Chapter II

In the first days of coal-mining--as in many mines to-day where modern methods have not superseded those of old-time miners--a man did all the work. With his hand-drill he bored into the face of the coal at the head of his room, or entry, and from his keg of powder he made long cartridges and inserted them into his drill-holes. Then, when the coal was blasted down, and he had broken it with a pick, he loaded it with his shovel into a car; and trimming square the face of the tunnel, propping when necessary, he pushed on and on until he broke through and joined the next tunnel or completed the required length of that single entry.

But to-day these conditions are, in most instances, changed. The work begins with the 'machine-men,' who operate the 'chain-machines.' In order that the blast may dislodge by gravity an even block of coal, of the dimensions of the cross-section of the tunnel, these men cut with their machines a 'sump-cut,' or, in other words, carve out an opening level with the floor, about six inches high and six feet deep, at the end of the tunnel. The machines--which are propelled by electricity--consist of a motor and a large oblong disk, about which travels an endless chain containing sharp steel 'bits' or picks. The machine is braced, the current turned on, and the disk advanced against the coal, automatically advancing as the bits grind out the coal. As soon as the machine has entered to the full six feet, the disk is withdrawn and the cut continued until it extends across the entire face.

In the evening the drillers, with their powerful air-drills, bore a series of five or six six-foot 'shot-holes,' four along the roof, and two on each side for the 'rib-shots.' Then a third crew of men, the 'shot-firers,' fill the deep drill-hole with long cartridges of coarse black powder, and blast down the coal, which falls broken and crumbled into the cut prepared by the machine-men. In the morning, when the ever-moving current of air, forced into the mine by the fan at the mouth of the air-shaft, has cleared away the dust and smoke, the loaders enter the mine, and all day long load into the ever-ready cars the coal that has been blasted down, until the 'place' is cleaned up, and their work is done. Then they move on to another 'place'; and so the work goes on in a perfect system of rotation.

My companion had told me, as we walked from the mine-bottom, that his name was Billy Wild. 'Call me Billy,' he said; and as we walked down the track to the main entry, he turned and called over his shoulder, 'You’re in Room 27, third west-south. That’s where you are, if you want to know.'

The light in my lamp was burning low, and I sat down on a pile of coal beside the track, lifted it out of the socket in my cap, and pried up the wick with a nail which one of the men 'on top' had given me for the purpose. Then I stripped to the waist and began to load, shovelful after shovelful, each lifted four feet and turned over into the waiting car, for two long hours, sometimes stopping to break with my pick great blocks of coal that were too large to lift, even with my hands. Then, finally, lumps of coal began to show above the edge of the car, and I 'trimmed' it, lifting some of the larger pieces to my knees, then against my chest, and then throwing them up on the top of the pile.

The noise of the shovel scraping against the floor and the clatter of the coal as the great pile slid down and filled each hole that I dug out at its foot, filled the tunnel with friendly sounds; but when the car was loaded and I slipped on my coat and sat down on a pile of fine coal-dust beside the track to wait, silence suddenly submerged me. I could hear my heart beat, and curious noises sang in my ears. Up in the roof, under the stratum of slate above the coal, came a trickling sound like running water--the sound of gas seeping out through the crevices in the coal. I was wet with sweat, and my face, hands, and body were black where the great cloud of dust which my shovel had created had smeared my wet skin. Dull pains in the small of my back caught me when I moved, and every muscle in my body ached. (In a week my hands had blistered, the blisters had broken, and over the cracked flesh ingrained with coal-dust healing callouses had begun to form.)

Then, far off in the distance, came a muffled, grinding sound that grew louder and louder--a sound that almost terrified. A dull, yellow light, far down in the mouth of the room, outlined the square of the tunnel; and then, around the corner came the headlight of the electric 'gathering' or switching locomotive, and above it, the bobbing yellow flames of two pit-lamps. With a grinding roar, the motor struck the upgrade and came looming up the tunnel, filling it with its bulk. There was sound, and the silence was gone. The coupling of the locomotive locked with the coupling of the waiting car, and they rumbled away.

Once more the locomotive came, this time with an 'empty' to be filled. In the old days, mules were used to 'gather' the loaded cars, and, in fact, are still employed in most mines to-day; but electricity permits bigger loads, and the dozen or two of mules that lived in the mine were used only where it was impossible to run the locomotives.

At the end of the week I was given a companion, or 'buddy.' Our lockers in the wash-house were near together, and we usually went down on the same hoist; but some mornings I would find Jim ahead of me, waiting by the scale-house. Jim rarely took the full benefit of the wash-house privileges, and morning found him with the dirt and grime of the work of the previous day still on his face. He was a Greek, short, with a thin, black moustache, which drooped down into two 'rat-tail' points. Around each eye a heavy black line of coal-dust was penciled, as though by an actor’s crayon. His torn black working clothes, greasy with oil dripped from his pit-lamp, hung on him like rags on a scarecrow.

From the scale-house we walked up the now familiar entries in 'third west-south' to the room where we worked, and dug out our picks and shovels from under a pile of coal where we had hidden them the night before. Then, in the still, close air of the silent room, we began each morning to fill the first car.

Down in the scale-house, where the cars were hauled over the scales set in the track, before being dumped into the bins between the rails, Old Man Davis took the weights; and when the loader’s number--a small brass tag with his number stamped upon it--was given to him, he marked down opposite it the pounds of coal to the loader’s credit; and so each day on the great sheet, smooched with his dusty hands, stood a record of each man’s strength measured in tons of coal.

When Jim and I worked together, we took turns hanging our numbers inside the car; and each night we remembered to whose credit the last car had been; and the next morning, if my number had been hung in the last car of the day before, Jim would pull one of his tags out of his pocket and hang it on the hook just inside the edge of the empty car. Then, he on one side and I on the other, we worked, shovelful after shovelful, until the coal showed above the edge. And then came the 'trimming' with the great blocks that had to be lifted and pushed with our chests and arms up on the top of the filled car.

Time went slowly then, for we could load a car together in less than an hour; and sometimes it took an hour and a half before the 'gathering' motor would come grinding up into the room to give us an 'empty.' In those long half-hours we would sit together on a pile of coal-dust beside the track and try to talk to each other.

Jim was a Greek, and from what I was able to gather, he came from somewhere in the southern part of the peninsula. I remembered a little Homer, and I often tried stray words on him; but my pronunciation of the Greek of ancient Athens was not the Greek of Jim Bardas; and although he recognized attempts at his own tongue and oftentimes the meaning of the words, it was not until we discovered a system of writing that we began to get along. Mixed in with the coal that had been blasted down by the shot-firers the night before, we occasionally found strips of white paper from the cartridges. We always saved these and laid them beside our dinner-pails; and when the car was filled and we had sat down again in the quiet beside the track, we would take our pit-lamps out of our caps and, rubbing our fingers in the greasy gum of oil and coal-dust that formed under the lamp-spout, we would write Greek words with our fingers on the white strips of paper.

Jim knew some English: the word for coal, car, loader--and he learned that my name was Joe, and called me 'My friend,' and 'buddie.' Then sometimes, after the fascination of writing words had worn away, we would sit still and listen to the gas or for the approach of the motor; and sometimes, when the wicks in our lamps had burned low, I would take out of my pocket the round ball of lamp-wick, and, like old women with a skein of yarn, we would wind back and forth, from his fingers to my own, sixteen strands of lamp-wick; and then, tying the end in a rude knot and breaking it off, stick the skein of wick down the spout of the lamp until only the end remained in sight. Next, lifting the little lid on the top, we would fill the body with oil, shaking it until the wick was thoroughly soaked so that it would burn.