Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1891-03-28
THE MINERS STRIKE.
BY GEORGE E. MERRILL,

1t IS quite ten years since the Little
Nugget Mine was opened. Il is situated
on Knob Mountain, ten or twelve miles
from the now thriving city of Aspen. II
is about eight years since the Little Mug.
get strike occurred, in which Ellen Lvbec
played so conspicuous part that ono
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.
1t was rare sunshine for any mans life.
At eighteen years of age Ellen Lybecswas
rot what every enc would call beautiful
bet stere was a native refinement in hef
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 ia the canons ant 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.
1t was one of many things that showed
her to be Of different stamp from the
te~ other women in the camp,
1t was lonely and rough place for
her, but there was nothing to tempt such
a girl to yield herself to the moulding
influences OF The life around her. There
was, on the contrary, everything to II
duee her to resist it.
What she was in hef own home. she
sought to be ID tas homes of others, and
she had not been 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 a framed struc-
ture, well put together, with glazed
windows, good stock doors, floors well
laid, and with three of the rooms ceiled
with plaster. There were in it many
evidences of Elias taste. The Wild vines
OF the csnons 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, making
the hours pass pleasantly in the awful
darkness, and when John Randal himself
was laid un nearly all winter with the
rheumatism, nothing ea8ed the pain so
much as Ellen's presence and gentle min,
istrations.
"Hogerboom's Patent Pain KILN and
AcheDestroyin' liniments amt nothing
to Lybec's GIRL" John used to say, ''it
she only kind Of comes round and looks
at ye,"
1t was so when Mike Bender's two
children were down with the measles.
Mrs. Bender bad no peace until Ellen
came in each afternoon with fresh stories
and acwers.
When Yellow jim broke his Leo down
the shaft, and was brought up eursing
so that even some of the men themselves
were shocked, he became very quiet when
Ellen spoke to him in low voice; and
when she did not leave his little cabin
for two days and nights, except when
her fathers meals were to be cot. yell
low Jim found that there were some
compensations, even for broken leo.
Discomfort had been brewing among
the miners in the Little Nugget. These
men, who were handling &c much rich
ore for others, began 70 feel that their
wages ought tie be a somewhat larger
share of what their labor raised from fhe
ground. Yellow Jim was one Of che
foremost to stir up the discomfort and IL
had more than once como to the notice
of Christopher Lybec that the littla
knots of workmen who wers TALKING to.
gether unaer their bfeath, and broke
up when he approRched, were centred
around jim.
lie was not much surprised when five
,n0 ineu, win jim at tnelr head, came
10 the once one day and asked for an in
crease OF pay
Ly1ec knew what this meant. He had
no expectation of success, when he
answered that he weald telegraph to
New FORK for Instructions. The men
DIN not mean to wait until word could
come IRON directors two thousand miles
away They meant TO have the money,
whatever answer might be received, and
to have it at once.
Lybec was stubborn man. He de
clared that not man should have an ad-
d1tlonal cent until he received definite
orders from New York to pay it.
Next morning the men refused to work.
Lybec mounted his horse, struck into
the trail that led toward the town, and
rode rapidly away.
At night he returned, and called jim
to the office.
"You NAV tell all the men that tboy
moy pack up tomorrow morning and he