USA > Pennsylvania > Schuylkill County > Old Schuylkill tales, a history of interesting events, traditions and anecdotes of the early settlers of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania > Part 18
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blue, white and gold colors predominating. The floor inlaid with inch blocks of polished hard wood and on the wall the noted work of art of the Father and the Son appearing to the boy Joseph Smith.
Here they stopped. The poor girl frightened beyond speech. Hannah, too, looked pale and could only sign her to keep silence. The curtain of the Temple was pushed aside and a hand motioned them to enter.
Then under the arched roof supported by the Grecian col- umns with the dim light through the double row of stained glass windows shed upon them and in the shadow of the paintings of Lambourne, the Hill of Cumorah and Adam Ondi-Ahma, the harmonious blending of gorgeous colors, the artistically paneled ceilings, frescoes, borders and clusters of grapes, fruits and flowers, Hilda Brunhilde took the dreadful oath of secrecy and became the sealed wife for " Time and all Eternity," of Elder George Carter, a Priest of the Council and one of the Seventy.
Of what followed she could not afterwards divest it from other dreams. Nature was kind to her; forgetfulness inter- vened. She found Hannah awaiting her in the Temple cor- ridor, who silently clasped her hand and together in the twilight they went to their humble home.
Hilda lost her brightness. She no longer added her rich contralto voice to the Tabernacle chorus. She was listless, great clouds seem to blur her vision, spells of faintness fre- quently came and a hacking cough troubled her. Her work was performed painstakingly but mechanically. The girls be- gan to look at her suspiciously.
Or was it her imagination ? Her frequent absences
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under the plea of sickness, when accompanied by Hannah she went into the country and there met the Elder, whom she had respected and loved as a father, and-yes, she must admit it to herself --
" Whom I now hate and loathe like a rattlesnake. Oh I will pray to the God of my mother, perhaps He will let me die young like her," she said. " It is no wonder the girls sneer; I am one of them no longer."
At last the dreadful news was borne upon her; there was another life awakening in her. She had been dull to recognize what others already knew. The Elder chided her for her gloom- iness and laughed at her fears and Hannah said:
" You will be taken care of in the country miles away when the proper time comes. You must be patient."
A day came when she could no longer endure the thought of her shame. "No wife in the sight of the law. How could she become a mother? "
" I will go to-night to the old home on the desert," she said, " and die there."
She took up her studies that evening with the boys and under one pretext or another remained about the house until they slept.
Filling a leathern bottle with water and placing a little bread and cheese in a 'kerchief, she tied them about her waist and unlatching the door went out quietly.
Her nimble feet soon led her up the Wasatch trail and here she paused to refresh herself from the intolerable thirst that controlled her and refill the bottle from one of the moun- tain streams.
The moon was low but she ought to reach the shack a few
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hours after sun-up. All night long she walked and when the sun arose paused. Nothing was in sight but the white sand of the desert. A wind gentle at first, now became stronger and blew a perfect gale. The small particles of sand were blinding and the sun's rays burnt her delicate skin as the orb rose higher in the Heavens.
These tracks, Merciful Father! they were her own. She had been walking in a circle all night. Eating the morsel of food she had and wetting the handkerchief with a few drops of water from the bottle from which she drank sparingly, she tied the handkerchief about her eyes and sank under a clump of wild cactus and scooping all the sand she was able to over her- self she slept.
The sun was low in the horizon when she awoke. How beautiful it looked as it sank in the West, its brilliant hues enriched with a halo of golden-orange and blood-red flecks in a sea of silver-white shcen and sca blue. But Hilda had no eye for anything but the desert, the sameness of which she felt was fast driving her mad.
All night long she wandered and the next day was but a repetition of the first. Her limbs trembled, her breath came in gasps, her tongue and nostrils were swollen. She had bent her course toward the mountains and, "yes they were nearer," and below that dented ridge was the little hut, the only home she knew.
" I can go no further," she said, " I may as well die here."
She slept and dreamed of the old home. Her parents, that happy childhood; when she was awakened by the cold nose of an animal thrust into licr face and the gentle licking of her hand with a rough tonguc. What frightful monster was this
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with his hot breath and great green and fiery red eyes. A gentle whinny awoke her. "It is, yes! it is the burro." The boys had lent him to the ehareoal burners and after a few weeks at that work he had disappeared. He, too, sought home at the brown grass-thatehed hut of the Mojave.
