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 m............