Harvey Trueman leaves for Wilkes-Barre on the mission of appealing to
the humanity of the Coal Magnates.

Miners' wives and children stream to the Town Hall, to receive their
bread and rations.

It is at such times as these, where the miners are ruthlessly shut out
of the mines, that the highest value of the Miner's Union is
demonstrated. From the slender treasury, which is enriched only by the
pennies of the miners during their weeks of employment, the money is
drawn to purchase the rations that must be had to keep the miners and
their families from actually starving when they can no longer buy from
the company store.

To supplement the rations distributed by the Union, the Hazleton miners
have a small supply of medicine. This is as important as food. The
medicine chest was given them by Sister Martha, the ministering angel of
the mines.

Martha Densmore was the daughter of Hiram Densmore, who had owned great
tracts of the coal lands. He had been forced out of the industry by
refusing to enter the combine which resulted in the formation of the
Coal Trust. At the time of his death, of all his fortune there remained
but a small part. Mrs. Densmore had not survived her husband a year.
Martha was left an orphan.

She has an income of $6000, and could live a life of idleness did she so
desire. But it was her purpose from girlhood to be always on missions of
charity. She had loved Harvey Trueman. They had been schoolmates, and
would undoubtedly have wed had not the wreck of Densmore's fortune been
accomplished just as Trueman was leaving college. Gorman Purdy had been
quick to perceive the calibre of the young man and had brought him into
the Paradise Company. With father and mother dead, and with her heart's
longing unappeased, Martha determined to join a sisterhood, and devote
her entire time to ministering to the poor and the sick.

The suffering of the miners of Hazleton attracts her sympathy and she
has come to the town from Wilkes-Barre.

It is her presence in the town hall that makes even Sheriff Marlin curb
his blasphemous tongue.

Her calm face, which wears an expression of contentment, if not of
happiness, is a solace to the miserable men and women who come to ask
for medicine. She always has a word of cheer.

The life she has led for eight years has not aged her, and to judge from
her manner she would not be taken for a woman more than thirty. She is,
however, six and thirty; her natal day being in the