She elasped her arms about his neek and kissed him, allowing him to liek her hand and toueh her cheek with his eold snout; and mounting, bade him go home.
The hut was reached. Some rain water in the little stone eistern quenched her thirst. She bathed herself and stood a stone jar full within reach and then elambered into the bunk and knew no more. Torrid fever and pain raeked her and in the delirium she heard a faint wail. Wolves, wolves, or a eat- amount, perhaps. There was something alive in the bunk. A baby wolf; the fierce old mother would return. She took the ereature and laid it high on the stone shelf outside the door. The wolf could get it. Fastening the hasp on the door and wetting her handkerchief in the jug and binding her temples, she rolled into the rude bed. All night and the next day she babbled of water, talked to her father and mother and prayed in her baby-girlhood way.
On the third day old Sam Pateh with his paek and team eame. His cheerful ehirrup and "steady boys" changed into a grim oath as he stopped, as was his eustom to eook his eoffee and eat his rations at the shaek.
"A dead baby by all that's holy," he ejaeulated.
The door was soon burst open. "And Hilda too," he said as the fever-strieken girl sat up and gazed at him, but gave no sign of reeognition.
"It's them -- Mormons," he said, bursting into tears.
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"Oh! Father, I am so glad you came," said the girl, cling- ing to his arm.
"Never mind, my dear! Never mind! Old Sam will make them sweat for it. We'll see what the laws of this land are good for."
He bathed her face and hands as tenderly as if she were an infant, cooked some gruel which he fed her, encouraging her to think he was the father she called upon and then watched her - until sleep came. Hastily fastening the door, he wrapped the dead babe in a blanket and did not rest until he had deposited it in the office of the District Attorney at Salt Lake and had told the story, not forgetting, however, to send the nearest woman enroute to Hilda's relicf.
" Take care of her and as soon as she is able she will be tried for infanticide. The post mortem discloses the child was born alive and died of neglect and exposure," said the attorney. " The parentage of the child will appear and the U. S. authori- ties will make a test casc if she confesses to a polygamous marriage and a Mormon as the father."
CHAPTER IV.
The trial came; the court room was crowded. Hilda, pale and wan, sat quietly, apparently oblivious to all about her. Old Sam and the old crone in waiting sat on either side of her.
When the charge was read, her name called, and she was required to enter her plea, she arose and with her slim white hands folded over the bosom of her deep black gown, said:
" I have been very ill. I know nothing."
There was a slight stir and way was made for a delegation
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of the Mormon Hierarchy, among the foremost of whom was Elder Carter. They entered the court and took their places in the front row of seats among the spectators.
Hilda's passiveness was succeeded by a feverish excite- ment. She shook as with a chill and drops of perspiration stood out upon her forehead. Look where she would the Elder's penetrating eyes held her spell-bound. " Remember your oath," they seemed to say and she swayed gently in her seat and swooned in old Sam's outstretched arms.
" Clear the room," ordered the Court, " the air is too close for the prisoner." But the order came too late, the mischief was done.
No amount of cross-questioning could elicit more from the horror-stricken prisoner. "She did not know who the father of her child was. He went away. No! she had never been married."
" What mattered one oath more or less to her after the fearful one she took in the Temple ?" she reasoned, inwardly.
"It is always so, they will not break their oath," said the District Attorney, and old Sam swore publicly and privately and said, " He believed he could pick out the man from among the long-bearded, gray-haired rascals. He had his eye on him."
The Jury, through their foreman, a blue-eyed, flaxen- haired Norwegian, rendered an acquittal of the charge of in- fanticide without leaving their seats.
Several years after Sam Patch visited a farm in the Arizona wheat belt and here were Hilda, a happy wife and mother, the Norse juryman and Hans and Wilhelm, grown to manhood. They urged him to remain and told him there was a seat for him vacant at their fireside. The old man tossed
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the flaxen-haired baby in his arms wiped off a tear or two and said: " He was glad he at last had a home, but he must be off to-morrow; the mule-pack would be too lonely without him."
