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THE BLIND BROTHER.




SUNSHINE LIBRARY.

    =Aunt Hannah and Seth.= By James Otis.
    =Blind Brother (The).= By Homer Greene.
    =Captain's Dog (The).= By Louis Enault.
    =Cat and the Candle (The).= By Mary F. Leonard.
    =Christmas at Deacon Hackett's.= By James Otis.
    =Christmas-Tree Scholar.= By Frances Bent Dillingham.
    =Dear Little Marchioness.= The Story of a Child's Faith and Love.
    =Dick in the Desert.= By James Otis.
    =Divided Skates.= By Evelyn Raymond.
    =Gold Thread (The).= By Norman MacLeod, D.D.
    =Half a Dozen Thinking Caps.= By Mary Leonard.
    =How Tommy Saved the Barn.= By James Otis.
    =Ingleside.= By Barbara Yechton.
    =J. Cole.= By Emma Gellibrand.
    =Jessica's First Prayer.= By Hesba Stretton.
    =Laddie.= By the author of "Miss Toosey's Mission."
    =Little Crusaders.= By Eva Madden.
    =Little Sunshine's Holiday.= By Miss Mulock.
    =Little Peter.= By Lucas Malet.
    =Master Sunshine.= By Mrs. C. F. Fraser.
    =Miss Toosey's Mission.= By the author of "Laddie."
    =Musical Journey of Dorothy and Delia.= By Bradley Gilman.
    =Our Uncle, the Major.= A Story of 1765. By James Otis.
    =Pair of Them (A).= By Evelyn Raymond.
    =Playground Toni.= By Anna Chapin Ray.
    =Play Lady (The).= By Ella Farman Pratt.
    =Prince Prigio.= By Andrew Lang.
    =Short Cruise (A).= By James Otis.
    =Smoky Days.= By Edward W. Thomson.
    =Strawberry Hill.= By Mrs. C. F. Fraser.
    =Sunbeams and Moonbeams.= By Louise R. Baker.
    =Two and One.= By Charlotte M. Vaile.
    =Wreck of the Circus (The).= By James Otis.
    =Young Boss (The).= By Edward W. Thomson.

  THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY,
  NEW YORK.




[Illustration]




                                  THE
                            BLIND BROTHER:

                              A Story of
                      THE PENNSYLVANIA COAL MINES

                                  BY
                             HOMER GREENE

 _The author received for this story the First Prize, Fifteen Hundred
         Dollars, offered by the_ YOUTH'S COMPANION _in 1886,
                      for the Best Serial Story_

                          FOURTEENTH THOUSAND

                               NEW YORK
                      THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY
                              PUBLISHERS




                           Copyright, 1887,
                      By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.




                                  TO

                              MY MOTHER,

               WHOSE TENDER CARE AND UNSELFISH DEVOTION
                       MADE HAPPY THE DAYS OF MY
                             OWN BOYHOOD,

                          This Book for Boys

                     IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED,
                            BY THE AUTHOR.

Honesdale, Penn., April 6, 1887.




CONTENTS.


 CHAPTER                           PAGE
      I. LOST IN THE MINE            11
     II. THE BURNED BREAKER          30
    III. THE UNQUIET CONSCIENCE      50
     IV. THE TRIAL                   69
      V. THE VERDICT                 89
     VI. THE FALL                   109
    VII. THE SHADOW OF DEATH        128
   VIII. OUT OF DARKNESS            148




THE BLIND BROTHER.




CHAPTER I.

LOST IN THE MINE.


The Dryden Mine, in the Susquehanna coal-fields of Pennsylvania, was
worked out and abandoned long ago. To-day its headings and airways and
chambers echo only to the occasional fall of loosened slate, or to the
drip of water from the roof. Its pillars, robbed by retreating workmen,
are crumbling and rusty, and those of its props which are still
standing have become mouldy and rotten. The rats that once scampered
through its galleries deserted it along with human kind, and its very
name, from long disuse, has acquired an unaccustomed sound.

But twenty years ago there was no busier mine than the Dryden from
Carbondale to Nanticoke. Two hundred and thirty men and boys went by
the <DW72> into it every morning, and came out from it every night. They
were simple and unlearned, these men and boys, rugged and rude, rough
and reckless at times, but manly, heroic, and kindhearted.

Up in the Lackawanna region a strike had been in progress for nearly
two weeks. Efforts had been made by the strikers to persuade the miners
down the valley to join them, but at first without success.

Then a committee of one hundred came down to appeal and to intimidate.
In squads of ten or more they visited the mines in the region, and, in
the course of their journeyings, had come to the Dryden <DW72>. They
had induced the miners to go out at all the workings they had thus far
entered, and were no less successful here. It required persuasion,
sometimes threats, sometimes, indeed, even blows, for the miners in
Dryden <DW72> had no cause of complaint against their employers; they
earned good wages, and were content.

