As Pole approached the boney pile a few hundred feet to the left of the mine entrance and tipple, he heard the squishing of muddy footsteps behind him. It was Monday morning, and soon the road would be filled with workers carrying picks, shovels, axes, and lunch buckets. He turned around, expecting to greet a fellow miner.
“Please don’t be mad, Pole. I have to go to the boney pile.”
“Why on Earth would you do that? I just left the house ten minutes ago. There was plenty of coal to get us through the next couple of days.”
“There was, but …”
Pole looked at his little sister and sighed. Lily, with her curly red hair, fair skin, and freckles, was such a kind-hearted soul. She had more heart than common sense. It was becoming a detriment.
“Who did you give it to this time?”
“Mrs. Blazovich had her baby last night. She came early. They didn’t have enough coal to keep the house warm.”
“I thought the baby wasn’t due until next month. That’s too bad.” Pole felt his anger dissipate. He looked down at the ground where his muddy work boots were buried. They had disappeared below the surface sometime in the last minute.
“She might survive. We need to be hopeful.”
“Be hopeful, Lily, but be realistic. Babies born too soon have little chance of makin’ it. ‘Specially around here.”
His sister shrugged. “We’ll see. I’m going to pray for Mrs. Blazovich’s baby. You should, too.”
Trying to avoid another conversation about God and religion, Pole put a hand on Lily’s shoulder. “I don’t want you on that boney pile. It’s too wet out. If it gives way, you’ll get buried.”
“We need coal for the stove. The weather’s getting colder, and I need to make Mama’s breakfast. She’s not feeling well this morning.”
“What’s wrong with Bridget now?” Pole’s sister’s mother was sickly and always plagued by some type of ailment. Lily often had to skip school to take care of her mother’s washing. Their house was too small to take in boarders, so Bridget did the laundry for her neighbors’ boarders for a small fee.
“She woke up with a headache and cough. She has a fever, too.”
“Go ahead and pick some coal out of that pile, but don’t get caught. There’s a rumor goin’ around that the superintendent is hiring a guard.”
Pole shook his head at the irony of the situation. He had been working in the mines for seven years, and his family still had to steal coal. For some poor families, it was the only way to get fuel for their stoves. Women and children climbed the boney pile in search of chunks of good coal that were thrown out with the rubble brought out of the mine. Usually, miners bought coal from the company at a discount, but some folks couldn’t afford it after paying rent and buying supplies at the company store. The prices were exorbitant and sometimes inflated as much as two hundred percent.
“I promise I’ll be quick. I won’t go up very high either,” Lily said.
Pole kissed his sister on the cheek. “Be careful. See you this evening.”
“Since I’m not going to school today, I’ll bake you something special. Maybe a pumpkin pie.”
“Sounds good.”
Pole watched Lily climb down over the bank toward the bottom of the boney pile. The seventy-foot-high mountain of waste rock from the mine had almost doubled in size since Pole had arrived in the hollow. It was filling in the gully that ran along the north edge of the village. The gray and black conical-shaped mound was an eyesore, a stark and dismal contrast to the colorful vegetation surrounding it. Barren and devoid of life, it scarred the mountain landscape and created a hazard. Pole had heard plenty of stories of people being buried by shifting boney piles. Luckily, incidents near the pile in Abbott’s Hollow had always been minor. A middle-aged woman once suffered a heart attack while picking coal, and a cat was buried the previous spring while chasing after a bird. Nothing too tragic.
Pole marveled at his sister as she dashed almost twenty feet up the pile in only a few seconds. She was nimble, even though her body had recently begun to fill out. Lily was beginning to attract attention from the neighborhood boys, giving Pole yet another reason to worry. He groaned as he continued up the slope toward the mine.
As he waded through the muck, he wondered how much longer he would have to endure mountain living. It did not appeal to him. He felt cut off from the rest of the world and desperately missed the conveniences of town living. He had taken so many of Riverton’s luxuries for granted—second-hand stores, butcher shops, bakeries. The only place to shop in Abbott’s Hollow was the overpriced company store, and the mine’s owners were intent on keeping it that way. Sometimes Pole made the hour’s long walk to Portage or hitched a ride there with one of the few in town who owned a horse and wagon, but he rarely had time for such an excursion.
