when it seemed to Derrick that he could
not bear it any longer. More than once, as he sat beside the rattling
chute, mechanically sorting the never-ending stream, with hands cut and
bruised by the sharp slate, great tears rolled down his grimy cheeks.
Over and over again had he been tempted to rush from the breaker, never
to return to it; but each time he had seemed to see the patient face of
his hard-working mother, or to feel the clinging arms of little Helen
about his neck. He would remember how they were depending on his two
dollars a week, and, instead of running away, would turn again to his
work with a new energy, determined that, since he was to be a breaker
boy, he would be the best in the colliery.

In this he had succeeded so well as to win praise, even from Mr. Guffy,
the breaker boss, who usually had nothing but harsh words and blows for
the boys who came under his rule. He had also been noticed by the
superintendent of the colliery, and promised a place in the mine as soon
as a vacancy should occur that he could fill. In the breaker he had been
promoted from one seat to another, until for several weeks past he had
occupied the very last one on the line of his chute. Here he gave the
coal its final inspection before it shot down into the bins, from which
it was loaded into cars waiting to carry it to cities hundreds of miles
away. Above all, Derrick was now receiving the highest wages paid to
breaker boys, and was able to hand his mother three big silver dollars
every Saturday night.

The first time he did this seemed to him the proudest moment of his
life, for, as she kissed him, his mother said that this sum was
sufficient to pay all his expenses, that he was now actually supporting
himself, and was therefore as independent as any man in the colliery.

It was a wonderful help to him, during the last few weeks of his breaker
boy life, to think over these words and to realize that by his own
efforts he had become a self-supporting member of society. It really
seemed as though he increased in stature twice as fast after that little
talk with his mother. At the same time his clothes appeared to shrink
from the responsibility of covering an independent man, instead of the
boy for whom they had originally been intended.

Beside Derrick Sterling, that hot summer afternoon, sat Paul Evert, a
slender, delicate boy with a fine head set above a deformed body. He did
not seem much more than half as large as Derri