vein of coal at this point was of more than ordinary thickness, and of
excellent quality, and these were matters of much moment to the miners
who worked there. Then, the wages were always paid according to the
highest rate, promptly and in full.

But there was something more, and more important than all this, to be
considered. Robert Burnham, the chief power in the company, and the
manager of its interests, was a man whose energetic business qualities
and methods did not interfere with his concern for the welfare of his
employees. He was not only just, but liberal and kind. He held not
only the confidence but the good-will, even the affection, of those
who labored under him. There were never any strikes at the Burnham
mines. The men would have considered it high treason in any one to
advocate a strike against the interests of Robert Burnham.

Yet it was no place for idling. There were, no laggards there. Men
had to work, and work hard too, for the wages that bought their daily
bread. 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. They sat all day on their little benches, high up in
the great black building, with their eyes fixed always on the shallow
streams of broken coal passing down the iron-sheathed chutes, and
falling out of sight below them; and it was their duty to pick the
particles of slate and stone from out these moving masses, bending
constantly above them as they worked. It was not the physical exertion
that made their task a hard one; there was not much straining of the
joints or muscles, not even in the constant bending of the body to
that one position.

Neither was it that their tender hands were often cut and bruised by