The only reason he remained in the hollow was to provide for his little sister. She was the only family he had left. For years, Pole had tried to persuade Lily’s mother to move with him and Lily to a more civilized place—Pittsburgh, to be exact. But Bridget refused to leave the patch village where her Irish family had lived for over a decade. Pole gritted his teeth and waited patiently for the time when Lily would be old enough to make her own decisions.
Pole entered the cage that would take him eight hundred feet below the ground. He stood with four other workers, all wearing carbide headlamps and carrying shovels and picks. Their faces were clean, their work clothes freshly washed. It was a futile exercise. Within minutes, they would all be covered in a fine layer of coal dust. Pole had recently noticed that his hands were now tinted a permanent black hue, as the dust had settled in the cracks and creases of his fingertips and palms. Yet another irritating feature of work in the mines.
As the cage elevator descended, a young mule driver nudged Pole. “Do you think the stables will be flooded? I was worried about Gus all weekend. I brought him some lumps of sugar.”
“There’s nothin’ to worry about, Mickey,” Pole said as he patted the boy’s head. “The mine’s far underground. There are hundreds of feet of bedrock between the stable and the surface. Floods can’t get down here.”
The kid looked up and smiled. “Haven’t been in the mines long. Still workin’ it out.”
“No worries, laddie,” said Hamish, a veteran miner, in his thick Scottish accent. “You stick with yer mule. He’ll teach you everything you need to know about the mine. Mules know this place better’n us. Rats, too.”
“I drove Gus when I was about your age. He’s the best mule in the mine. Had to switch to Bessie though,” Pole said, shaking his head. “No one else could handle her. She kept squeezin’ all her drivers against the walls.”
The cage landed on the floor of the mine, and all the workers got out. It was pitch black except for the streams of light beaming from their headlamps. “Do you want me to take your tag to the office so you can head straight to the mule barn?” Pole asked Mickey.
“Sure!” the boy said as he threw his tag in Pole’s direction.
Pole watched the young kid skip down the passageway toward his mule. He followed the other three men into the office, which was well lit and warmer than the rest of the mine. He hung his and Mickey’s tags on the pegboard and made his way over to the fire boss’s slate to read his notes about mine conditions.
“Och, damn it!” Hamish turned to Pole. “Boss wants me and you to work that new section end of Ruthie Tunnel. We gotta reinforce the roof before we can get any real work done.”
“Who’s helping us?”
“Looks like them two new Russians—Blazovich and Petras,” Hamish said as he read the slate. “They don’t speak English.”
“They’re Rusyns, I think,” Pole said, trying to remember what his sister had told him about their new neighbors. Lily had a habit of collecting all sorts of information about the families in the patch village.
Hamish glared at Pole. “That’s what I said. Russians.”
Pole chuckled. “You did. But I sai
d Rusyns. There’s a difference. These people come from the mountains of Eastern Europe—not the land of the czars.” Pole was suddenly impressed that he’d recalled a little of what Lily had told him.
“Whatever,” Hamish grumbled. “Makes no difference where they come from. I still can’t understand ‘em.”
“Come on. Let’s get to Ruthie,” Pole said as he slapped the old-timer on the back and grabbed the canary. He studied the grouchy Scot for a few seconds and tried to guess his age. Could he be fifty? That was old for a miner. Most were dead or maimed by that age. But Hamish was tough—or maybe just lucky. Pole thought of the accident that had claimed so many in the summer he had arrived in Abbott’s Hollow. Hamish was the only man who had made it out alive. Pole shuddered. He tried to think of something pleasant … pumpkin pie.
Twenty-Two
SOFIE
BEAVER CREEK, SEPTEMBER 25, 1917
Sofie feverishly stroked the keys of her Underwood typewriter. The Beaver Creek Dispatch’s weekly immigrant page would be issued the following morning, and she needed to have her article at the newspaper’s office within a few hours. Unlike the feature articles she often wrote, this article wouldn’t be proofread multiple times by her perfectionist editor before it went to the printer. It was written in Slovak.
