SECTION 24.
The time came for Mary to take her departure, and Hal got up, wincing
with pain, to escort her home. She regarded him gravely, having not
realised before how seriously he was suffering. As they walked along she
asked, "Why do ye do such work, when ye don't have to?"
"But I _do_ have to! I have to earn a living!"
"Ye don't have to earn it that way! A bright young fellow like you--an
American!"
"Well," said Hal, "I thought it would be interesting to see coal
mining."
"Now ye've seen it," said the girl--"now quit!"
"But it won't do me any harm to go on for a while!"
"Won't it? How can ye know? When any day they may carry you out on a
plank!"
Her "company manner" was gone; her voice was full of bitterness, as it
always was when she spoke of North Valley. "I know what I'm tellin' ye,
Joe Smith. Didn't I lose two brothers in it--as fine lads as ye'd find
anywhere in the world! And many another lad I've seen go in laughin',
and come out a corpse--or what is worse, for workin' people, a cripple.
Sometimes I'd like to go and stand at the pit-mouth in the mornin' and
cry to them, 'Go back, go back! Go down the canyon this day! Starve, if
ye have to, beg if ye have to, only find some other work but
coal-minin'!'"
Her voice had risen to a passion of protest; when she went on a new note
came into it--a note of personal terror. "It's worse now--since you
came, Joe! To see ye settin' out on the life of a miner--you, that are
young and strong and different. Oh, go away, Joe, go away while ye can!"
He was astonished at her intensity. "Don't worry about me, Mary," he
said. "Nothing will happen to me. I'll go away after a while."
The path was irregular, and he had been holding her arm as they walked.
He felt her trembling, and went on again, quickly, "It's not I that
should go away, Mary. It's yourself. You hate the place--it's terrible
for you to have to live here. Have you never thought of going away?"
She did not answer at once, and when she did the excitement was gone
from her voice; it was flat and dull with despair. "'Tis no use to think
of me. There's nothin' I can do--there's nothin' any girl can do when
she's poor. I've tried--but 'tis like bein' up against a stone wall. I
can't even save the money to get on a train with! I've tried it--I been
savin' for two years--and how much d'ye think I got, Joe? Seven dollars!
Seven dollars in two years! No--ye can't save money in a place where
there's so many things that wring the heart. Ye may hate them for being
cowards--but ye must help when ye see a man killed, and his family
turned out without a roof to cover them in the winter-time!"
"You're too tender-hearted, Mary."
"No, 'tis not that! Should I go off and leave me own brother and sister,
that need me?"
"But you could earn money and send it to them."
"I earn a little here--I do cleanin' and nursin' for some that need me."
"But outside--couldn't you earn more?"
"I could get a job in a restaurant for seven or eight a week, but I'd
have to spend more, and what I sent home would not go so far, with me
away. Or I could get a job in some other woman's home, and work fourteen
hours a day for it. But, Joe, 'tis not more drudgery I want, 'tis
somethin' fair to look upon--somethin' of my own!" She flung out her
arms suddenly like one being stifled. "Oh, I want somethin' that's fair
and clean!"
Again he felt her trembling. Again the path was rough, and having an
impulse of sympathy, he put his arm about her. In the world of leisure,
one might indulge in such considerateness, and he assumed it would not
he different with a miner's daughter. But then, when she was close to
him, he felt, rather than heard, a sob.
"Mary!" he whispered; and they stopped. Almost without realising it, he
put his other arm about her, and in a moment more he felt her warm
breath on his cheek, and she was trembling and shaking in his embrace.
"Joe! Joe!" she whispered. "_You_ take me away!"
She was a rose in a mining-camp, and Hal was deeply moved. The primrose
path of dalliance stretched fair before him, here in the soft summer
night, with a moon overhead which bore the same message as it bore in
the Italian gardens of the leisure-class. But not many minutes passed
before a cold fear began to steal over Hal. There was a girl at home,
waiting for him; and also there was the resolve which had been growing
in him since his coming to this place--a resolve to find some way of
compensation to the poor, to repay them for the freedom and culture he
had taken; not to prey upon them, upon any individual among them. There
were the Jeff Cottons for that!
"Mary," he pleaded, "we mustn't do this."
"Why not?"
"Because--I'm not free. There is some one else."
He felt her start, but she did not draw away.
"Where?" she asked, in a low voice.
"At home, waiting for me."
"And why didn't ye tell me?"
"I don't know."
Hal realised in a moment that the girl had ground of complaint against
him. According to the simple code of her world, he had gone some
distance with her; he had been seen to walk out with her, he had been
accounted her "fellow." He had led her to talk to him of herself--he had
insisted upon having her confidences. And these people who were poor did
not have subtleties, there was no room in their lives for intellectual
curiosities, for Platonic friendships or philanderings. "Forgive me,
Mary!" he said.
She made no answer; but a sob escaped her, and she drew back from his
arms--slowly. He struggled with an impulse to clasp her again. She was
beautiful, warm with life--and so much in need of happiness!
But he held himself in check, and for a minute or two they stood apart.
Then he asked, humbly, "We can still be friends, Mary, can't we? You
must know--I'm so _sorry_!"
But she could not endure being pitied. "'Tis nothin'," she said. "Only I
thought I was going to get away! That's what ye mean to me."
