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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
