"Poppy goes down ther," said the girl. "He an' the other men are mad 'cause they have to stay there so long."
"Could we got a breakfast round hers, anywhere?" my friend asked of the child.
"Oh, yes, Aunt Sally, down there;" stud she pointed to a little clearing, dazzlingly white amidst the pretty garden spots. The girl volunteered to go with us.
The child led us into a small clean room, where were milk-pans, shining like silver.
Aunt Sally was a small, tidy body, with a bright English face of the best type, straight as an arrow, and with an eye that meant business.
"Them miners is a hard set," she said, as she bustled about us, getting bread and coffee. "You see, there's so many nations mixed. There's Irish, and German, and Swiss, and patience knows what else, and they get among themselves if they think things don't go right, and talk and talk, and git discontented and ugly.
"I'll 'low it's a hard life, 'specially for the women and children, though there aint but few o' them work about here. But then, though they work a good while, yet they have a good bit of daylight, after all. The men as don't drink are, as a general rule, the easiest to git along with. There go some of 'em now."
The Murdered Miner.
A group of low-browed, sturdy follows passed the door, laughing and talking, seemingly contented, and after breaking our fast, we followed them.
A woman was walking ahead of us, with, a child in her arms, a little girl of six or seven years tugging at her skirt. They were a very quiet trio.