THE HISTORY OF A NEWSPAPER OFFICE CAT
She was a tiny white kitten, a homeless waif that sought refuge in the "Daily Bugle" press rooms from the merciless teasings of the carrier boys and the cold, wintry weather. Her appeal to the fatherly janitor was not without its effect, and he adopted her at once as one of the fledglings of the department, where she bid fair to excel even the "Printer's Devil" in use- fulness.
"Betty" could lay no especial claim to cleanliness, al- though she was a beauty and no mistake, her white coat was often nearer black than its original color, from frequent con- tact with the coal pits and inky rollers, and her feline whiskers were often smeared with paste from the paste-pot, on which she was supposed to subsist. She had many feline accomplish- ments, one of which was her penchant for springs on the fly, which excelled even those of the famous Zazel from the cata- pult in Barnum's, and which were as far-fetching as those of a politician who desires to remain in office under successive ad- ministrations. It was nothing uncommon for her to jump from desk to table or rail, a distance of eight to ten feet, and her plunges along the walls were regular sky-scrapers.
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Like all of her sex she had a decided predilection for con -; firmed bachelors. Every evening when the hands departed for home, and the press department was quiet, she solemnly marched up from the lower regions into the counting-room, where she was not allowed during the day, and perched upon the desk or on the back of the chair of the bookkeeper, and gravely watched the posting up of the day's array of figures. Her con- tempt for the woman hater of the editorial sanctum only equaled his aversion for cats, and she eyed him askance and with tail and fur erect, and this antipathy extended itself to the ladies' man, too, of the force, who offered her the burning end of a cigarette one day, after she had especially distin- guished herself-for she was a good mouser-in catching a young rat which she brought upstairs as a trophy for the book- keeper.
Mice and paste were not her only articles of diet. When any copy was mislaid, proof or manuscript lost, it was all laid to the office cat, who was supposed to have eaten them, and who was put under training for the munching of all original copies on the "Beautiful Snow," or any effusions from the oldest in- habitant on his recollections of a colder winter than that of 1903-4, or any other rejected manuscript; and local authors were warned not to require a return of copy. But Betty be- came ill after Thanksgiving, when a friendly neighboring meat merchant, who was not in sympathy with the diet the office cat in every well-regulated printing office exists on, surrepti- tiously overfed her with raw pork scraps, which proved too much for her digestion. The whole staff became alarmed at her condition, and even the disgruntled dyspeptic of the force
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tried to effect a cure for her with a package of grape-nuts which she kept in her desk for use when she was similarly af- fected, but the cat "wouldn't eat that stuff," said the janitor, and he didn't blame her; he said "He didn't know how anyone could."
Betty has a great future before her. It is hoped she will not be called to the cat kingdom yet. As a regular member of the newspaper fraternity it is expected that she will develop and eventually show a capability in revising copy and correcting proof, at least so far as puncturing such expressions from cor- respondents is concerned, as: "In regards to;" "My gentleman friend;" "Quite a few," etc., and that she will teach the re- porters to say people died a natural death, instead of "demis- ing," or that she will be able to tell the difference between "classical" music and caterwauling, or the use of any of the thousand and one hyperboles indulged in by overworked writers of newspapers with limited vocabularies of speech and slender repertoires.
When she has accomplished this she will have fulfilled the mission of all good newspaper office cats who have large possibilities in their nine lives mapped out for them to fill, and then Betty may be sure of a flaming obituary, the last that can be done for anyone, much less a cat. Requie "scat!"
TINY TIM AND POLLY
T HE Welsh of the Valley, and in fact of the entire coal reg- ion, had brought with them to Pennsylvania their love of singing, and with this love many of their national customs
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implanted within them and in the hearts of their forefathers. Among these the Eisteddfod, which is still a prominent feature of entertainment wherever an element of Welsh exists. Eis- teddfod (to sit) was the name applied to the assemblies of the Welsh bards and minstrels, anciently formed by edict of the kings; and the early musicians were of hereditary order. The Eisteddfods were suppressed for a time but revived again during the present century. In both Wales and in this country prizes are awarded for proficiency in the Welsh tongue, for original poems and declamations in that language and largely for chorus singing. At these gatherings some of the best choruses in the State, notably the one from Wilkes Barre that won the prize at the Centennial in Philadelphia for oratorio singing in 1876, and those from Scranton, at St. Louis and Chicago, taking similar prizes; in which choruses were included some of old Schuylkill's best singers, these are examples of the high ideals aimed at and the results attained by these Welsh organizations.
