It was well along in December before the strike came to an end. There had been rumors for a week of an approaching compromise between the miners and the operators, but one day there came word that all hands were to be at the mines, ready for work, the following morning.
It was glad news for many a poor family, who saw the holidays approaching in company with bitter want; and it brought especial rejoicing to the little household dependent so largely on the labor of Tom and Bennie for subsistence.
The boys were at the entrance to the mine the next morning before the stars began to pale in the east. They climbed into a car of the first trip, and rode down the slope to the music of echoes roaring through galleries that had long been silent.
The mules had been brought in the day before, and Tom ran whistling to the mine stables to untie his favorite Billy, and set him to his accustomed task. There came soon a half-dozen or more of driver-boys, and such a shouting and laughing and chattering ensued as made the beasts prick up their long ears in amazement.
“All aboard!” shouted Tom, as he fastened his trace-hook to the first trip of cars. “Through train to the West! No stops this side o’ Chicorgo!”
“’Commodation ahead! Parly cars on the nex’ train, an’ no porters ’lowed!” squeaked out a little fellow, backing his mule up to the second trip.
“I’ll poke the fire a bit an’ git the steam up fur yez,” said Patsy Donnelly, the most mischievous lad of them all. Whereupon he prodded Tom’s mule viciously in the ribs, and that beast began playing such a tattoo with his heels against the front of the car as drowned all other noises in its clatter.
“Whoa, Billy!” shouted Tom, helping Bennie into the rear car of the trip. “Whoa, now! Stiddy—there, git-tup!” cracking his long leather whip-lash over Billy’s ears as he spoke, and climbing into the front car. “Git-tup! Go it! Whoop!”
Away went Tom and Bennie, rattling up the long heading, imitating alternately the noise of the bell, the whistle, and the labored puffing of a locomotive engine; while the sound-waves, unable to escape from the narrow passage which confined them, rolled back into their ears in volumes of resounding echoes.