But, twenty years ago, miners who kept at work against the wishes of
their fellows while a strike was in progress, were called "black-legs,"
were treated with contempt, waylaid and beaten, and sometimes killed.

So the men in the Dryden Mine yielded; and soon, down the chambers and
along the headings, toward the foot of the <DW72>, came little groups,
with dinner-pails and tools, discussing earnestly, often bitterly, the
situation and the prospect.

The members of a party of fifteen or twenty, that came down the airway
from the tier of chambers on the new north heading, were holding an
especially animated conversation. Fully one-half of the men were
visiting strikers. They were all walking, in single file, along the
route by which the mine-cars went.

For some distance from the new chambers the car-track was laid in the
airway; then it turned down through an entrance into the heading, and
from that point followed the heading to the foot of the <DW72>. Where
the route crossed from the airway to the heading, the space between
the pillars had been carefully boarded across, so that the air current
should not be turned aside; and a door had been placed in the boarding,
to be opened whenever the cars approached, and shut as soon as they had
passed by.

That door was attended by a boy.

To this point the party had now come, and one by one filed through the
opening, while Bennie, the door-boy, stood holding back the door to let
them pass.

"Ho, Jack, tak' the door-boy wi' ye!" shouted some one in the rear.

The great, broad-shouldered, rough-bearded man who led the procession
turned back to where Bennie, apparently lost in astonishment at this
unusual occurrence, still stood, with his hand on the door.

"Come along, lad!" he said; "come along! Ye'll have a gret play-spell
noo."

"I can't leave the door, sir," answered Bennie. "The cars'll be comin'
soon."

"Ye need na min' the cars. Come along wi' ye, I say!"

"But I can't go till Tom comes, anyway, you know."

The man came a step closer. He had the frame of a giant. The others who
passed by were like children beside him. Then one of the men who worked
in the mine, and who knew Bennie, came through the doorway, the last in
the group, and said,--

"Don't hurt the boy; let him alone. His brother'll take him out; he
always does."

All this time Bennie stood quite still, with his hand on the door,
never turning his head.

It was a strange thing for a boy to stand motionless like that, and
look neither to the right nor the left, while an excited group of men
passed by, one of whom had stopped and approached him, as if he meant
him harm. It roused the curiosity of "Jack the Giant," as the miners
called him, and, plucking his lamp from his cap, he flashed the light
of it up into Bennie's face.

The boy did not stir; no muscle of his face moved; even his eyes
remained open and fixed.

"Why, lad! lad! What's the matter wi' ye?" There was tenderness in the
giant's voice as he spoke, and tenderness in his bearded face as Bennie
answered,--

"Don't you know? I'm blind."

"Blind! An' a-workin' i' the mines?"

"Oh, a body don't have to see to 'tend door, you know. All I've to do
is to open it when I hear the cars a-comin', an' to shut it when they
get by."

"Aye, that's true; but ye did na get here alone. Who helpit ye?"

Bennie's face lighted up with pleasure, as he answered,--

"Oh, that's Tom! He helps me. I couldn't get along without him; I
couldn't do _any thing_ without Tom."

The man's interest and compassion had grown, as the conversation
lengthened, and he was charmed by the voice of the child. It had in it
that touch of pathos that often lingers in the voices of the blind. He
would hear more of it.

"Sit ye, lad," he said; "sit ye, an' tell me aboot Tom, an' aboot
yoursel', an' a' ye can remember."

Then they sat down on the rude bench together, with the roughly hewn
pillar of coal at their backs, blind Bennie and Jack Rennie, the giant,
and while one told the story of his blindness, and his blessings, and
his hopes, the other listened with tender earnestness, almost with
tears.

Bennie told first about Tom, his brother, who was fourteen years old,
two years older than himself. Tom was so good to him; and Tom could
see, could see as well as anybody. "Why," he exclaimed, "Tom can see
_every thing_!"

Then he told about his blindness; how he had been blind ever since
he could remember. But there was a doctor, he said, who came up once
from Philadelphia to visit Major Dryden, before the major died; and he
had chanced to see Tom and Bennie up by the mines, and had looked at
Bennie's eyes, and said he thought, if the boy could go to Philadelphia
and have treatment, that sight might be restored.

Tom asked how much it would cost, and the doctor said, "Oh, maybe a
hundred dollars;" and then some one came and called the doctor away,
and they had never seen him since.

But Tom resolved that Bennie should go to Philadelphia, if ever he
could save money enough to send him.

Tom was a driver-boy in Dryden <DW72>, and his meagre earnings went
mostly to buy food and clothing for the little family. But the dollar
or two that he had been accustomed to spend each month for himself he
began now to lay aside for Bennie.

Bennie knew about it, of course, and rejoiced greatly at the prospect
in store for him, but expressed much discontent because he, himself,
could not help to obtain the fund which was to cure him. Then Tom, with
the aid of the kindhearted mine superintendent, found employment for
his brother as a door-boy in Dryden <DW72>, and Bennie was happy. It
wasn't absolutely necessary that a door-boy should see; if he had good
hearing he could get along very well.

