Part 32 (1/2)

Tom nodded reverently. ”Unions is good. Ah am de resurrection an' de life, says de Lawd. De Lawd done sont unions to he'p his cullud chillun.”

”An' Jim's de finansher secretary. He gits de money.”

”Dat's good too. You boys is hustlers, lak yo' ole paw was.”

The Cole life went on as if he had never been away.

Some weeks later, Stella Cole had just straightened up from the half-barrel tubs, to wring a soggy batch of towels before ”renchin'”

them in the clearer water, when she looked up with that uncanny premonition of danger which lower animals and lower races possess. The ground s.h.i.+vered; then a hideous noise broke over the sunned and silent trees, deafening her. The vast growl of the dynamite explosion rang shrilly in her ears; she fell on trembling knees, praying.

The crash of falling timbers behind made her look around. The unsteady ground, she said afterwards, ”shook lak you wuz shakin' a counterpane.”

The rickety step supports crumpled, the rotted square of the back porch crashed in on the bench of water-buckets below.

There was a droning noise in the air, the sound of running steps along the road pa.s.sing above the house. Toward the farther mines, beyond her house and the next hill, she saw a palpable haze, smoke-like and yet not smoke, dulling the sky.

”Mah boys!” she gasped, and started running puffily for the front gate, and the road beyond.

She stood aside to let a screeching machine throb past her. It was Mr.

Pelham; the sight of his tense and collected gaze rea.s.sured her. Mr.

Pelham wouldn't let anything happen to her boys.

She shrank into the outer fringe of the tear-eyed, wailing Hewintown women, trying desperately to get some news. She wandered twice into the thick air at the top of the ramp, but the acrid heaviness drove her back. The men she spoke to cursed, shoving her aside. She slumped to the ground, moaning in inarticulate misery. Lord, they were all dead!

Then she saw Ed running with an empty bucket, his head bandaged, his face grimed and ferocious. ”Ed! Eddie! Whar's Babe, an' Jim, an'

Will----”

He stopped, coughing, gasping. ”Jim's killed, ma. Dey brung out his body. Hit's yonder under dem trees.... Babe's all right; ain't seed Will. Mebbe he's caved in.” He hurried off, face set and purposeful.

”Mah Jim! Mah Jim!” She pulled her trembling body from the ground, and set off on unsteady feet toward the ominous trees.

The body was not there. ”You might look in the Company stores, in Hewintown,” said a sweet voiced girl, her face torn with sympathy.

”Thank 'ee, ma'am.” She stumbled weakly off, her uncovered head dizzy from the excitement and the sun. Her lips repeated over and over, ”Mah Will! Mah Jim!”

The sudden dark of the storeroom clouded her vision. From body to body she went. Here were the negroes. This bloodied face was like--No. She went on.

At length she found what she sought. Weak from exhaustion and shock, she crumpled up beside the limp warmness that had been her second son.

Here Diana found her, a Diana pale and frightened, her right arm bandaged to the shoulder, blood caked in dusky crimson at the height of her breast. ”Mother! Is this.... Jim?”

Stella raised herself drowsily. ”Yeh, dis is Jim.” She looked at the girl fearfully, a vague horror channelling her face. ”Is Will daid too?”

”Will's all right.... You come home with me.”

Stella faced the girl when they were outside. ”Will all right? Babe all right?”

Diana nodded.