Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1909-11-26

women had stood for seven nights and
days waiting for news of their loved
ones, and they would not be denied.
The first Jour after the living men
appeared chaos reigned and it was not
until $50 pm. that a semblance of or
der was restored. AS fast as the sur
vivors were brought to the surface they
were hurried to the sleeping cars. The
physicians, fearing that the sudden TAX
ing of food might result seriously, care
fully fed the men small quantities of
soup and thin milk, aiming to restore
their strength gradually.
Some of the rescuers of the entombed
men were so overwhelmed with graft
tude by the relatives of the rescued
that they had difficulty in getting
through the big crowds. Joseph Pigatti
and his brother Giacoma, were the first
men brought up. They were hurried
to the sleeping cars, where physicians
were n attendance and there Pigatti and
his wife and two children standing in
the crowd. Despite his weakened con-
dition he leaped past the people stand
ing about and gathered them in his arms
and all four dropped upon the ground
and kissed the feet of their rescuers,
sobbing out their gratitude.
Escape Cut Off.
Graphic stories of their hardships and
how they fought to atave of starva-
ton and sufocation were told by the
rescued men. William Clelland, who is
credited by most of the survivors with
having saved their lives, appeared none
the worse for his experience after he
had partaken of a little food.
"The fire started in the mule stables
about 1 pm. last Saturday from a torch.
I was working with a lot of other men
in the main tunnel, running west from
the hosting shaft. We heard of the fire
about 2 o'clock, and I yelled to the men
to get out, because the mine was burn
ing. We dashed through the tunnel to-
ward the main shaft, but found that
escape was cut off by the flames.
I'VE realized that unless we protected
ourselves we were doomed, so we ran
back in the tunnel where the air was
clearer. About 300 feet back from the
main shaft there is another tunnel run
ming north and south, and we threw up
a barricade across the main tunnel to
keep the smoke and gases out. While
we were working on this the timbers
overhead burned away and a great mass
of earth fell, blocking the tunnel and
keeping the heat away from us.
Food Parceled Out.
"Then we retreated into the north
and south tunnel as far away from the
main fire as we could get. We were
about a mile from it, I should say.
There were 81 of us, IS being mar
ried men and six single. Most of the
men had kept hold of their dinner buck
cts, SO we put the food all together and
parceled it out in small bits. We had
found a water hole, so we thought we
were we'll fixed.
ut got awfully lonely down there and
we didn't have any idet what was 60
ing on about us, but we passed the time
by telling stories and cracking jokes.
One man had a pack of cards and we
played with them by the hour.
Sunday afternoon-I think it was
about that time-the Frenchman died.
He had been hurt in building the barri-
cade. We buried him under the ground
because we didn't want the stencil of
decaying flesh to kill US. I don't know
what we did after that except that L
tried to cheer the men up, and tell them
we would soon be taken out.
after a time-it seems like it was
only a day, but I guess it must have
been three or four days-our water ran
out and our food supply was getting
low. We drank the oil from our lamps
and the seepage in the gutter of the
tunnel. We ate only sparingly OF our
food, most of the men tearing bark of
the timbering and d%evouring that.
Rescuers Are Welcomed.
"After awhile the air became foul and
we had a hard time retaining our senses.
Whenever we moved about, we crawled
On our stomachs, afraid of the black
damp which we knew must be in the
tunnels.
FINALLY today one of the men heard
sounds outside the barricade and came
crawled to the barricade and sounded on
the walls and yelled as loud as we could.
"Then we heard them digging and
pretty soon we saw a light. God, but
it was good to see the light! We just
climbed over each other to get out of
that tunnel and I guess We acted pretty
queer, we were so glad to see those men.
The first thing most of US asked the
men was: is it Sunday or Monday?'
They took rs up slowly and you will
never know how good it seemed to see
| human beings in the sunlight"