Some tales are true, some only partly so, but they all are authentic oral history. A story of the coal mining community in the early 1900's, as told through an immigrant's eyes. Geraldine Glodek was born and raised in Coal Township. Her ancestors all worked in the mines. The cage came and took them down.
Rats squeaked and raced through the gangway.
When the cage gate opened to release the miners, the foreman crept over to a rat that had stopped to sniff something. It looked up just as he picked up a rock. It seemed to Casimir that the rat looked deliberately at him, as if it expected him to save it, like a relative in a new country expecting the first arrival to take care of his own. He felt exposed. He took a whack at the animal with his pick, but it got away.