"Pennsylvania Dutch," and other essays

by Phebe Earle Gibbons

A German also says that he does not think that working in the mines makes the Irish and others less fond of jokes, for they get together more. The mine is cool in summer and warm in winter, and if there is a lull, from want of cars or other cause, the men will squat down, miner fashion, and tell stories and crack jokes.

On a like occasion the little blackened slate-pickers swarm out of the cracker, like children let loose from school or like bees from the hive, and play at boyish games. Sometimes they get hold of an empty truck car, and ride down grade full speed, having the labor afterward of getting the car up again. When a loaded car is coming up the shaft, they can hear the warning whistle of the steam-engine, for soon the coal will be running down the chutes, and their labors recommence.

When the circus comes to town there is danger of a stampede among the boys who drive mules and perform like labors. They will come to the mine in the morning and gather together, and unless the “boss” is on the watch, they may be off in a body, and all work be at an end for the day, as the men cannot get on without them. On the contrary, if they are separated and started at their work, they will stay. But even the little fellows lately spoken of, “the boys in the cracker,” who pick the slaty refuse from the coal, have been known thus to stop mining operations.

The Welsh are not a humorous and jocose people like the Irish, though I am told that they are inclined to mirth when speaking together in their own language. A faint smile was caused at the Congregational church by a remark of the preacher. Translated, it amounts to this: “Some men drink a quantity of beer, which does not affect the brain, as they have so little brains;” and the application seems to have been that in a like manner the trials and vicissitudes of life affect some men little, as they have but little sensibility.

I am told that among the works of the Welsh poets are many epigrammatic stanzas. Of one of these, an epitaph, I received the following prose version: “In this life she told all the untruth that she could. Be careful not to wake her: if you do, she will say that she has been to heaven.”

The late hours which have been kept by our “Pennsylvania Dutch” when Fanny has a beau once do not prevail among the Welsh at Scranton. A gentleman who leads a large church choir, of which all the men are miners, and not half of these church members, tells me that the young men wait upon the young women home before nine, chat a while on the front porch or steps, and generally leave at ten.

A physician says that most of the courtship of the Welsh is begun, and often finished, while walking the streets after church. “This street is thronged,” says he, “on Sunday nights in summer. At first the young men walk behind, but after a while one step is quickened or the other slackened, or both, and they come together, and form lively parties, until ten or after. Courtships are brief, and the marriages early and happy.”

I asked a Welsh acquaintance whether his son married young. “No, he didn’t marry young; he was twenty-three.” Says another, “Young women among the Welsh miners marry from eighteen to twenty-two. At the latter age they are joked about being old maids.”

Miners’ wives generally hold the purse. As soon as he gets his pay and his fill of beer, the miner hands his wages to his wife, who acts as treasurer with much discretion, making all the purchases of the house and transacting the business of the family. A miner’s wife said to me, “My husband is a good workman. He never lost any time by drinking or anything like that. I nearly supported the family by my own sewing and by taking boarders. Ever since I have been married I tried to keep our own table, and could generally do it unless I was sick. I ’most always had a good deal of my own way, but I always consulted him. He always gave me his wages. I think when a man gives his wife his wages she feels more interest. I’d kick up a big fuss if he did not give me his wages. Whenever he was going away, I’d remind him, ‘Charley, haven’t you got any money in your pocket?’ He knew where the money was, you know? We always had one purse. My purse was his, and his was mine. We have always lived in good unity together.

“This is not always the way with miners. We have a neighbor who must always go to the office on pay-day to get her husband’s money. He’ll go and take the pay, and hand it over to her. She says he always gives it to her. If she did not go and get it, he’d go to the saloon and spend it. It looks to me as if a man was so weak-minded, to do the like of that!”