Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 April 1895 — JERRY’S BABY. [ARTICLE]

JERRY’S BABY.

By P. S. RIDSDALE.

A little group of miners were in the low roofed chamber at the foot of the shaft The orange glare from thelittle oil lamps on their caps made occasional swift reflections upon the black walls, and when the men spoke or smiled there was marvelous flash- , ing of teeth from out their dark faces. Always, too, there could be seen the gleaming of their eyeballs, of a fierce steel color in this somber light. The greasy cables in the shaft were running rapidly, and somewhere in that strange hominy-like hole that extended to the far away day light the elevator was falling, like a missile. A subtly strong odor of powder smoke, oil, gas. wet earth was eternally in the nostrils. Suddenly from behind those curtains of ink-like night, that stretched before the passage that led away from the foot of the shaft, there came a mystic low rumble, the clank and rattle of chains, the whistling and rattling slash of a whip, and a boy’s shout Tber. a tram of two cars, drawn by a tandem of straining mules, appeared from out the darkness. The driver, a tiny begrimed urchin, yelled imperatively, swinging his long lash. The train stopped at the foot of the shaft, and as the urchin unhooked his team and swung them about he yelled to the men: "Ain’t it near quittin’ time?” The elevator suddenly appeared, like an apparition, with its load of miners, whose lights flickered and fluttered in reddish movements. The "inside foreman” as he stepped from the platform, called sharply to the urchin. “It’s quittin’ time fer you if yer don’t hustle out more trips. Get in with them thar mules!” With another shout to his team, the urchin started them on their return journey, and the rumbling of the wheels on the uneven track continued until the little dancing flames on the boy's cap and on the head of the lead mule were but mere yellow points of light. In the chamber at the foot of the shaft, the "inside foreman” spoke to the men. ‘‘Mr. Williams told me the baby’s cornin’ when th’ shifts change.” "Git out? Is she?” “Jerry’s baby.” ‘‘Sure she is,” said the ‘‘inside foreman.”

The men smiled. Jerry’s baby was popular with the minersol the Maff■et’s Patch shaft. She gave them adorable confidences; she was such a ■charming and trusted friend to those •men, rough, grim and dark with ■coal dust, who labored all day in this ■deep hole in the earth, far from sunlight Jerry’s baby, with her lisped sentences and little gestures, treated them all as comrades. When they spoke of her, one might think they were talking of a little silver doll of some religion, And her power was never questioned. Her baby smiles ruled men, and, moreover, she had done that which no man in the Maffet’s Patch had succeeded in doing, she had tamed Jerry. Had you asked, three months before this time, who Jerry Wis, the stable boss, if you were a mah, would have told you in a most vivid and picturesque manner, which, though it might have shocked, would have forever impressed you with Jerry's character. If a woman, the stable boss would have said, after a little time to collect in his mind words to. fit the occasion, “He is the viciousist, contraryist, stubbornist, wickedest, and worse kicking mule in all the Lehigh and Wilkes-Barre coal company’s mines.” In the first place Jerry had a bad record. He came from the South with a lot of others and was sent down the mine to wear his life away in the damp, lamp lit darkness, pulling heavy cars during the day, eating mush and corn, sleeping in a little stall and having rats as large as kittens run over him at night. This was decidedly objectionable to a mule of Jerry’s high spirits, but he apparently realized he could not help himself and forthwith proceeded to make life as disagreeable as possible for those who had anything to do with him. He could work if he wanted and when, as the drivers said, he had “a working streak on,” he could pull a heavier load and doit quicker than any mule in the mine; but he did not always have “working streaks on.” He was not different from ordinary mules, except in one particular —his hind legs, when he was walking, appeared to have no joints. One miner, when Jerry’s life as a mine mule commenced, remarked this fact and said. “That mule’s no good’; his joints is stiff,” and he scratched Jerry's leg with a long wisp of straw. It tickled and the man dodged just ia time to escape Jerry’s hoofs, which splintered the end of a car against which he had been leaning. Thus Jerry earned his reputation as a vicious animal.

He killed one man. The fellow was a brute and Jerry was obstinate at times, consequently the mule was sometimes horribly beaten and kicked. One day the fellow resolved to get rid of the animal forever, and mixed a lot of broken glass with the corn. “There,” he said, as he completed the operation, "That’ll fix you,” and he aimed a terrific kick at Jerry. The heavy nailed boot cut open the flesh. Jerry’s hoofs flew out with lightning speed and struck the man. In the excitement which followed Jerry did not eat the corn, and his next driver discovered the glass and threw it away. Thus it was that Jerry sustained his bad reputation and added to it at various times, to the terror of the driver boys and stable bosses. The baby' was the only child of young John Williams, a clerk in the mine office. She caught a heavy cold during the winter, and.the doctor was called in and prescribed medicine which the baby swallowed with greater or less avidity, according to its sweetness or nastiness. But medicine did the baby no good, and she was growing so weak and thin that Mrs. Williams found tears starting to her eyes as she looked at her, and Mr. Williams went to the office with a very grave face and worked nervously over his books. Then Grandma Williams came to the rescue. ‘‘Take that child down td the mine,” she said, “and let it breathe the air there for half an hour each day for a week, that will cure her.”

