The father took the boy
in his arms and holding him across his breast like a babe went down
the hill to their home.
It was on a Tuesday morning that Cracked McGregor died. His death
fixed itself as something fine in the mind of the boy and the scene
and the circumstance stayed with him through life, filling him with
secret pride like a knowledge of good blood. "It means something that
I am the son of such a man," he thought.
It was past ten in the morning when the cry of "Fire in the mine" ran
up the hill to the houses of the miners. A panic seized the women. In
their minds they saw the men hurrying down old cuts, crouching in
hidden corridors, pursued by death. Cracked McGregor, one of the night
shift, slept in his house. The boy's mother, threw a shawl about her
head, took his hand and ran down the hill to the mouth of the mine.
Cold winds spitting snow blew in their faces. They ran along the
tracks of the railroad, stumbling over the ties, and stood on the
railroad embankment that overlooked the runway to the mine.
About the runway and along the embankment stood the silent miners,
their hands in their trousers pockets, staring stolidly at the closed
door of the mine. Among them was no impulse toward concerted action.
Like animals at the door of a slaughter-house they stood as though
waiting their turn to be driven in at the door.
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