Primrose and the valley northwest of M- - -, was then heavily wooded. The huge coal operations that have since sprung up in that vicinity had not altogether yet denuded the locality of its primeval beauty and devastated it of its forests. The streams tributary to the West Branch were still silvery in their rippling beauty and uncontaminated by coal washeries. The huge culm banks stood unmolested in their blackness, a monument, with their large proportion of coal in them, to the lavish wastefulness of the early coal miner of the black diamonds-for the proportion in these dirt banks of good coal was large and is a growing temptation to the avarice and com- mercial enterprise of the present generation, and also the cause
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of the ruination of valuable farming lands and the contam- ination of the region's streams with their washings.
Polly Edwards stood at the window of one of the little black company houses. There was nothing to see, if she was oblivious of the beautiful mountain scenery, but the steam ascending from the power house of the collieries and the huge black breakers that were in sight, but she was apparently looking out into space and from the pucker in her freckled but comely face was thinking and the reflections were ever and anon from grave to gay.
A look about the homely little room showed that every- thing was in apple pie order or as nearly so as she could make it. The step stove had been polished, the floors freshly mopped, the tubs were ready for the huge kettles of hot water, for her father and Tim; the miners wash all over immediately after their return from the shift, they must to dislodge the tiny particles of coal dust or suffer untold torture with their skin and bring on disease.
In the oven was a huge beef heart stuffed and roasting with a dressing of leeks at hand and a pot of vegetables was simmering on the back, while a pot of coffee and a fresh baked pie stood on the neatly spread table, all ready for the toilers.
Polly was just nineteen, blue-eyed and with hair that curled' so tight she could scarcely get out the kinkles. Her nose, it was true, was decidedly a pug and her freckles deep-tinted, but she had a milk-white skin and the most good-natured smile. Her mother had died when Tim was a baby, he was thirteen. now and she had been her father's housekeeper ever since and a mother to Tim.
ยท
Tim was bright and had stood high in the school and ah!
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that was just it. Why had her father permitted him to leave and go to work in the breaker? It was not necessary. His tender white skin would become grimy, his bright blue eyes seared, and his curly brown locks entangled with the thick black coal dust. It was all on account of that foolish gibe of the neighbors' boys. "Where do you work, Tim ?"
"I work East, I work West, I work over at the Billy Best."
And it was at the "Billy Best"' he went that morning for the first time, in spite of her pleadings to the contrary. Her father had said no, at first, but finally said yes, when Dan (he was her sweetheart) had added his "wheedlings" to those of the boy. No good would come of it she felt assured.
It was the miners' Saturday. To-night they would all go to town for the four belonged to the chorus, which met in the Congregational Church in M -- to rehearse for the contest at the Eisteddfod, at Wilkes Barre, on the coming St David's Day and this was the last rehearsal and St David's Day next Tuesday. Dr. Parry himself would be present that night to arrange about the contest and the prizes, and they would all go over to the other region, nearly fifty miles away, but that was nothing for was not that big man, Dr. Wolsieffer, coming all the way from Philadelphia to be one of the adjudicators?
Their society was small but they could make the welkin ring with the "Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's Messiah, and was the "Comrades in Arms" ever better sung than at their last meeting? She was among the contraltos, her father a baritone and Dan among the heavy bass; and how Conductor Roberts stamped, fumed, and perspired until he evolved the present orderly harmony out of almost chaos. Evening after evening
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they had practiced in the basement of the old brick church on S- street, until the neighbors in that vicinity had declared them the most unmitigated nuisance and said "they would be glad when it was over."
Then there was Tim, how beautiful his boy tenor was. He alone of all the other boys could sing the tenor solos and com- pete for the prize for Dr Parry's "Mabz Morwr" (The Sailor Boy) and Ghent's "Yr Haf" (The Summer). Tim could sing them, she knew he could. He would get the five dollar gold piece, and the musings went on.
