In Caperton Mountain camp I met Duncan Kennedy, who is now commissioner for the mine owners. He and his noble wife gave us shelter and fed us when it was too late for us to go down the mountain and cross the river to an inn. Often after meetings in this mountain district, we sat through the night on the river bank. Frequently we would hear bullets whizz past us as we sat huddled between boulders, our black clothes making us invisible in the blackness of the night.
Seven organizers were sent into Laurel Creek. All came back, shot at, beaten up, run out of town.
One organizer was chased out of town with a gun.
“What did you do?” I said.
“I ran.”
“Which way?” said I.
“Mother,” he said, “you mustn’t go up there. They’ve got gunmen patrolling the roads.”
“That means the miners up there are prisoners,” said I, “and need me.”
A week later, one Saturday night I went with eight or ten trapper boys to Thayer, a camp about six miles from Laurel Creek. Very early Sunday morning we walked to Laurel Creek. I climbed the mountain so that I could look down on the camp with its huddle of dirty shacks. I sat down on a rock above the camp and told the trapper boys to go down to the town and tell the boys to come up the mountain side. That Mother Jones was going to speak at two o’clock and tell the superintendent that Mother Jones extends a cordial invitation to him to come.
Then I sent two boys across a little gully to a log cabin to get a cup of tea for me. The miner came out and beckoned to me to come over. I went and as I entered the door, my eyes rested on a straw mattress on which rested a beautiful young girl. She looked at me with the most gentle eyes I ever saw in a human being. The wind came in through the cracks of the floor and would raise the bed clothes a little.