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Boys," he continued, earnestly, forgetting for the time being his position, "do you 'member 'bout his comin' into the screen-room last Tuesday an' givin' us each a quarter to go t' the circus with?
When the bell rang for them to return to work, not one was missing, each bench had its accustomed occupant, and the coal that was poured into the cars at the loading-place was never more free from slate and stone than it was that afternoon. But it was hot up in the screen-room. The air was close and stifling, and heavy with the choking dust.
Even the boys in the screen-room were held as closely to their tasks as care and vigilance could hold them. Theirs were no light tasks, either.
The frame-work of the giant building was quiet from its trembling. The iron gates that held back the broken coal were quickly shut and the long chutes were empty. The unexpected stillness was almost startling. The boys looked up in mute astonishment. Through the dust, in the door-way at the end of the room, they saw the breaker boss and the screen-room boss talking with Robert Burnham. Then Mr.
Another boy was sitting on his bench in the screen-room, another boy was watching rainbow coal and fern-marked slate. This thought in Bachelor Billy's mind was a sad one. He pushed the empty car on the carriage, and sat down on a bench by the window to consider the subject of Ralph's absence. Something had gone wrong at the foot of the shaft.
One Monday morning, however, he went back to his accustomed work at the breaker. He had thought that perhaps he might be ridiculed by the screen-room boys as one who had tried to soar above his fellows and had fallen ignominiously back to the earth. He expected to be greeted with jeering words and with cutting remarks, not so much in the way of malice as of fun.
Both wife and daughter had listened eagerly to the tale, and had made him promise to look carefully to the lad and help him to some better occupation than the drudgery of the screen-room. But he had already resolved to do this, and more. The mystery surrounding the child's life should be unravelled.
There came a certain summer day at Burnham Breaker when the labor and confinement fell with double weight upon the slate-pickers in the screen-room. It was circus day. The dead-walls and bill-boards of the city had been gorgeous for weeks and weeks with pictures heralding the wonders of the coming show.
Sharpman had not intended to give quite so much information, but he could not well evade these questions and at the same time appear to be perfectly honest in the matter, so he answered her frankly: "He lives with one William Buckley, better known as 'Bachelor Billy. He works in the screen-room at Burnham Breaker." "Indeed! by what name is he known?" "By your son's name Ralph."
This was at the noon hour, while they were waiting for the signal that should call them back into the dust and din of the screen-room, where they might dream, indeed, of circus joys while bending to their tasks, but that was all. There was much wishing and longing. There was some murmuring.
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