America had been at war with the Germans for almost six months, and the United States government had recently passed the Lever Food and Fuel Control Act. Food shortages in war-torn Europe had placed a heavy demand on American farmers and had caused a sharp increase in prices. One of the initiatives under the new law was a voluntary rationing program, which encouraged people to eliminate waste and eat less meat, wheat, sugar, and fats. If America was to continue to feed itself, its growing army, and its allies in Europe, people on the home front would have to conserve food.
Sofie’s article detailed the rationing program for the town’s Slovak population and reminded everyone to participate in meatless Mondays and wheatless Wednesdays. She also advised her readers to harvest what was left of their victory gardens before the first frost. It was late September, and the growing season was nearly over. As Sofie finished typing canning instructions and a recipe for pumpkin butter, it occurred to her that it would be fitting to end her piece with the popular wartime slogan, Food Will Win the War! She smiled. She wondered if her colleagues’ articles in Polish and Italian would be as inspiring.
“Supper’s ready! Come and get some peanut butter soup,” Aunt Anna shouted from below.
Sofie wrinkled her nose. Her aunt’s efforts at wartime rationing were commendable, but soup with peanuts in any form did not sound appetizing. She got up from her desk and adjusted her skirt. She glanced at her reflection in the full-length mirror in her bedroom, smoothing her braided hair and tucking a loose strand behind her ear. Satisfied with her appearance, she headed downstairs to the kitchen where her aunt was hovering over the gas cookstove with a magazine in hand.
“You’re becoming quite the patriot, Aunt Anna. President Wilson would be proud. Your victory garden is the envy of all the neighbors, and now you’re making soup with peanuts. Where did you get the idea?”
“In the Ladies’ Home Journal, of course,” the gray-haired woman replied, holding up her magazine and grinning.
Sofie smirked. Aunt Anna was over the age of fifty, but still full of energy. Her garden was one of the nicest in town, even if it wasn’t the largest. Her aunt grew tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, corn, snap beans, melons, and pumpkins. Every inch of space in their backyard was covered by some type of food-producing plant. Aunt Anna loved working in her garden almost as much as she loved cooking for her family and the house’s two boarders.
Sofie took the magazine from her aunt and flipped through the pages. “It’s funny. There’s an article in here on fat and oil conservation. You’ve been doing this for years—pouring every bit of grease from the frying pan into jars. Labeling them and lining them up on a shelf above the stove. Are you sure you didn’t write this?”
“I could have. I use leftover grease in almost all my recipes. You know, I sometimes put bacon grease in my apple pie crust.” Aunt Anna winked.
Sofie laughed. “So that’s why your crust is so flaky—and salty. Mrs. Radovic has been trying to get your secret recipe out of me for years. I swore to her that I didn’t know it.” Sofie turned to her aunt, suddenly concerned. “Why are you telling me now? You love to keep us guessing about your cooking.”
“I’m an old lady now.” Aunt Anna placed a hand on her niece’s shoulder. “Who knows how much time I’ve got left? I’m counting on you to keep our family traditions alive.”
“Stop it! You’re in better shape than some of the young mothers I see chasing children around the neighborhood. But I would like to hear more about your secret recipes. I promise I won’t tell the neighbors.”
Aunt Anna grinned as she stirred her soup. “Pass them down to your children. You’ll be chasing little ones around before you know it.”
Sofie chuckled. “I don’t graduate from high school until next spring. And I don’t even have a sweetheart.”
“It’s not like you don’t have options. I can name a half-dozen boys from church who would love to woo you.”
“I’m not interested. I’m going to work for the newspaper full-time after I graduate.”
“You might change your mind.”
“I doubt it.” Sofie sighed as she stared out the window at the bright orange pumpkins in the garden. She wondered why her aunt was so bothered by her lack of interest in boys. She was friendly with a few of the smarter ones in her class, but had no intention of making a fool of herself pining after them the way Marie did. Her best friend had a different love interest every week. Besides, Sofie found most boys her age immature and stupid. Hoping to change the subject, she said, “We should pick the rest of those pumpkins by the end of the week. We can make a few pies and use the rest for butter.”
