Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1900-12-06
Two Wedding Rings.
By Elaine Cartwright.

dnxoiuntarily, STOPPING to knock the
ash from my cigar. although I have
known you for nearly three years. but
is 1t usual for q wife to wear two we'd
ding rings?"
Dead silence. He had lowered his
violin, after a very soft solo-for it was
considerably past midnight-when I
ventured thai curious question. There
had been an evening party, and, as 1
was to stay at the house till morning,
Carson's wife had a Goodnight"
and left us to finish our inevitable
smoke and talk. His mouth twitched
q little, but it was some time before he
. 1etorted in a low tone:
ais it usual for a man we'll under
forty to have hair as white as mine?"
"Well, perhaps not-but I thought
you attribute that to some shock or
other. What has that to do with-with
the two rings?"
Everything" He listened at the
door for a moment, turned down the
lights, and then came and sat down,
spreading his hands over the fire. 1.-TWO
rings? Exactly. One is the sign I put
on her finger when I married her; the
second was put there by another man.
and will stay there as long as the
first"
Never mind, now" I said. His voice
had trailed huskily. It had no idea
there was any tragic element behind
the fact"
Tragic? Heavens! It was more than
that, he whispered, turning
UP q Drawn face. II never meant to
teuch upon 1T, but when you spoke 1t
o@fae back with a rush as vivid as If I
had been standing at the mouth of the
Old north shaft again. And that was
sa1 years ago.
- -3-- S4-1l4 +AA onoInxr AHinA r
had only been assistant surveyor at
the pits there for about nine months
when 1t happened. At nine O'Clock that
merning, Arthur, three Of US stepped
into the caRe-old Jim Halliday, the
foreman. his son Jim and myself; the
mSn had gone down an hour before. I
shall never forget that young Jim's
sweetheart had walked over-to the pit
wkth him. as she occasionally did. They
were to be married in a week or two,
and she-and she had on her finger the
ring that he had bought the day before
-tust for safety's sake, or perhaps out
Of womanly pride. I recollect just as
the chain clanked, and the winter sun
shine was disappearing overhead, be
shouted out a third Goodbye to her
little dreaming that 1t was to be good
bye. Little enough old Halliday and I
thought that days would elapse before
We emerged into Gods sunlight again.
A new vein had been bored the year
before and then abandoned because it
ran in the direction of the river. We
three had had instructions to widen it
FOR a space of three hundred yards-a
piece Of work that had occupied us
nearly q month. Old Jim picked and
young Jim wheeled the coal away to
the nearest gallery. from where lit was
carried over rails to the bottom of the
main shaft.
"Well, by four o'clock that afternoon
we calculated roughly that we had
reached the limit laid down.
II think it's as near as possible, Mr..
Carson old Halliday said. Jim, give
another count, we don't want the water
coming in
"Jina went back. We could hear him
singing out the PAGES in his light
hearted fashion as he returned, his
voice eehoing through the long CALLER
les.
"Two-sixty-nine. Pooh! you're
miles off it, dad!' He was only a score
of yards off, though. 'Two-sixty-nine
-two-seventy-tour. It'll allow a 1uH
kwenty yet, I reckon
"He had just finished his count when
but there, no man could properly de-
scribe it. It was something one had to
realize for himself before he could I'M
derstand a bare half of the sudden ter
ror that whitened our lips and seemed
to bring out hearts to a standstill.
kThere was a rumbling in one of The
distant galleries, and a sickening tren-
bic of the ground underneath us; then-
then the most ~paralyzing sound, 1 do
believe, that is to be heard in this
world. How or why it happened is
something to be placed among the host
of unsolved mysteries; but there was
one grinding, splintering roar, as
though the earth had split into pieces.
Before we could stir hand or foot to
save ourselves, before we could take
in that an explosion had occurred
while we were guarding against anoth-
er sort of danger, down a
mass of coal, tons upon tons of it, that
blocked up the only passage leading to
the shaft. It just reached young Jim;
standing where he did, he was struck
heard his screech stified be-
meath the debris. For about five more
seconds the earth seemed to be heav-
ing and threatening universal chaos;
then all became still as a tomb.
ga tomb! We had our lamps; old
Jim and I looked and saw that We were
cut off from the rest of the world.
What happened next I hardly knew; ]
was stupefed with the shock, sick with
q mortal fear Of death. He and 1 stood
staring mutely at each other. The only
thing I recollect is that his face was
grey as marble; and that a line OF
froth stood on his lips.
He was the first to come back tc
sense. He gave one choking cry OF
-Jim!' and staggered forward to thai
black pile. The boys hand was stick
ing out from the bottom of it, clutch
ing convulsively at nothing. I sank
down and watched, in a sort Of dreary
f~ascination, as old Jim, utterins
strange cries, tore at the mass in Z
mad frenzy. God help him! Jim was
the only thing he had in the world tt
love. In less than five minutes he had
dragged him out, and sat down to hus