Volume 035-4 - October 1981 (8 pages)

The Chinaman looked on calmly. “I think he pletty ole—he die pletty soon,” he remarked. Three little children were frolicking in the swing under the pine trees. Their mother quieted them out of respect for what was soon to pass the house; but she could not moderate the morning’s display of pink faced roses, nor suggest to the sun to go under a brief cloud. All was heartless radiance and peace as the forlorn little procession came down the road—the workers carrying him home whose work was done; three men on a side, and between their stout backs and faces red with exertion, a broken shape stretched out and a stark white profile crowned with a bloody cloth. What had the old man been doing in the hoist? “Fixin’ up the bell rope,”’ the mining captain said; “but it didn’t look like any of John’s work,” he added meaningly. ‘‘He wasn’t all there when he rigged up that thing. He’d slipped a cog, somehow.—Yes sir, you bet! A man in a shaft he’s got to keep his eye out. He can watch for forty years, and the minute he forgets himself, that minute he’s gone.” About the turn of the night, when the old man was nearing his end, he gave a loud cry and sprang up in bed, where he had lain speechless and helpless three days. The startled watchers flew to his side. “Take you ’ands off me, woman!” he panted. “I must up. Th’ pump ’e’s rcattae stopped!” “Don’t ’ee, deary!’? The wife trembled at the look in his pinched gray face. “Don’t ’ee be thinkin’ o’ they pumps no more. ’Owever could ’ee hear ‘em, two miles away? Hark, now! ’Tis all as still as still.” It was so still, that windless summer night, they could hear the clock tick across the passage, and the hoarse straining of the dying man’s breath as they struggled to hold him down. His weakness, not their strength, prevailed. He fell back on his pillows, and a passive, awestruck stare succeeded the energy of horror and resistance. His eyes were fixed, as one who watches spellbound the oncoming of a great disaster. They touched his still face; it was damp and cold. His chest pumped hard and slow. ‘Two thousan’ gone under! Drowned, drowned!” he whispered. “Tig all nothin’ but they pumps!” the old wife grieved distractedly. She knew his time was short. ‘‘Oh, dear Savior, don’t mind it of im! ’E were a hard worker, and a good man to me.” At that same hour, the night of John’s release, when he had given his loud cry, the watchman at the mine heard above the roar of forty stamp heads a sound like a cannon smothered within walls. He rushed across to the hoisting works. There lay the great crown wheel of the pump, in pieces on the floor. The pump rod, settled on its chocks, had stopped with: its last stroke. One little cog, worn out, had dropped from its place; then two cogs came together, tooth to tooth, and the ten-ton wheel burst with a groan that had arrested the passing soul of the pump-man, duty bound to the last. An old mine, or an old man, that is nearly worked out may run for years at small expense if no essential part gives way; but the cost of heavy repairs is too great a strain upon halting faith and an exhausted treasury. Even so small a thing as the dropping out of one little cog, in a system worth thousands to rebuild, may decide the question whether to give up or keep on. In that moment of ultimate consciousness, the mystery of which is with the dead, it may be that old John beheld the whole sequence of disaster that was to follow the breaking of the pump. If he did foresee it all, as his ghostly eyes seemed to say, he accepted it as well; and that look of awe-struck, appealing submission in the face of immeasurable calamity he carried to the grave. Perhaps he had seen beyond the work of this world to some place of larger recompense where the unpaid increment of such service as his is waiting on the books. Perhaps he heard already the Master’s patient ‘Well done.” While they were preaching the funeral sermon, his old enemy, the water of the black deeps, was creeping up, regaining ground which he and the pumps had fought for and defended, inch by inch and year by year. “Two thousan’gone under!” The lowest pump is lost. Leave it where it drowned, at its post. Now there is hurry and rush of tearing up tracks before the levels are flooded; the order to shut down has come late. Pull out the pumps; the fight is over! They have taken up the track in the main incline; the water has reached the nine hundred, like the chill creeping up the limbs of a dying man. The old tributers take down their muddy mine suits from the change house walls; families will live poorer this winter for all that water in the mine. They go trooping home, boots and bundles over shoulder, by the paths their own feet have made. They meet no night shift coming on. Another year and those paths of labor will be deep in hushing pine needles; shadows of morning and evening will be the only change of shifts. The payrolls are closed; the last crushing has gone to the mill. The grave often millions is for sale cheap, with a thousand feet of water in it. Z. H DENMAN. SE Sa No. 78 Made and repaired on the Shortest Notice. x => WH. SPARKS, DENMAN & SPARKS, Ree Mill Strcet, Grass Valley, am CARRIAGES AND WAGONS BRAGRS MIT AINE Of all kinds done with Neatness and Dispateh. ALL KINDS OF CARRIAGE PAINTING DONE 18 THE BEST OF STYLE. All Work Warranted to give Perfect Satisfaction. i kK 29

