air and make certain
it was all right? Rose had convinced herself that the risk was not so
great, after all, though she could not help sharing a little of her
husband's wonder that the boy could prefer to work underground instead
of in the sweet, fresh sunshine. But she had thought it was because in
the desperation of his complete revolt from Martin's domination
anything else seemed to him preferable. Now, in a lightning flash, she
understood. This reaction from a life whose duties had begun before
sun-up and ended long after sundown, made danger seem as nothing in
comparison with the marvellous chance to earn a comfortable living with
only one hour's work a day.

Her conversation with Bill proved that she had been only too right. The
boy was intoxicated with his own liberty. "I know I ought to have told
you, mother," he confessed. "I wanted to. Honest, I did, but I was
afraid you'd worry, though you needn't. The man who taught me how to
fire has been doing it over twenty years. A lot of it's up to a fellow,
himself. You can pretty near tell if the air is all right by the way
it blows--the less the better it is. And if you're right careful to see
that the tool-boxes the boys leave are all locked--so's no powder can
catch, you know--and always start lighting against the air, so that if
there's gas and it catches the fire'll blow away from you instead of
following you up--and if you examine the fuses to see they're long
enough and the powder is tamped in just right--each miner does that
before he leaves and lots of firers just give 'em a hasty once-over
instead of a real look--and then shake your heels good and fast after
you do fire--"

"Billy!" Rose was white. "I can't bear it--to hear you go on so lightly,
when it's your life, your LIFE, you're playing with. For my sake, son,
give it up."

With an odd sinking of the heart, she observed the expression in his
face which she had seen so often in his father's--the one that said as
plainly as words that nothing could shake his determination. "A fellow's
got a right to some good times in this world," he said very low, "and
I'm getting mine now. I'm not going to grind away and grind away all my
life like father and you've done. If anything did happen I'd have had a
chance to dream and think and read instead of getting to be old without
ever having any fun out of it all. Maybe you won't believe it, but
some days for hours I just lie in the sun like a darky boy, not even
th