"Down the mine?” exclaimed Mrs. Williams, horrified. “Yes, down the mine, and she shall go this very day and I will go with her.” "But ” remonstrated Mr. and Mrs. Williams in unison. "No buts about it,” said Grandma Williams. ‘‘John, put on your coat; Mary Ellen, wrap the baby up warmly and stop crying.” Grandma Williams had her wa* The baby went down the deep s.*e.ft and in the low, black gangway, breathing the gaseous mine air day after day, and grew strong and lusty again. It was on one of these visits j that the baby and Jerry made each other’s acquaintance. On the day they first met Jerry stood near the bottom of the shaft. The baby’s father had put the baby, who was growing heavy, down on the track and was talking to some miners. The baby seeing a light a few yards away (it was on Jerry's head) went toward it and found Jerry. He was half dozing when rudely awakened by something grasping one of his forelegs. A vicious gleam shone from his eyes and his ears were laid back flat along his head as he prepared to repulse the daring person who was taking such liberty' with him. Then he looked down and saw a little, laughing, rosy face gazing ud into his, and a pair of tiny arms grasped tightly round his muscular leg. The next minute, when the miners and baby’s father turned and, with a cry of horror, saw the light of the vicious mule’s lamp shining on the baby’s head, Jerry’s ears were pointed downward and he was whinnying softly. The men sprang forward, one snatched the baby away, another drove the mule back, but the baby began to cry and stretch out her tiny hands toward Jerry, while he, still whinnying, gazed at her with such a look of intelligent curiosity that his driver said, "I don’t believe the brute ’ud hurt her,” and a moment later, the baby, in her father’s arms, was stroking Jerry’s scarred and rough head, while a row of miners stood at the animal’s side, ready to drive him back with blows and kicks if he attempted to bite. But Jerry was as quite and gentle as the baby herself. Ever after that day they were firm friends. Every time the baby came down the mine, a visit she insisted on making every week or two, she would see Jerry and stroke and play with him, and give him sugar and apples to eat, until it was said among the miners that she came down expressly to see Jerry and so, before long, she became known as Jerry’s baby. Jerry’s driver had henceforth an easy task. The mule which was formerly so vicious and stubborn, was now the most gentle and docile in the mine, and he was always pointed out to the visitors as "the mule that was tamed by John Williams’ baby.” The baby had been away for three weeks on a visit. On the day of her return home she said: "Papa, take baby down mine, baby wants to t see

Jerry,” and Mr. Williams obeyed. As the inside foreman told the footman, the vigit was to be made when the shifts changed, consequently when the baby and her father reached the foot of the shaft the day men had finished their work and the mules were in their stables, but the stable boss considered it no trouble to bring Jerry out to where the baby was sitting in the middle of the track upon an armful of straw, brought for her by one of the driver’s boys. After the three week’s separation the greeting between Jerry and the baby was most affectionate; and baby clapped her hands and rubbed her soft white cheek against Jerry’s rough nose, while he whinnyed to express his delight. Jorry had become so gentle that Mr. Williams and the stable boss had complete trust in him, and knew that he would not harm a hair of the baby’s head, so after watching them a minute or two, and hanging a lamp on the timber near the pair, they walked a few yards up a gangway to inspect some brattice work. The baby had a couple of apples, which she gave to Jerry, laughing at his efforts to take each piece with his lips so as not to endanger the tiny hand by his teeth. Suddenly Jerry lifted his head, a dull boom, the sound long drawn out, echoed along the gangway. It was followed almost immediately by a rush of air, which to an experienced miner would have indicated a fall of top coal or rock near by. The baby laughed on, holding a piece of apple toward Jerry, who, with his head high in the air, listened intently. In a moment there was a crashing, rattling, tearing noise in the stables where five mules were confined, then the swift thump of hoofs down the narrow gangway. The mules, frightened by the fall, had broken out of the stables and were dashing toward the bottom of the shaft. To reach

that point they would pass Jerry and the baby. The gangway was narrow. Two mules could hardly pass abreast. The baby was in the middle of the track. The cruel hoofs of the rapidly advancing animals would crush out her life in their wild rush. Jerry seemed to realize it all. He backed away from the baby who, innocent of danger, held out her hands and called him. His head was turned to one side, his ears laid straight back; the rushing animals came nearer; with a backward heave of his whole body Jerry’s hoofs flew out and struck full on the breast of the first mule. The force of the blow was terrific. The animal was hurled back against the other four, who stopped bewildered. At that instant , the three men rushed out of the gangway and the baby was snatched up into her father’s arms. The stable boss understood the situation at a glance, and springing past Jerry with whip and voice drove the five mules back, while the baby’s father kissed her again and again, and Jerry calmly munched some pieces of apple which had fallen from the baby's hands. Occasionally he looked up, and one could then see those two large, melancholy eyes shining there in the darkness, lit with a new contentment, as if even this hopeless prisoner could understand the happiness that comes from a deed nobly done.