Burnham Breaker

go that morning, in a body, to the mansion of their dead employer to look for the last time on his

ren of toil was none the less sincere. Had there been any tendency to forget their loss, the sol

d singing at their tasks for hours; the mere fact of his presence had so lightened their labors. The bosses caught this spirit of friendliness, and there was always harmony at Burnham Breaker and in the Burnham mines, among all who labored there in any way whatever. But the screen-room boys had, somehow, come to look upon this man as their especial friend. He sympathized with them. He seemed to understand how hard it was for boys like they were to bend all day above those moving streams of coal. He always had kind words for them, and devised means to lessen, at times, the rigid monotony of their tasks. They regarded hi

essed in their best clothes; not very rich apparel to be sure, patched and worn and faded most of it was, but it was their very best. There was no

what I think, fellows; I think we ought to pa

said another,

e o' black cloth, like a veil, w'at you

ly organized. Many of the boys had attended the miners' me

uckley, he be cha

. The motion was put, and Ralph w

against the tree in order to face the assemblage. "We got j

mie Donnelly

Jimmie D

nelly for sec'etary, hol' up

a chorus

. Williams b

. "Aw!" he said, "we d

er for? we ain't goin

Gushing, "you got to have one, or less your meet

seconding the nomination of Ed. Williams, an

"I move't the chairman pint out a committee

of whom, Joe Foster, had more than an ordinary reputation for learning, as a committee on resolutions

of their employer, and their sympathy for his living loved ones, but they performed it. There was some discussion

'em," said another, "an' if we had i

, and after recalling, as nearly as possible, the language in which they were drawn, it

dispute concerning the spelling of a word, they

it," said Jack Murphy; "I won'

Joe Foster; "a majoriky ain't enough

t," responded Jack; "I don't like

you wanted 'em-oh, I know!

t I don't want to; I'm 'fraid I'd spile the looks

st as good as I can, an' then you can put your solemn cross on

e line horizontally through the name and another line perpendicularly between the two words of it, and Joe wrote above it: "his solem mark." This completed th

o the screen-room last Tuesday an' givin' us each a quarter to go t' the circus with? Well, I'd cut my han' that day on a piece o' coal, an' it was a-bleedin' bad, an' he see it, an' he asked me what was the matter with it, an' I told 'im, a

s became so vivid in Ralph's mind t

n' sumpthin' jes' like that. D'ye 'member that time w'en I froze my

em to whoever should be found in charge at the house. Then, with Ralph and Joe Foster leading the procession, they started toward the city. Reaching Laburnum Avenue, they marched down that street in twos until they came to the Burnham residence. There was a short consultation there, and then they all passed in through the gate

Ralph with his elb

the res'lutions; now's th

s, the beauty of the stained-glass windows, the graceful hangings, the broad doors, the pictures, and the flowers, there came upon him a sense of strange familiarity with

on his lips, and led him to a chair. She ascribed his weakness t

n't wonder at it; he was mo

d labored on with so much diligence would

he res'lutions. That's the way the breaker boys feel-the wa

om Ralph's hands the awkwardly folded and now sadly

nding, and was lost to sight; while the two boys, sitting in the spacious

the morning-room of her desolated h

r any consultation, gave all necessary orders, spoke of her dead husband's goodness to her with a smile on her face, and looked calmly forth into th

cally; but she had lain with wide-open eyes all night, and still no one had se

eep, or she

nto the room an

ho asked to come thi

gh the parlors and look upon him; and let the

ining resolutions passed by them, wh

. There was something in the fact that these boys had passed resolutions o

g met Did pass thease res'lutions. first the braker B

fe and pat Morys life and the other mens lifes. fourth he was vary Good indede to us Boys, and they ain't one of us but what liked him vary mutch and feel vary bad. fift Wee dont none of us ixpect

STER,

NELLY,

sole

MURFY

which these boys had laid their hearts open before her in this time of general sorrow, that brought the tears into her eyes at las

tle she lif

"I will thank them in person. T

ed into the broad hall, and stood waiti

ame over him again that strange sensation as of beholding some familiar sight. It seemed to him that sometime, somewhere, he had not only seen her and known her, but that she had been very close to him. He felt an almost uncontrollable impu

ead. I know that his feeling toward you was very kind, that he tried to lighten your labors as he could, that he hoped for you that you would all grow int

be twice your friend. I want to take each one of you by the hand as you pass by,

ch boy's hand for a moment and spoke to him some kind word, and

but there was something in his pallid, grief-marked face, in the brown eyes filled with tears, in the sensitive trembling of the delicate lips, as she looked down on him, that brought swift tenderness

a station where better things than he had ever done before would be expected of him now; he felt, indeed, as though it were the first long reach ahead to attain to such a manhood as was Robert Burnham's. The repetition of this name in his mind brought him to himself, and he turned into the parlor just as the last one of the other boys was passing out. He hu

is was his face, this his body; but he, himself, was not here. Dead! The word struck harshly on his mind and roused him from his reverie. He looked up; the boys had all gone, only the kind-faced woman stood there with a puzzled expression in her eyes. She had

in a dead

t watch it m

, hardly s

o some one o

dead man and of the living boy

s of something in the long ago, and went out into the street, into the sunlight, into the busy world around him; but from that time forth a sh