“They wont be informers in this bunch,” Albion said. “I know them ever man jack. They have been convicted by the scriptures.”

I was bored in the coal camp. All I did was cook, wipe away coal dust, and worry about where the money would come from. Albion was not the most efficient miner, and we had a hard time of it even with no children to feed. The mines were in a slump then; demand for coal was down since the war ended. Often Albion would trudge to the drift mouth to find a sign posted NO WORK TODAY. There would be no pay for those days. He would come back home and make the rounds of the houses, visiting the families who were hungry and cold, praying over the sick.

I wanted to nurse those sick. But when I tried, the camp doctor complained to the superintendent and I was ordered to stop. I visited the doctor to see if I could work with him but he already had a nurse. He treated me coldly. He was from Ohio, and by his lights, I was ignorant. But as I left the office, he called after me and said, “There’s a nigger doctor at Annadel who doesn’t have a nurse. Wouldn’t be a pleasant job, would it? But if you’re really interested…”

We worked a garden patch the company made available, but it was only half an acre, and would yield nothing for months anyway. For many weeks we ate nothing but potatoes fried with a bit of onion and bacon grease, and that only once a day. Twice a week I dipped into our precious store of meal and baked cornbread. I took dizzy spells.

I thought of writing to Ben, but I knew that their abundance of food would do us no good, and they had little cash to spare. Besides, it would have hurt Albion to know I begged from my kin.

One night I sat on the porch and watched men work the row of coke ovens built into the mountainside below the tipple. The ovens glowed and steamed in the dark. Tiny black figures leaped and darted before the fiery pits. I knew they were mostly Negroes who worked the coke ovens, who bore the heat and breathed the noxious fumes which caused my nose to curl even at that distance. They shovelled and danced like demons at the gates of Hell.

When Albion came down the alley, banging his empty dinner pail against his leg, I met him at the gate.

“Would you mind ifn I worked for a Negro doctor?” I asked.

“I wouldnt care.”

“They’s some folks would look down on a white woman for it. Would you mind?”

“I wouldnt care.”

“We need the money.”

“Course we do. Hit would be a blessing.”