THE IRON THROAT
9
"Sure, Mazie.
And they eat on white tablecloths, a new one, every
night."
"How come he ain't livin lik~ we do, how come we ain't livin like
him, Pop?"
\-Vhy indeed. For a moment, Jim was puzzled.
"Cause he's a coal
operator, that's why."
"Oh," another wall of things not understood gone up.
Something
made the difference.
A big word.
Like what happened to Miss' Tikas
when she was cut up. But how could he cut up a mine, his knife would
have to be awful big.
"Pop, you could lick him, couldn't you. Couldn't you lick anybody?"
"Sure." He launched into an elaborate story of three dogs fought,
each big as a horse, and, quite happy at the child's excited face, finished
triumphantly,
"Now, do you think anybody could lick your daddy?"
"Pop, I can make the bacon when I stand up on the box, and I can
wash the baby, honest. Pop, momma sez I'm gonna get a edjiccation, and
my hands be white.
h
that a story, Pop?"
Fillin'
the kids head with fool ideas, he thought wrathfully.
But she
could become a teacher. Smart rascal. Guess she gets it from Anna's kike
blood.
Then aloud.
"Sure you are.
You'll go to college, and read
books, and marry a-" his stomach revolted at the thought of a mme
boss "-a doctor." "And," he finished, "eat on white tablecloths."
She trotted along.
Somehow the question she had meant to have
answered could not be clamped into words. They reached the one street.
Her dad went into the company store to buy her a sucker.
Afterwards,
when he went into the saloon, she slipped out to the culm bank that rose
like an enormous black mountain at the end of the street.
One Side was
on fire, and weird gorgeous colors flamed from it.
The colors swirled
against the night, reds and blues, oranges and yellows.
"Like babies'
tongues reachin out to you. Like what happens to the back of your eyes
when you close 'em after seein the sun, only that hurts.
Like all ,the
world come a colored," she whispered softly to herself.
"Mazie Hol-
brook is a watchin you," she whispered, "purty tongues." And gently,
gently, the hard swollen lump of tears melted into a swell of wonder and
awe.
It was cold and damp.
Mazie shivered a little, but the shiver was
pleasant. The wind came from the north, flinging fine bits of the coal
dust from the culm against her face; they stung.
Somehow it reminded
her of the rough hand of her father when he caressed her, hurting her, but
not knowing it, hurting with a pleasant hurt.
