A miner
gripped her by the arm and led her back up the face of the embankment.
In the crowd a woman's voice shouted, "It's Cracked McGregor gone to
close the door to the McCrary cut."
The man with the white collar glared about as he chewed the end of his
cigar. "He's gone crazy," he shouted, again closing the door to the
mine.
Cracked McGregor died in the mine, almost within reach of the door to
the old cut where the fire burned. With him died all but five of the
imprisoned miners. All day parties of men tried to get down into the
mine. Below in the hidden passages under their own homes the scurrying
miners died like rats in a burning barn while their wives, with shawls
over their heads, sat silently weeping on the railroad embankment. In
the evening the boy and his mother went up the hill alone. From the
houses scattered over the hill came the sound of women weeping.
* * * * *
For several years after the mine disaster the McGregors, mother and
son, lived in the house on the hillside. The woman went each morning
to the offices of the mine where she washed windows and scrubbed
floors. The position was a sort of recognition on the part of the mine
officials of the heroism of Cracked McGregor.
Nance McGregor was a small blue-eyed woman with a sharp nose.
Pages:
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27