She moved on, grumbling in the crisp air, and we heard a tramp of footsteps on the road. The miners were going home. They came on by our house, blowing into their freezing hands. They huddled together against the cold, speaking hoarsely amongst themselves. “Them two hain’t there, and never was.” “Aye, gonnies, gitting a feller up with a lie-tale in the dead o’ Sunday morning. Hit’s a sin.”

Fruit Corbitt passed.

Morning wore away. We no longer waited at the window, no longer hoping, believing that Harl and Tibb were buried beyond finding. The shucky beans got done; the cushaw pies, yellow as janders, were shelved behind the stove.

Mother gave Fletch a pickled plum and his eating of the vinegary fruit set my teeth on edge. Hunger crawled inside of me; though, larger than any hunger, larger than anything, a knot of humiliation grew in my chest. It grew like a branching root. “If only I never tuck that penny piece,” I kept saying to myself, dreading the time when Mother would know of it, being sure Fletch would tell, for he could not keep a secret. “If only I hadn’t borrowed—” And I looked up. We all looked, startled. Darb Sorrels stood in the kitchen door, filling the space with huge shoulders and the greatness of his body. His head stuck inside the room, for the door was not tall enough.

“We’ve come on that pair o’ rascals,” he said, his words and laughter sudden as a thunderclap. “They blew up the tunnel betwixt them and the opening, closing that thin-vein place where I try out my new diggers. They set the charge wrong and trapped themselves proper.”

“Are they hurt?” Mother asked anxiously.

“Not a scratch, and hollering to git out,” Darb said. “Everybody give up and left except Samp and your man. They scrabbled and they dug, and now they’s only a foot o’ rock betwixt. Any minute they’ll dig through. I tell you, that Samp is a man-mole. If I hadn’t been letting men off instead o’ taking on, I’d hired him on the spot.” He glanced at the bean pot, the pies, the pickled plums. His lips slackened with hunger.

“When the digging’s over,” Mother said, “all of you come and eat. They’ll be plenty.”

“We will, now,” Darb said gratefully. “I hain’t et since last night. We would o’ pretty nigh caved in if Coonie Todd hadn’t set a bucket o’ coffee biling for us at the driftmouth.”

“Ask Coonie Todd to come too,” Mother said. “Say she’s welcome.”

Darb turned to go, stooping under the doortop. He paused suddenly, his great head bent, listening. Boots tromped on the back porch; blunt steps passed into the far room. We waited. After a while two heads stuck through the kitchen door. Harl and Tibb stood there with clothes bundled under their arms, their mining gear hung over their shoulders. They looked at the table, then fearfully at Darb, and drew back. Mother opened her mouth, but no words came out. The door slammed, and they were gone.