Chapter 1 Summary

Mazie Holbrook is a six-year-old girl who lives with her family in a coal mining town in Wyoming. Life is very hard there for the families of the miners, and the miners sometimes die in the dangerous mines.

Mazie's father, Jim, works in the mine, like almost every man in the town. One morning, he picks up thirteen-year-old Andy Kvaternick for his first day working in the mine. This is sad, because Andy's father Chris was only recently killed in a mining accident, but Chris did not want his children to have to follow in his footsteps. Instead of getting an "edjication" as his father intended, Andy begins a life of back-breaking, lung-destroying work in the darkness, hoping that the mine will not claim his life too soon. After Andy emerges from his first day of work, he can barely breathe because of...