You want to
put your foot down, Rose, and put it down hard--for once in your
life --if you can," she added, half under her breath.
"It isn't altogether Martin's fault," began Rose, but Nellie cut
her off with a short: "Now, don't you tell me a word about that
precious brother of mine! It's as plain to me as the nose on your
face that between his bull-headed hardness and your wishy-washy
softness you're fixing to ruin one of the best boys God ever put
on this earth."
"I'll talk to Billy," Rose promised.
It was the first time she ever had found herself definitely in
opposition to her boy, but she felt serene in the confidence of
her own power to dissuade him from anything so perilous. She
understood the general routine of mining, and had been daily
picturing him going down in the cage to the bottom, travelling
through a long entry until he was under his home farm and located
in one of the low, three-foot rooms where a Kansas miner must
stoop all day. Oh, how it had hurt--that thought of those fine
young shoulders bending, bending! She had visualized him filling
his car, and mentally had followed his coal as it was carried up
to the surface to be dumped into the hopper, weighed and dropped
down the chute into the flat cars. Of course, there was always
the danger of a loosened rock falling on him, but wasn't there
always the possibility of accidents on a farm, too? Didn't the
company's man always go down, first, into the mine to test the
air and make certain it was all right? Rose had convinced herself
that the risk was not so great, after all, though she could not
help sharing a little of her husband's wonder that the boy could
prefer to work underground instead of in the sweet, fresh
sunshine.
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