Pit Pony Read Online Free PDF Page B

of the load of coal, feet astride and braced on the shafts, sat the driver, face smudged with coal dust. He gave Willie a big grin, his teeth shining white in his dirty face.
    â€œHello, young ’un. How’s it goin’?” he greeted.
    Willie smiled back. “I just started,” he said.
    â€œWhat’s your name?”
    â€œWillie Maclean.”
    â€œOh, you’re Rory Maclean’s boy.”
    â€œYes,” said Willie.
    â€œI’m sorry, real sorry, about the accident.”
    The driver passed through the trap door and was gone. Willie listened until the sound of the horses’ hooves faded into the distance.
    It was the longest day of his life. Occasionally he heard men approaching on foot, some carrying lumber, poles, and beams which were used as pit props. These braced the ceilings against a rock fall such as the one that had hurt his father and John, and killed his father’s buddy. Once a man came through alone carrying a tool box. He was a pipe fitter, come to check on the pipes along which the water flowed as it was pumped out of the mine.
    But mostly Willie was alone, waiting, waiting, with nothing to do in the lonely dark. Sometimes, he thought he heard soft scratchings and rustlings which reminded him of the cat in Charley’s haymow. Sometimes he whistled softly to himself, tunes his grandmother had taught him, sad Gaelic songs of people drowned at sea, of unfaithful lovers, of people longing for Scotland, the homeland they would never see again. And sometimes he recited lessons to himself. Then he thought of his mother, and of how she had said he could be anything he wanted to be, if only he studied hard. But she didn’t know the day would come when he couldn’t go to school. She didn’t know he wouldn’t have a choice, after all.
    He tried not to think about his father lying in the infirmary. He tried not to think about how long he might have to work in the mine. But he couldn’t help thinking about Gem. He wondered if the little mare was already down in the mine. She would be more frightened than he was. She wouldn’t be able to understand where she was or what was expected of her. He thought how different she was from the big, white horse called Sparky.
    The driver was friendly, and that helped. Each time he passed through he would say a few words. Willie learned his name was Ned Hall.
    Time dragged. It seemed to Willie he must have been at the trap for many hours when he asked Ned, “What time is it?”
    The driver pulled out a watch on a chain. “It’s goin’ on for ten o’clock.”
    Only ten! “Oh, I thought it must be noon ... I’m hungry.”
    Ned grinned. “You can eat whenever you want, Willie. But mind the rats.”
    â€œThe rats?”
    â€œYeah. There’s hundreds of ’em down here. Very tame. When you eat a piece of bread or cheese, hold onto it by one corner. Your hands are black with coal dust, see, and it don’t taste so good. Hold your food by one corner and eat all but that. Give the black pieces to the rats. Giddap, Sparky.”
    Willie had forgotten about the rats. That accounted for some of the scratchings and rustlings he had heard. Sure enough, as soon as he opened his lunch the rats appeared, maybe a dozen of them. Their eyes glinted yellow and red as they waited.
    He didn’t mind them. His father had told him rats in a mine served a useful purpose. They fed on bits of hay and spilled grain. Rats could detect the smell of methane gas or firedamp, long before a miner could. So if the men saw a number of rats scurrying through a tunnel they would grab their tools and leave.
    Every once in a while, Willie could hear a distant bang followed by a rumble. Another shot of dynamite had been fired to loosen the coal. Each time a shot was fired, there was the danger that a pocket of poisonous gas might escape — the same gas that caused many fatal explosions.
    No one