But what was that; the whistle at the "Billy Best?" It was not yet quite time to change shifts and she watched; Yes, there was the mule, boy astride, starting out from the breaker, a sure signal of some one hurt at the mines. Who was it? Surely not her father or Dan, they were too experienced for any of the ordinary accidents that were always happening the raw helpers and the careless laborers. If it had been an explosion the boy would stop at Granny William's, as she was better at dressing burns than any doctor .. If not he would come on to the patch and give the alarm and then speed on to M- for a doctor, for it was before the days of telephone or the organization of the corps of "First Aid to the Injured."
Curiously at first she watched the flying hoofs of the mule and his reckless rider. Yes! he was coming up to the patch. Their's was the last house in the row and still he was coming. The neighbors were all at their doors and windows and some of the fleeter ones ran toward the boy to anticipate his sad tidings, which he scattered right and left.
Polly's heart was in her mouth, a great rushing sound filled her ears, and try as she might she could not understand
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a word the boy said but he seemed to be waving his hand to her and with dilated eyes and trembling form, she watched him, yes, it was their house and an agonizing shriek broke upon the air and with a loud "Oh ! Dear, Dear God! It's my Tim !" she sank fainting in the outstretched arms of her neighbors, who had hurriedly come upon the scene.
Soon they brought the inanimate form of little Tim to the house, but Polly could not be aroused and went from one swoon into another, until Dr. B- arrived to alleviate her misery with an opiate; and kind friends administered to her sufferings through the night and subsequent bitter days of grief that followed.
The same spirit of fun and frolic that led Tim to go to work at the early age of thirteen against the remonstrances of his foster girl mother, caused his death. The head boy who was working at the top rollers communicated that mysterious signal with his fingers down the steplike line of the huge screens to the next and so on down to the bottom, as was their daily custom, that, "It was ten minutes before whistle" when those on the lower level began a species of tag and Tim ran with them. There was a dull thud, a scream, and all was over with tiny Tim. He had fallen between the rollers and his limp body came out with the coal in the chutes. Let us draw a veil over the sorrows of the grief-stricken little family and the recrimin- ations of the self-condemned and heartsick father.
There was no meeting of the chorus in M- that night. They could not sing at Wilkes Barre now, they said, their chief singers were gone, and there were sad hearts in the little com- munity that mourned with the little family, that like Rachael of old refused to be comforted because their loved one was not.
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Tim was buried in the Congregational Cemetery in M ---. There was no hearse but the little body was borne to town on a bier decked with flowers and streamers of ribbons and the same ribbons, the colors of the St Ivor and St David Societies, with the national rosettes were tied about the right arms of the eight boys who carried the bier. A large concourse of people followed the remains to their last resting place. The Edwards' were well known and many came to the funeral from as far as Lansford, Kingston and Plymouth in the other anthracite coal basin, and delegates were present from the county towns, Mahanoy City, Shenandoah, Tamaqua, etc.
They did not follow in a funcral procession, two and two, as is the American custom, but walked in the broad street and filled it from curb to curb, marching with solemn tread, men, women and children, and singing with a mournful volume of sound, that re-echoed through the village, the familiar funeral hynm:
"Ai marw raid i mi A rhoi fy nghorph i lawr? A raid i'm henaid ofnus ffoi L'r tragwyddoldeb mawr ?" Which translated into the English is: "And am I born to dic? To lay this body down? And must my trembling spirit fly Into a world unknown?"
Years have passed since then. Polly married Dan and her father sits in the chimney corner and croons over another tiny Tim. And as Polly looks at the constantly increasing number of her little brood, she cannot be too thankful that the State
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Legislature has fixed the liinit that boys may only work in and about the breakers at sixteen years of age, and that the eompul- sory educational law must be obeyed and they must attend school until that period.
THE DEAD MAN'S FOOT
CHAPTER I.
A great strike in the anthracite eoal region of Pennsylva- nia was on. Word had gone along the line that the miners and railroaders would unite and all transportation of coal eease. The District Superintendents of the great corporation had re- ceived private information from the officials of the Philadelphia & Reading Company that the huge plane at Gordon, used for hoisting the ears to the head of the mountain, would be aban- doned by the company, in retaliation, and the eoal earried around it, thus dispensing with the labor of hundreds of men permanently.
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