The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1908-01-05

especially fears, were tied up with each
knotting.
4 will curse God and die if my John
does not come back" was the memoir
able speech of one woman. John Hoo s
Cornish wife. No. in Block ca con-
verified woman and a class leader. vi.
If Mary Hoo spoke thus. what was one
to expect of those others of fainter
light and lesser leading?
The bundle made a large lump in
each mans right hand coat pocket. But
the dinner can, filled with tea or soup,
swung openly and independently in
each left hand. as the father of the
family opened his door and took his
way into the fresh GOODNESS of the
summer morning. The night dews had
partly laid the dust-or rather Just
eaked the surface which the sun would
soon dry all up again. long before the
feet of the little ones began to pad
die abroad in the first luxuries of d
morning dust-bath.
Thus it was in Kirktown. THUS
also, in thousand mining towns. Even
the children there are taught not to
shout and scream across the street like
other children. The very babes learn
not to cry-because the breadwinner is
taking his rest for the next shift, and
must on no account be disturbed. There
are times in the hot MONDAY when the
windows are darl1ened, when the doc
tor goes on tiptoe, when not even the
minister calls. The sleep of the labor
ing man is sacred thing. So 1t ought
to be always. The men go to work.
The women stay at honI. They work.
They wait. AS soon as the ladies"
leave school, they follow their fathers
down the mine. That is their vocation.
They have never thought of doing any
thing else. The wide, airy world is
not for them-except that straight
piece of dusty road between two dustier
hedges which conducts them from the
little red kitchen in Block c, to the
hole in the ground. down where great
cage of iron dives necessarily.
Little sentiment Is wasted on that
outgoing.
"Weel, wife I'm avail" is about the
extent of it. And even this is felt to be
stretching a point. True, some of the
younger men take a lbolk at wife and
BARNS before they sally forth, becalDe
all who win the coal or send up the
iron must run this risk-that he who
goes out may never return Give. The
hand which closed the door in the
morning may not open it again in the
evening, at the time when the freight
CLOVIS red and the lamps are being lit
NO Hedu Is H6ld So nigh at luS Oul-
going but there is a chance that its
owner may be brought Jack foot-first
with that terrible lopk of limp help
lessness which the human body takes
upon the carrying stretchers that are
kept in readiness at all pit-h eads.
But this 5th of September was a great
day in the history of No. pit. 1t was
but seldom that they had visitors down
there. Never before had that visitor
been a woman. But that day Vida had
determined to go down.
After many pleadings from Dick Fin
nan that she should come and see him
at his work-in his position of author
ity-a centurion of the dark, having
under him men able to say to this one,
Come" and he came, and to that other,
Go" and he WENT OF this pleasure
Dick had dreamed of long and often
But behind Dicks simple hearted pc
titions another spirit moved-that of
the Ghetto-Serb Kahn. He had per-
suaded himself, as indeed, most of the
village had done, that it was for the
sake of Vida Bryan that Ludovic Nor
ris remained so long in Kirktown. AS
for his keeping away from the cot
tage by day-why, that was Kalh's
own rudimentary stratagem. His going
to live at the Valley Manse with Mr..
Fowler and his family was a little bet
ter, but not clever enough to throw
dust in the eyes of James Kahn.
The acting manager of the Incubus
works understood very well that he
had played and lost. He would never
now be able to present to his master,
Jacob Romer, a long-lost daughter, nor
receive from him the "Bless you, my
children" which sealed to himself the
possession of the Romer millions.
mo- a Kahn
avowed 1t to himself. Hat, one door
being shut in his face, he set himself
with just as much energy and as de-
Jiberate a sangfroid, to open the other.
James Kahn carried within him ali
the curious contradictions of a newly
arrived race-which, among drainage
systems arranged at Lambeth, and in
stallations of electric lights fresh from
Paris keeps it's ancient savagery OF
vendetta, and has no more objections
to butchering it's king and queen than
to killing so many rats in trap.
Yet, for all that, 1t is possible-in-
deed. likely-that if Vida had married
James Kahn he would have made her,
his own liberty being safeguarded, a
tolerable, perhaps even to the sight of
most, an admirable husband. But since
she refused him and stood in his way,
she became no better than a mouse,
which, gnawing at the wainscot, dis
turbed his rest
Accordingly he set trap for her,
and baited 1t with his own good ddsds
and better intentions towards Dick Fin
nan. Against Dick he had certainly
showed no malice. Indeed, in the pit
and at the making of reports, he had
shown himself kinder than ever. He
had complimented him on the discipline
of No. pit, which before he he'd not
liked. 1t contained too many psalm
singers" for him, he said-Scottish
Kirkmen and true-blue Presbyterians,
with a sprinkling of Cornish Wesley
ans, whom he detested yet more, being
wholly unable to understand them. But
among these men Dick had taken his
place with all the prestige of his rul-
ing-eldership at the Kirk of the Hill.
Dick believed in James Kahn, and the
miners believed in Dick. So matters
went easier, till at last No. was i'll
most respects the most contented and
loyal pit in all the Incubus workings.
At least, there were no complaints.
Consequently nothing whatever was
done for No. 2--the philosophy of the
mana cement of the Incubus mines being
that which guided the unjust Judge in
his treatment of the importunate
widow-which is to ,ay, Make your
self enough of a nuisance, and we Will
give you something to get rid of your
Since the night of his defeat at the
cottage in the Glebe End wood. James
Kahn had never slept and hardly eaten.
To his excited ina gination 1t Seemed
that his secret was ready to slip from
him.
"Vida Bryan is Jacob Romer's
daughter the words beat in his brain.
And to him it seemed certain that the
girl must have carried away enough
me nnaries of The Good Intent to fur