Most of the Davidson players had retreated to their dugout, unsure whether or not to leave. Carmello Angelelli, a slender boy with dark brown skin, stood outside, his black cap in his hand and his hair wet and shiny. I wanted to talk to him, to say hell, son, none of this here was personal. Good game. Good luck in the American League.

I raised my hand. He smiled, raised his in reply.

The Baldwin guards went to Talcott’s house that very night and put Pricie and the younguns out in the street. They tossed their furniture from the porch, broke most of it. Pricie took the younguns to live at the farm. Talcott was in the Justice jail. He got one year for disturbing the peace and brandishing a deadly weapon. Ermel’s friends, who now controlled the county judge, got him out after he’d served two months, and Ermel put him to work at the hotel. But by that time, the Davidson baseball team had been ripped apart and tossed to the wind.

Thirteen

CARRIE BISHOP

WHEN ALBION FIRST SET EYES ON THE TALL, NARROW TIPPLE at Felco, he said, “That there is my church.”

I thought it looked more like something built by the Devil. It sagged and screeched and spewed clouds of black dust that settled over our tiny house. The day after I washed windows I could write my name on the pane. If we went barefoot in the house, the soles of our feet turned black and we smudged the white sheets when we got into bed.

We had been married at the Homeplace on a warm spring day when all the earth smelled sweet. Though I knew we would be moving to the coal fields, I had dreamed of a neat little house with boxes of red flowers on the porch. Flora, who stood by me at the wedding, gave me seeds for planting from her prettiest flowerbeds, and cuttings from her rose bushes. But our house was near the coke ovens, and the sulphurous fumes killed anything I planted. Our narrow strip of yard was gritty with cinders.

But Albion was happy. The first time he went in the mine, I fretted the whole day long. I cooked chicken and dumplings special for supper, and bread pudding, but I expected he would be too tired to enjoy his food. I dragged out the number three washtub, filled kettles with water and set them on the stove, paced by the kitchen window anxious for the sight of him. When he came home he was weary, and leaned against the door frame, but his eyes were alive. He talked the whole time I undressed and bathed him.