Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1891-04-10
THE MINERS STRIKE.
BY GEORGE E. MERRILL.

1t is quite ten years since the Little
Nugget Mine was opened. It is situated
on Knob Mountain, ten or twelve miles
from the now thriving city of Aspen. It
is about eight years since the Little Mug
get strike occurred, in which Ellen Lybec
played so conspicuous part that one
still hears the miners speak her name
with sort of wondering reverence.
Her father, Christopher Lybec, had
brought his family to Colorado several
years before, and his wife had died, af-
ter many hardships in their frontier life,
just before he had undertaken the super
intendency of the Little Nugget Mine.
He had brought Ellen, his only child,
to the mine, and there she had lived two
years, taking care of his little house, and
pouring in upon his lonely life the only
sunshine that it knew.
It was rare sunshine for any mans life.
At eighteen years of age Ellen Lybec was
not what every enc would call beautiful,
but there was native refinement in her
features and manner quite out of keeping
with the rough mining camp.
1t was not often that the wives and
daughters of the miners cared to deck
themselves with the wild flowers that
grew in the canons and covered the bord-
ers of the Little Nugget Creek with
bloom; but Ellen was rarely without
some blossom tucked into the bosom of
her dress, or twined in her brown hair.
It was one of many things that showed
her to be of different stamp from the
foIu woman in no ooron
It was lonely and rough place for
her, but there was nothing to tempt such
girl to yield herself to the moulding
influences of the life around her. There
was, on the contrary, everything to in
duce her to resist it.
What she was in her own home, she
sought to be in the homes of others, and
she had rot been a week in the little
settlement before it was plain that the
camp would be better for her presence.
The superintendent house was better
than any other. It was framed struc-
ture, well put together, with glazed
windows, good stock doors, floors we'll
laid, and with three of the rooms ceiled
with plaster. There were in it many
evidences of Elias taste. The wild vines
of the canons had been planted by the
door, and trained upward over its frame
and the adjoining window, and the ugly
barbed wire fence was well hidden under
the same graceful covering.
John Randal's old blind mother could
have told of the many long afternoons
that Ellen spent in her company, makin r.
the hours pass pleasantly in the avn
darkness; and when John Randall himself
was laid up nearly all winter with the
rheumatism, nothing eased the pain SO
much as Ellen's presence and gentle min
istrations.
"Hogerboom's Patent Pain KILN and
Ache Destroyin' liniments amt nothing
to Lybec's girl" John used to say, ''i
she only kind of Genes round and looks
at ye."
It was so when Mike Bender's two
children were down with the measles
Mrs. Bender had no peace until Ellen
came in each afternoon with fresh storie!
and flowers.
When Yellow Jim broke his leg dowr
the shaft, and was brought up cursine
so that even some of the men themselve
were shocked, he became very quiet wher
Ellen spoke to him in a low voice; and
when she did not leave his little cabir
for two days and nights, except wher
her fathers meals were to be got, Vel
low Jim found that there were SOM
compensations, even for a broken leg.
Discomfort had been brewing amons
the miners in the Little Nugget. Thes
men. who were handling so much rlcl
ore for others, began to feel that thei
wages ought 20 be somewhat large
share of what their labor raised from tn
ground. Yellow Jim was one of tn
foremost to stir up the discomfort, and i
had more than once come to the motto
of Christopher Lybec that the little
knots of workmen who were talking to
gether under their breath, and brok
up when he approached, were centre'
around Jim.
He was not much surprised when f1v
of the men, with Jim at their head, cam
to the office one day and asked for an in
crease of pay.
Lybec knew what this meant. He ha
no expectation of success when b
answered that he would telegraph
New York for instructions. The me
din not mean to wait until word coul
come from directors two thousand mile
! away. They meant TO have the none.
Is