Ah, they were happy boys that morning! happy even though one was smitten with the desolation of blindness, and both were compelled to labor, from daylight to dark, in the grimy recesses of the mine, for the pittance that brought their daily bread; happy, because they were young and free-hearted and innocent, and contented with their lot.
And Tom was thrice happy, in that he had rolled away the burden of an accusing conscience, and felt the high pleasure that nothing else on earth can so fully bring as the sense of duty done, against the frowning face and in the threatening teeth of danger.
Sometimes, indeed, there came upon him a sudden fear of the vengeance he might meet at Rennie’s hands; but as the days passed by this fear disturbed him less and less, and the buoyancy of youth preserved him from depressing thoughts of danger.
Billy, too, was in good spirits that morning, and drew the cars rapidly along the heading, swinging around the sharp curves so swiftly that the yellow flame from the little tin lamp was blown down to the merest spark of blue; and stopping at last by the door in the entrance, where Bennie was to dismount and sit all day at his lonely task.
Three times Tom went down to the slope that morning, through Bennie’s door, with his trip of loads, and three times he came back, with his trip of lights; and the third time he stopped to sit with his brother on the bench and to eat, from the one pail which served them both, the plain but satisfying dinner which Mommie had prepared for them.
Tom was still light-hearted and jovial, but upon Bennie there seemed to have fallen since morning a shadow of soberness. To sit for hours with only one’s thoughts for company, and with the oppressive silence broken only at long intervals by the passing trips, this alone is enough to cast gloom upon the spirits of the most cheerful.
But something more than this was weighing upon Bennie’s mind, for he told Tom, when they had done eating, that every time it grew still around him, and there were no cars in the heading or airway, and no noises to break the silence, he could hear, somewhere down below him, the “working” of the mine. He had heard it all the morning he said, when every thing was quiet, and, being alone so, it made him nervous and afraid.
“I could stan’ most any thing,” he said, “but to get caught in a ‘fall.’”
“Le’s listen an’ see if we can hear it now,” said Tom.