The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1913-11-01
Saturday. Short Story
The Breaker Boy
1913, by the Newspaper Enterprise
Association

became man. Five years before this his father
and mother, with their four children and steerage
tlckets sailed out of the Queenstown Harbor bound
Tor the United States. They had heard of America
all Irishmen had-they knew that America had no
English landlords; rack-rented tenants; no hope
less men and ragged women and hungry boys and
girls SO, as they stood on the steeage deck and
looked through the wire netting at the fading white
houses and green fields of the native land Owen
and Bridget were light of heart Beyond the great
turbulent ocean were contentment, equality and
wealth; home for themselves and brilliant future
for the four children who half in fear and half in
wonder, We're looking out at the white guls and the
white crested waves.
Two weeks later they landed in New York, were
rushed through Castle Garden and hurried to the
railway train where they set out for Scranton Penn
sylvania.
Within few days Owen had found job in the
mlnes opened an account with Company store
and rented a Company house, with kitchen and
parlor below and two little bedrooms above Down
under the kitchen floor was hole in the ground
which they called cellar, and some rough wooden
steps led to the bottom from the side of the house.
The hut was closed with boards which ran up and
down; the inside was without paper plaster
while, here and there, the cracks let in the daylight
and through the winter, the wind and shifting snow
Owen and Bridget were trfle disappointed in their
home In their little stone hut in their far off island
they had never dreamed that house like this could
be found in land so rich and free; but they were
starting life in a new strange worlds So with strong
hopes and brave hearts, they set to work to make
the best OF what they had, doubling that the
looked-for mansion would soon be theirs.
Owen went to work in the coal mines-five hun
dred feet beneath the ground. Every morning he
stepped on board car, grasped his dinner pail in
hand, while he clutched the iron rail in the other and
held his breath until he dropped to the bottom;
then at night he went back to the foot of the pit and
boarded the to be taken again to the top of the
earth
But this story is about Johnny so we have no time
to tell more of Owen, except that one day a great
piece OF rock broke off from the roof of the cham
ber, where he worked and fell squarely upon him.
crushing him to DEATH
E The miners took him to the top of the shaft and
back to the little hut and consoed the helpless wild
ow and children as best they could, and then fol-
lowed him to the grave and the story of his hopes
and struggles was told
Johnny was almost eleven when they laid his
father in the little consecrated ground and put the
white wooden cross above his head. He was at
school the day the rock came down, and had done
SO well that he was in the third reader, and had
reached division in the arithmetic.
Johnnys older brother already tending door
in the mine and his sisters in the public school,
Some years before, wise good man. seeing how
scant was the miners income, had built lace mill
SO that his girls could something to help the
family along So night when the older sister left
the school, she carefully packed her books and slate
and took them home, and the next day went to the
MILL
Bridget planned and saved the best she could. She
had great hopes for little Johnny He would surely
be scholar and make famous the McCaffery name
but all her hopes and struggles went for naught.
Owens funeral had left them hopelessy in debt and
the earning of the boy and girl could not keep the
family alive. There really nothing left but to
send Johnny to the breaker. The law had humanely
said that child should be spared from the mine I'M
til he was twelve years old, but Bridget soon saw
that this law protection against poverty and
want; SO she went to a Justice of the Peace and
swore that Johnny's age was twelve, and sent him
to the breaker She somehow did not think much
about this OATH In fact she almost felt that Johnny
was twelve years old. She knew of other boys oil
the same age who were at work.
Well, Johnny went to the breaker. He was half
Wy pleased to be released from school If there isl
any place for boy more cruel and hopeless than
the breaker, it is the ordinary public school.
4 johnny lived about half a mile from the breaker
where he went to work. Over and over again. bel
had seen the huge rough black building standing upI
against the sky, and just beyond the great pile oil
refuse which they called 'sculm'' that doomed upI
higher still; especially at night they rose up somber
and black, like the mountains just behind The 'front.'
of the building hundred feet high It sloped|
slowly and evenly down to about twenty-five feet|
atdthe It's great sides were dotted with win-