It wasn’t really light outside. But the weeds had smelled strong and green in the spring dew, mourning doves and meadowlarks had cried for the sun to rise, and a breeze ruffled the fine hair at the nape of my neck. Now there was no movement of air except the unnatural breath of the trap doors opening and closing in the tunnels. The smell was like the inside of our coal stove, but damp and decaying. Ahead of us, lamps bobbed like monstrous lightning bugs. Here and there an arm swung free from the darkness and disappeared again. I felt the mountain hunkered over us, pressing down, and it was hard to breathe.

“Daddy, I cant do this.”

“Other younguns do it. You aint nothing special. You’ll git used to it.”

I knew there were other children in the mine. Boys at my school were always dropping out to go to work. I would lose sight of them for weeks, then they would reappear on a Sunday afternoon, some with chaws of tobacco bulging in their cheeks, looking hard and wise like little old men. I felt ashamed when I thought of them. Daddy was right. I was due no special privileges.

I knew the boy on the first trap door we came to. He was an Italian who went to first grade with me. His job was to pump the trap door all day long, keep the air moving. He had to open the door for the mule trains too, and keep out of the way so he wouldn’t be run down. When the light from my cap reached his door, I saw he had been writing on it with slate. DO NOT SCARE THE BIRDS, he had scrawled, and beneath that a picture of a canary with fancy swirls on its wings. I raised my hand to him. He nodded briefly as he hauled on the door.

We walked almost two miles in. It was low coal so that Daddy and his buddy must always crawl, but I was short for my age and could walk if I bent over. I was called on to fetch and carry the tools, the auger, rod and black powder. Daddy stretched out on his belly and showed me how they would work.

“This is called our place and that there is the face of the coal. We drill in there with our auger and then we tamp in the powder and dirt and the needle. Tamp it in tight as a virgin’s ass. Then we pull out the needle and stick the squib in the hole and light it. Then we git for cover on our hands and knees. You stay put out of the way while that’s going on. You’ll help us load the coal after it blows.”

Daddy’s buddy, Joe Kracj, crawled in and was listening but not understanding a word. He was a foreigner. I couldn’t see his face in the dark because of the carbide lamp on his head, and it occurred to me that I might work with him all day and never recognize him outside the mine.