The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1913-11-03

De Sonle uTdfHdtlc SITUATION TO make
| a story and there is nothing dra-
matte in a life of endless toll.
Strange as 1t may seem, Johnny
never had an unknown, rich uncle
who died and left him a fortune.
Mr.. Fox never looked down at his
swiftly moving fingers and took a
fancy to him and invited him to his
home and married him to his daugh-
ter. In fact Mr.. Fox never even
saw him in the dust and gloom.
Almost all his life must be skip
ped because 1t Is so dull In writ
ing biography, you cannot dwell
long on the parts that are very dull
and you must entirely omit the
parts that are very interesting
and so biography is not biography
after all! Anyhow Johnny left the
breaker when he was fourteen and
was promoted to the place of door
keeper in the mine.
Somehow, I forgot to state that
all of this was forty years ago.
Forty years make a great change
| in any one who lives upon the
| earth-but it makes a greater
| change in the miner than in most
| other men. Fifty-four Is not so
very old, so at least most Of us
| think who cling tenaciously to the
| fifties, and still more those who
| watch anxiously while the sixties
| are checked off. But, at fifty-four,
the man who has money and can
/ hax lot Oh a c
| young. He can eat and drink; can
| laugh and dance and play; he can
marry and travel and write; ~
| fact, can still chase all the phantis-
les and bubbles that make us for
get the waiting, open grave.
| Forty years entirely transformed
Johnny. Even his name was
changed; he was now John; gener
ally Uncle John. He had been a
door boy, a driver, helper, a
miner, and he had now come up out
of the earth to spend his last few
| years above the ground. His face
was SCARED and one ear was miss
| ing. This came ct from war, but
from powder ALL THE SAME. A
belated fuse exploded when he
thought it had gone out. But still
he counted this as luck for his life
was saved. One arm was crippled
from a falling rock and his right
hip was never free from pain, but
this was only rheumatism that
caught while working in the
ground. Except for the asthma, he
could still have staid a number of
years inside the earth before the
last time that he should be lowered
down to come up no more. But his
old valves were growing more and
more rusty every year. He
wheezed instead of breathed, and he
could walk but a very little way,
and could stand upon his feet only
few minutes at time. His
strength was almost gone. Some
| doctors would have advised rest
and travel and higher altitude.
but his did not. In fact, he had no
doctor. Every one in the mine
knew all about asthma - the black
shadow that hangs always above a
miners life.
John did not live in the same
house where his father first placed
him when he came from Ireland so
long ago, but he lived very near the
spot, still in company" house.
| The miners, and the mules, and
machinery, had changed from time
to time, but the breaker, the black
| "culm' pile, and the company"
houses still remained.
| In forty years, John had buried
his mother, had married, raised a
| family and Travelled back and forth
along the short path from his hut
| to the open mouth of the mine day
after day, and that was all. AS the
years passed, his one ambition had
| been to go back to ireland, even for
a short time. as his fathers had
been to come to the United States,
but this ambition he had buried in
the mines long years ago. He had
left the valley once in forty years.
He had gone to Philadelphia to
| the Centennial. and his ticket had
cost him $40. This was quar-
| ter of a century ago. but he re-
membered the exact amount that
he gave in exchange for the little
1
| John really had earned the right
to rest, but then, he and his fam
| lily must live at least he
THOUGHT they must, and so they
must, else the rich mans coal
could never get dug up! The mine
boss was really not unkind, so
when John told him that he could
not go down the shaft again, the
boss promised him an easier job.
The boss took John to the breaker,
up the long flight of stairs, down
| the ladder of little boards rSled
across the chute and sat him down
/ at the old spot that he had left
forty years ago. John was not a
poet or a dreamer. In fact, he
never had a great deal of imagin-
alton, and what he had was bur-
led long ago in the deep. black
mine. He did not seem to think OF
the strange fate that sat him down
on the narrow board after the cir
Gle of his life was done. He thought
no more about 1t than do the rest
of us of the everlasting turning