Marching Men eBook

In the house on the hillside the boy and his mother lived together happily.  In the early morning they went down the hill and across the tracks to the offices of the mine.  From the offices the boy went up the hill on the farther side of the valley and sat upon the schoolhouse steps or wandered in the streets waiting for the day in school to begin.  In the evening mother and son sat upon the steps at the front of their home and watched the glare of the coke ovens on the sky and the lights of the swiftly-running passenger trains, roaring whistling and disappearing into the night.

Nance McGregor talked to her son of the big world outside the valley and told him of the cities, the seas and the strange lands and peoples beyond the seas.  “We have dug in the ground like rats,” she said, “I and my people and your father and his people.  With you it will be different.  You will get out of here to other places and other work.”  She grew indignant thinking of the life in the town.  “We are stuck down here amid dirt, living in it, breathing it,” she complained.  “Sixty men died in that hole in the ground and then the mine started again with new men.  We stay here year after year digging coal to burn in engines that take other people across the seas and into the West.”

When the son was a tall strong boy of fourteen Nance McGregor bought the bakery and to buy it took the money saved by Cracked McGregor.  With it he had planned to buy a farm in the valley beyond the hill.  Dollar by dollar it had been put away by the miner who dreamed of life in his own fields.

In the bakery the boy worked and learned to make bread.  Kneading the dough his arms and hands grew as strong as a bear’s.  He hated the work, he hated Coal Creek and dreamed of life in the city and of the part he should play there.  Among the young men he began to make here and there a friend.  Like his father he attracted attention.  Women looked at him, laughed at his big frame and strong homely features and looked again.  When they spoke to him in the bakery or on the street he spoke back fearlessly and looked them in the eyes.  Young girls in the school walked home down the hill with other boys and at night dreamed of Beaut McGregor.  When some one spoke ill of him they answered defending and praising him.  Like his father he was a marked man in the town of Coal Creek.

CHAPTER II

One Sunday afternoon three boys sat on a log on the side of the hill that looked down into Coal Creek.  From where they sat they could see the workers of the night shift idling in the sun on Main Street.  From the coke ovens a thin line of smoke rose into the sky.  A freight train heavily loaded crept round the hill at the end of the valley.  It was spring and over even that hive of black industry hung a faint promise of beauty.  The boys talked of the life of people in their town and as they talked thought each of himself.