“We’ve never had so many canned fruits and vegetables in the cellar before,” her aunt said. “We won’t be starving this winter, that’s for sure. If I could just get your father to buy a gun and start hunting, we’d have plenty of venison, too.”
“I don’t see that happening. Papa’s perfectly content with fishing.”
Aunt Anna filled two bowls with peanut butter soup and took them to the dining room. “Can you get the cucumber sandwiches out of the refrigerator?” she called over her shoulder.
“Sure.” Sofie opened the refrigerator door to retrieve the sandwiches, pausing for a moment to admire the porcelain interior of the appliance. “I just love this new Leonard refrigerator. It’s as pretty on the inside as it is on the outside.” She wiped her finger across the door, amazed at how smooth and clean it was.
“Snap out of it, Sofie,” Aunt Anna said as she reentered the kitchen. “The boys will be home soon, and I’d like to get dinner on the table. Maybe you should be selling appliances instead of writing for the newspaper. Did you finish the article you were working on?”
“I did. I’m going to drop it off at the Dispatch after dinner.”
“Can you stop by the store and take some soup to your father? He’s doing the books tonight.”
“I thought it was Mrs. Moretti’s turn.”
“It is, but she’s still learning how to do the accounting. Your father’s helping her.”
“Papa practically lives at the store these days,” Sofie whined.
“How can we complain? He owns half of that store now. He’s a business owner. We should be proud.”
“I’m very proud of him. I just wish he spent as much time with us as he does with Mrs. Moretti.”
“Take him the soup and you can spend the entire evening with him. I’m sure he can find you some shelves to stock. Or a floor to sweep.” Aunt Anna laughed.
“I still have some reading to do for English class. Maybe I’ll do it at the store and walk home with Papa. It was warm today. It should be a nice evening for a stroll.”
Suddenly
, the front door opened. Sofie heard the sound of two men joking in Slovak. Vilium and Marek were home from the glass factory. She rushed into the dining room with the cucumber sandwiches.
“Hello, Vilium. How was your day?” Sofie asked.
“Good. I’m hungry,” said the stocky, blonde teenager as he sat down at the long oak table.
“Where’s Marek?”
“He went to bathroom. Dirty hands,” Vilium said as he held up his own, which were clean, but badly cracked and callused.
“Aunt Anna made something new tonight. Peanut butter soup.”
“Peenit? I do not understand.”
Sofie giggled. “I don’t know how to translate it into Slovak. Aunt Anna!” she yelled into the kitchen. “How do you say peanut butter in Slovak?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Sofie’s aunt huffed as she came into the dining room. “We’re supposed to be teaching these boys English. Just try my soup.”
Sofie sat down next to Vilium. “I’ve never had this soup before either. Just eat it and pretend that you like it,” she whispered to him in Slovak.
“I heard that. I may be over fifty, but I’m not deaf.”
Sofie and Vilium exchanged worried glances as they plunged their spoons into the caramel-colored liquid.
Twenty-Three
JANOS
BEAVER CREEK, SEPTEMBER 25, 1917
“Janos, I can’t tell whether this is a seven or a one. What do you think?”
Squinting his eyes, Janos tried to decipher the handwriting on the invoice his business partner had handed him. He adjusted his eyeglasses and leaned in under the desk lamp for a closer look. “That’s a one. Is that the last invoice, Concetta?”
She nodded, tucking a strand of gray hair behind her ear.
Janos watched as she signed a check for twenty-one dollars, her lip bit in concentration. “I think you’re ready to do the books by yourself now,” he said. “But you might want to think about getting a pair of eyeglasses.”
The tiny Italian woman looked up at Janos, narrowing her eyes. “I don’t need eyeglasses. You squinted, too, when you tried to read this illegible handwriting.” She pointed to a number on the invoice and asked, “Who writes a one like this?”
Beneath the Veil of Smoke and Ash Page 13