So every morning Bennie went down the <DW72> with Tom, and climbed
into an empty mine-car, and Tom's mule drew them, rattling along the
heading, till they reached, almost a mile from the foot of the <DW72>,
the doorway where Bennie staid.

Then Tom went on, with the empty cars, up to the new tier of chambers,
and brought the loaded cars back. Every day he passed through Bennie's
doorway on three round trips in the forenoon, and three round trips in
the afternoon; and every day, when the noon-hour came, he stopped on
the down-trip, and sat with Bennie on the bench by the door, and both
ate from one pail the dinner prepared for them by their mother.

When quitting time came, and Tom went down to the foot of the <DW72>
with his last trip for the day, Bennie climbed to the top of a load,
and rode out, or else, with his hands on the last car of the trip,
walked safely along behind.

"And Tom and me together have a'most twenty dollars saved now!" said
the boy exultingly. "An' we've only got to get eighty dollars more, an'
then I can go an' buy back the sight into my eyes; an' then Tom an' me
we're goin' to work together all our lives. Tom, he's goin' to get a
chamber an' be a miner, an' I'm goin' to be Tom's laborer till I learn
how to mine, an' then we're goin' to take a contract together, an' hire
laborers, an' get rich, an' then--why, then Mommie won't have to work
any more!"

It was like a glimpse of a better world to hear this boy talk. The most
favored child of wealth that ever revelled seeing in the sunlight has
had no hope, no courage, no sublimity of faith, that could compare with
those of this blind son of poverty and toil. He had his high ambition,
and that was to work. He had his sweet hope to be fulfilled, and that
was to see. He had his earthly shrine, and that was where his mother
sat. And he had his hero of heroes, and that was Tom.

There was no quality of human goodness, or bravery, or excellence
of any kind, that he did not ascribe to Tom. He would sooner have
disbelieved all of his four remaining senses than have believed that
Tom would say an unkind word to Mommie or to him, or be guilty of a
mean act towards any one.

Bennie's faith in Tom was fully justified. No nineteenth century boy
could have been more manly, no knight of old could have been more true
and tender, than was Tom to the two beings whom he loved best upon all
the earth.

"But the father, laddie," said Jack, still charmed and curious;
"whaur's the father?"

"Dead," answered Bennie. "He came from the old country first, an' then
he sent for Mommie an' us, an' w'en we got here he was dead."

"Ah, but that was awfu' sad for the mither! Took wi' the fever, was he?"

"No; killed in the mine. Top coal fell an' struck him. That's the way
they found him. We didn't see him, you know. That was two weeks before
me an' Tom an' Mommie got here. I wasn't but four years old then, but
I can remember how Mommie cried. She didn't have much time to cry,
though, 'cause she had to work so hard. Mommie's al'ays had to work so
hard," added Bennie, reflectively.

The man began to move, nervously, on the bench. It was apparent that
some strong emotion was taking hold of him. He lifted the lamp from his
cap again and held it up close to Bennie's face.

"Killed, said ye--i' the mine--top coal fell?"

"Yes, an' struck him on the head; they said he didn't ever know what
killed him."

The brawny hand trembled so that the flame from the spout of the little
lamp went up in tiny waves.

"Whaur--whaur happenit it--i' what place--i' what mine?"

"Up in Carbondale. No. 6 shaft, I think it was; yes, No. 6."

Bennie spoke somewhat hesitatingly. His quick ear had caught the change
in the man's voice, and he did not know what it could mean.

"His name, lad! gi' me the father's name!"

The giant's huge hand dropped upon Bennie's little one, and held it in
a painful grasp. The boy started to his feet in fear.

"You won't hurt me, sir! Please don't hurt me; I can't see!"

"Not for the warld, lad; not for the whole warld. But I must ha' the
father's name; tell me the father's name, quick!"

"Thomas Taylor, sir," said Bennie, as he sank back, trembling, on the
bench.

The lamp dropped from Jack Rennie's hand, and lay smoking at his feet.
His huge frame seemed to have shrunk by at least a quarter of its size;
and for many minutes he sat, silent and motionless, seeing as little of
the objects around him as did the blind boy at his side.

At last he roused himself, picked up his lamp, and rose to his feet.

"Well, lad, Bennie, I mus' be a-goin'; good-by till ye. Will the
brither come for ye?"

"Oh, yes!" answered Bennie, "Tom al'ays stops for me; he aint come up
from the foot yet, but he'll come."

Rennie turned away, then turned back again.

"Whaur's the lamp?" he asked; "have ye no licht?"

"No; I don't ever have any. It wouldn't be any good to me, you know."

Once more the man started down the heading, but, after he had gone a
short distance, a thought seemed to strike him, and he came back to
where Bennie was still sitting.

"Lad, I thocht to tell ye; ye s'all go to the city wi' your eyes. I ha'
money to sen' ye, an' ye s'all go. I--I--knew--