The Chinaman looked on calmly. “I think he pletty ole—he die pletty soon,” he remarked. Three little children were frolicking in the swing under the pine trees. Their mother quieted them out of respect for what was soon to pass the house; but she could not moderate the morning’s display of pink faced roses, nor suggest to the sun to go under a brief cloud. All was heartless radiance and peace as the forlorn little procession came down the road—the workers carrying him home whose work was done; three men on a side, and between their stout backs and faces red with exertion, a broken shape stretched out and a stark white profile crowned with a bloody cloth. What had the old man been doing in the hoist? “Fixin’ up the bell rope,”’ the mining captain said; “but it didn’t look like any of John’s work,” he added meaningly. ‘‘He wasn’t all there when he rigged up that thing. He’d slipped a cog, somehow.—Yes sir, you bet! A man in a shaft he’s got to keep his eye out. He can watch for forty years, and the minute he forgets himself, that minute he’s gone.” About the turn of the night, when the old man was nearing his end, he gave a loud cry and sprang up in bed, where he had lain speechless and helpless three days. The startled watchers flew to his side. “Take you ’ands off me, woman!” he panted. “I must up. Th’ pump ’e’s rcattae stopped!” “Don’t ’ee, deary!’? The wife trembled at the look in his pinched gray face. “Don’t ’ee be thinkin’ o’ they pumps no more. ’Owever could ’ee hear ‘em, two miles away? Hark, now! ’Tis all as still as still.” It was so still, that windless summer night, they could hear the clock tick across the passage, and the hoarse straining of the dying man’s breath as they struggled to hold him down. His weakness, not their strength, prevailed. He fell back on his pillows, and a passive, awestruck stare succeeded the energy of horror and resistance. His eyes were fixed, as one who watches spellbound the oncoming of a great disaster. They touched his still face; it was damp and cold. His chest pumped hard and slow. ‘Two thousan’ gone under! Drowned, drowned!” he whispered. “Tig all nothin’ but they pumps!” the old wife grieved distractedly. She knew his time was short. ‘‘Oh, dear Savior, don’t mind it of im! ’E were a hard worker, and a good man to me.” At that same hour, the night of John’s release, when he had given his loud cry, the watchman at the mine heard above the roar of forty stamp heads a sound like a cannon smothered within walls. He rushed across to the hoisting works. There lay the great crown wheel of the pump, in pieces on the floor. The pump rod, settled on its chocks, had stopped with: its last stroke. One little cog, worn out, had dropped from its place; then two cogs came together, tooth to tooth, and the

ten-ton wheel burst with a groan that had arrested the passing soul of the pump-man, duty bound to the last. An old mine, or an old man, that is nearly worked out may run for years at small expense if no essential part gives way; but the cost of heavy repairs is too great a strain upon halting faith and an exhausted treasury. Even so small a thing as the dropping out of one little cog, in a system worth thousands to rebuild, may decide the question whether to give up or keep on. In that moment of ultimate consciousness, the mystery of which is with the dead, it may be that old John beheld the whole sequence of disaster that was to follow the breaking of the pump. If he did foresee it all, as his ghostly eyes seemed to say, he accepted it as well; and that look of awe-struck, appealing submission in the face of immeasurable calamity he carried to the grave. Perhaps he had seen beyond the work of this world to some place of larger recompense where the unpaid increment of such service as his is waiting on the books. Perhaps he heard already the Master’s patient ‘Well done.” While they were preaching the funeral sermon, his old enemy, the water of the black deeps, was creeping up, regaining ground which he and the pumps had fought for and defended, inch by inch and year by year. “Two thousan’gone under!” The lowest pump is lost. Leave it where it drowned, at its post. Now there is hurry and rush of tearing up tracks before the levels are flooded; the order to shut down has come late. Pull out the pumps; the fight is over! They have taken up the track in the main incline; the water has reached the nine hundred, like the chill creeping up the limbs of a dying man. The old tributers take down their muddy mine suits from the change house walls; families will live poorer this winter for all that water in the mine. They go trooping home, boots and bundles over shoulder, by the paths their own feet have made. They meet no night shift coming on. Another year and those paths of labor will be deep in hushing pine needles; shadows of morning and evening will be the only change of shifts. The payrolls are closed; the last crushing has gone to the mill. The grave often millions is for sale cheap, with a thousand feet of water in it. Z. H DENMAN. SE Sa No. 78 Made and repaired on the Shortest Notice. x => WH. SPARKS, DENMAN & SPARKS, Ree Mill Strcet, Grass Valley, am CARRIAGES AND WAGONS BRAGRS MIT AINE Of all kinds done with Neatness and Dispateh. ALL KINDS OF CARRIAGE PAINTING DONE 18 THE BEST OF STYLE. All Work Warranted to give Perfect Satisfaction. i kK 29