesitated. Should she wake Jorie and take him with her on the gelding, or leave him sleeping? The urgency required a swift decision.

  She turned to Walter. “You watch your brother, and if there’s anything amiss when I come back, I’ll take a brush to you myself!”

  Saddling up Thomas’ horse as quickly as she could, she tore out of the stable, taking the steep road straight up to the Hill.

  Walter watched his stepmother disappear in a blur of dust. He crept up the stairs and listened by the room where Jorie was sleeping. Hearing nothing he opened door.

  “It’s time to get up.”

  Jorie rubbed his eyes. “Where’s my mother?”

  “She had to go up to the mine. She told me I was in charge.”

  “What are you going to do?” Jorie sat up, twisted the sheet in his hand.

  “Play a game with you. Come on. We’ll have a cookie first.”

  Timorously, Jorie followed Walter downstairs. His mother wouldn’t leave him— he knew she wouldn’t. “Mummy!” he yelled as loud as he could.

  Walter laughed. “I told you she wasn’t here.” He reached into the cookie jar. “Want one?”

  “We’re not supposed to.”

  “Suit yourself.” Walter stuffed half of the large oatmeal cookie into his mouth, soon followed by the other.

  “Let’s go down the cellar. It’s cool there, and we can play miners.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “How come?”

  Jorie twisted his mouth. “You’ll tie me up. Or lock me in down there.”

  “No, I won’t. I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  Walter grabbed Jorie’s hand and led him around the side of the house. “Stop your snivelin’, ya big sissy.” He lifted the cellar door that lay at an angle against the ground.

  “Get in there. I can’t hold the door up forever.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “It’ll be fun. Go on, get in.”

  “No!”

  “Here, I’ll help you.”

  With that Walter pushed Jorie into the cellar. “Down you go, down the shaft.” As he let go of the door it slammed shut.

  Down the dark hole, falling, falling, falling.

  Jorie began to scream.

  In a few minutes Walter returned and climbed into the cellar himself. “I’m back. Stop yer bawlin’.”

  “Let me out, Walter. Let me out!” Jorie cried.

  “Don’t be skeery. We can pretend we’re in a real mine.”

  “I hurt my knee.”

  “Miners get hurt all the time. Helena’s husband lost his whole arm.”

  “Please let me out, Walter,” he begged.

  When Catherine arrived at the agent’s office, Mr. Ahlers and the laborer who’d helped to bring him up were with her husband. Thomas lay unconscious on a stretcher; a rivulet of blood lay in the crease of his forehead.

  Catherine stared in agonizing disbelief. “Is he—dead?”

  “No, he’s not.” Clark Ahlers said. “He’ll come around soon.”

  “Why hasn’t the doctor been called?” she snapped.

  “If you’ll just be patient, Ma’am, the doctor’s on his way.”

  “Get me some soap and water; I’ll clean him up myself.”

  “Your husband will be all right. Just a nasty bump to his head.”

  “How did this happen?” Catherine knelt beside her husband, studied his wound.

  “He went down the mine in the skip and got struck by a loose overhead timber.”

  “The skip! That’s suicide. Why didn’t he ride the man-car?”

  “The man-car only operates at the beginning and end of the shifts, Mrs. Radcliff. The rest of the time the rails are used by the skips to carry the rock up. So if anyone needs to get in or out of the mine they have to use—”